The Reason Why

All right, so! This is my second fanfiction thus far. I was watching Kuroshitsuji one day and thinking to myself, "wow, the Undertaker is a total nutcase. But there's something... strange... about him. I wonder how he got that way?" And so, that is how this story came into existence. A brief warning: It is UndertakerxOC. If you don't like OCs... I'm very sorry. You'll have to read something else. I like to think that my OC is not a Mary Sue, but that's completely up to you. She will be developed in more detail soon, don't worry.

Also, this fanfiction is going to have a bit of a dual storyline. It follows the Undertaker in the past, of course, but then it focuses on another OC; a shinigami with no memories who exists during the time period after the Undertaker changed. No, it's not random, even if it looks that way at first, and yes, the stories are connected. You'll see.

One last thing: Updates will likely be slow. (Probably VERY slow.) I have plenty of things to worry about other than fanfiction, unfortunately. Constructive critisism would be greatly appreciated, and if you spot any typos, PLEASE let me know. I am OCD about things like that.

I don't own Kuroshitsuji or any of its characters, including the Undertaker. ... I just gave him a name. (Don't kill me. I could hardly call him the Undertaker before he became an undertaker, could I?)

Chapter 1: An Odd Encounter

Alone in the darkness, a small boy walked quietly down the alleyway. His bare feet were dirty and callused from walking the rough cobblestone streets, and his soft blond hair was disheveled and unwashed. He was dressed in rags, and clutched a small, cracked clay bowl to his chest. As he walked, the contents of the bowl jingled quietly.

Abruptly, the boy stopped, his weary, dull brown eyes flickering briefly with concern. He could have sworn he'd heard something just now… He glanced over his shoulder, but the alley was dark and looked quite empty. However, his nervous mind pictured something hiding in the shadows. He turned forward and hurried on, troubled and afraid. Maybe he was just imagining things... But no, there it was again. It sounded like another pair of footsteps back in the darkness. He stopped again, and the other footsteps ceased. The young boy swallowed, his heartbeat quickening. After a long, tense moment, he spoke, his voice trembling slightly. "Wh-… Who's there? I don't-"

Suddenly the footsteps started up again, but much faster. The beggar boy barely had time to turn around before something hit him hard, pinning him to the wall of the alley. He gasped in alarm as he found himself staring into the face of a man. The stranger's brown hair was disheveled, and he had a wide but crooked sneer on his face. His brown eyes were wide and undeniably insane. "Ehehehe," he snickered, "where d'you think yer goin', little sir? It's awful late, ain't it?"

The boy's face was ashen, and he clutched his bowl to his chest in shivering arms. "P- Please, sir," he squeaked, "I was just going to find a place to sl-"

"Eh? Wha's that y' got there, kiddo?" The man kept one hand clamped on the boy's shoulder and, with the other, reached for the bowl. The boy's eyes filled with tears, and he clung to it with all his strength.

"Please," he cried as the man pulled and tugged at the bowl. "I need to get food with-!"

SHING. The boy's voice stopped abruptly as his eyes widened in alarm. A searing agony shot through him, and blood cascaded from the gash in his throat. His grip on the bowl went slack, and the stranger backed up a step to let him slide to the ground, holding the bowl in his hands. The insane man laughed wildly, fingering the edge of his blood-stained knife as he peered at the contents of the bowl. "Well, you ain't too good a' this beggin' stuff, are ya, kid? Don' worry, y' won't be needin' food ever again after t'night, will ya?" He giggled as he pocketed the few coins and casually tossed the bowl to the ground. He turned and strolled casually away down the alley.

The victim sat at the base of the wall, clutching his throat, his eyes wide with horror and pain. Blood flowed steadily between his fingers. He let out a quiet gurgling sound as he slowly fell over sideways, trembling, tears streaming down his dirty face.

Tap tap tap. More footsteps. The boy forced himself to look up through the haze of agony. Standing over him was a tall man wearing a long black button-down coat over a dress shirt and tie. He had long, silver hair with a thin braid on one side, and his eyes were hidden by a pair of shining glasses. But what truly frightened the already-terrified boy was the fact that the newcomer held in one hand a gigantic silver scythe, the blade held to the handle by a skull crowned with gleaming thorns.

The newcomer looked down at the bleeding victim in silence. After a long moment, he spoke; his voice was deep and soft. "Good evening to you, young man," he said slowly, calmly.

The beggar boy looked up at him with petrified, confused brown eyes, trembling and clutching his throat. His mouth stretched open in a silent cry, but all that came out was a sickening gurgle and a bubble of blood. The silver-haired figure immediately knelt down in front of him, head tilted slightly to one side. "Shh… You shouldn't try to talk. You'll only make this harder on yourself," he advised quietly. His next words were dry and ironic, but still soft. "In case you hadn't noticed, it appears that your time in this world is drawing to a close. Don't bother trying to fight it; it's too late for that now. I am what is known as a shinigami. I'm here to reap your soul so that you may rest."

The boy still looked terrified, though his eyelids were beginning to droop. He sobbed silently, eyes never leaving the shinigami's face.

One corner of the shinigami's mouth turned upwards ever-so-slightly. He brought his huge scythe forward and lightly placed the tip of it against the boy's chest. He saw those desperate brown eyes dance with panic. "Don't be afraid," he soothed calmly. "This won't hurt much at all compared to that throat wound. I won't skewer you, I promise... Just a small cut, that's all I need…" So saying, he pressed down swiftly, and the tip of his scythe sliced easily through the boy's coarse to bury itself in his flesh. A strangled, gurgling cry managed to squeak its way out of the boy's open mouth, and he writhed slightly in pain. The shinigami pulled the scythe away as the wound began to glow. The child watched in horrified fascination as what something that looked like ribbons of film snaked out of the wound and danced in the air before them. The silver-haired shinigami straightened and walked over to examine one of the coiling reels of film. "These are called cinematic records," he said absently as he watched the film roll on. "They are visual records of everything that has happened in your life up until this point. We shinigami use them to judge your soul… It is how make our final decision as to whether or not you would be so beneficial to the world that we should spare your life."

The reaper refrained from mentioning that with one so young, it was nigh impossible to say whether or not he would have grown to be someone important to the world's future. The records rolled on, flashing scene after scene, image after image, thought after thought. He watched the boy's father abandon him, watched the boy's mother wither and die of an unknown illness. He watched the boy wander listless and lost through the streets of London, scrounging out barely enough money to keep him from starving to death. He watched all this with a face impassive as a mask, eyes hidden behind shining glasses. The boy looked on in despair, but he was not really that frightened anymore. As he watched his past play out in agonizing detail before his eyes, he felt himself give up. Then it was over, and the glowing reels hung still and silent in the air. The reaper said nothing for a moment. Then he slowly turned and looked down at the boy. "…Are you ready to go?" He asked quietly in a rather neutral voice.

The boy's dull, empty eyes met the tall being's opaque glasses. His mouth closed, and his head nodded very slightly. Without another word, the reaper lifted his enormous scythe and slashed horizontally through the records, cleaving them apart as though they were made of tissue paper. The glow flashed brighter for a moment and then began to fade as the film reels dissolved into thin air. As they faded, a leather-bound book slowly appeared in their place, dropping into the waiting hand of the silver-haired shinigami. He tucked it into his jacket in silence as the surreal glow of the cinematic record vanished.

The shinigami watched as the light left the child's eyes. After a moment, he turned away, reaching up with one black-gloved hand to swipe the small splatter of blood from the tip of his scythe. As he turned, he heard something. Someone running on the street just ahead; the steps were light and fleet. Sure enough, a moment later, a figure ran into view and turned the corner into the alley. A second after she did so, she looked ahead and skidded to a stop.

The shinigami examined her in silence. She looked young, though not as young as the boy- thirteen, perhaps?- with pixie-like features and a shock of choppy, inky black hair that fell just past her chin. She wore a puff-sleeved pale green and black plaited dress that flared out around her thighs and ended just above her knees, with pale green knee-high socks and slim black mary janes. Her skin was starkly pale, and she had a splatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She had distinct dark circles under her large olive-green eyes. She stood there, several feet into the alleyway, staring at the scene before her with wide eyes. However, to the shinigami's surprise, she did not run away. As the alarm faded gradually from her eyes, it was replaced by wary scorn. "Oh, come now," she said dryly, her clear voice tinged with a British accent. The silver-haired figure noted that she was very slowly edging backwards towards the intersection. "You really think you're going to get away with that when you're carrying a giant scythe? If you're going to murder someone, you should at least have the brains to do it with a weapon you can hide afterward."

The shinigami just stared at her for a moment, genuinely surprised. Then he tilted his head slightly to one side. "I do believe you're mistaken," he said coolly. "I did not kill this boy."

The girl laughed incredulously. "Oh? You didn't? Then what're you doing standing next to his bloody corpse with a scythe? Playing at being the grim reaper?" She was still backing up- a few more moments and she would undoubtedly turn around and make a break for it down the street.

The silver-haired man's lips pulled into a smirk at this comment. "Actually," he said smoothly, "I am a reaper. How observant of you."

She stopped. For several seconds she just looked at him. Then she frowned. "… Pardon? Did you just say that you're a reaper?"

He sighed and folded his arms, his scythe still in one hand. "That's correct," he said dryly, slightly irritated at having to explain himself twice in one day. "I am a shinigami. Some call us Gods of Death, some call us Reapers… It is our job to judge the souls of humans when they die, collecting them or, very rarely, allowing them to stay in this world a bit longer."

He waited for the girl to call him insane and run off. But instead she blinked at him and looked down at the boy lying in the alley. "… So why didn't you let him stay a bit longer?" She inquired after a pause, voice hard. "It seems to me like you picked him up a bit early, didn't you?"

He eyed her strangely. "No," he replied calmly. "He was scheduled to die tonight. We only spare souls when absolutely necessary. Only the people destined to have a great impact on the world, and that certainly doesn't happen often."

She looked back at him, olive green eyes going thoughtful. She looked back at the boy sadly for a moment. "… I suppose that makes sense," she murmured after a moment. "It still seems like an awful shame, though…" A thought struck her, and she performed a quick curtsy, a sunny smile coming to her face as though she'd forgotten all about the boy's corpse lying on the ground. "My name is Alexandra Burton… But I hate Alexandra, so please just call me Alex. I've never spoken to a shinigami before. It's nice to meet you! What's your name?"

The shinigami blinked behind his glasses. He looked at her in silence, unsettled. Not only had she believed him right off the bat, but now she was introducing herself? 'Nice to meet you?' In all his long years, this had never happened before, not once.

The girl- Alex- cocked her head to one side, eyeing him quizzically. "Well?" She prompted. "You do have a name, don't you?"

He frowned slightly. After a few seconds, he pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose with one finger; the glare on the glass receded, revealing the shinigami's eyes. They were undeniably beautiful; they had double irises, the outer circle yellow and the inner one forest green, framed by silver lashes.

"My name," he said calmly in his deep voice, "is Nathaniel Cross."

Alex grinned, and to Nathaniel's surprise, bounded right over to him and stuck out one hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Nathaniel," she said cheerily.

Silence. The shinigami made no move to shake her hand; he just stood there and stared down at her in astonishment. A few seconds later, she waved her hand slightly. "Uh," she said presently, eyeing him expectantly, "I don't know how familiar you are with human customs, but you're supposed to shake my hand now…"

Nathaniel frowned, still staring at her, this time as though she was clinically insane. "I'm aware of that," he said, unable to keep the hint of bewilderment out of his voice. "Aren't you frightened?"

The strange girl blinked. "Of what? You?" She smiled. "No, not particularly. You seem nice enough." When he looked at her incredulously, she rolled her eyes and added, "You clearly aren't evil. If you were evil, you wouldn't be standing there looking at me like I'm mad as a hatter. You haven't killed me yet, so you can't be that bad." She paused. "Oh, and you don't have the right sort of eyes for an evil person," she added sagely.

There was another brief silence. This girl was making less and less sense every minute. His eyebrows descended. "… You're judging my character based on the appearance of my eyes…?" He said it slowly and without inflection.

"Well," Alex said thoughtfully, "sort of. I can't see any hint of malice or insanity in your eyes, so I'm not terribly worried just now." She once again waved her hand up and down.

After a long moment, the shinigami doubtfully reached out and took it, giving it one slow shake before letting go. "Yes, well… Nice to meet you, as well, I suppose."

Alex grinned widely before pausing to cast a doubtful glance at the boy lying on the street, blood pooling around his body. She shivered slightly and rubbed her arms. "The poor child," she muttered. "At least he should be happier where he's gone." Then she looked back at Nathaniel as though a thought had just occurred to her. "Well, if you didn't kill that boy, then that means that there's a murderer on the loose…" She frowned and glanced back over her shoulder at the intersection. "So I think I'll stick with you for now," she announced. "If that's all right, I mean."

He gave her an odd look. "What makes you think you'll be any safer with me than with a murderer?" He asked dryly.

She made a face at the God of Death. "I know you aren't going to kill me," she said scornfully, then paused. "Well, I don't think so, anyway. I'll have to try not to make you angry, but other than that, I should be fine. And you look pretty intimidating, so I think if the murderer happened to spot both of us, he'd leave us alone. On the other hand, if he were to spot a girl walking around, alone, in the middle of the night, on an empty street…" She trailed off.

Nathaniel frowned slightly. "…I suppose I see your point, but that would be your own fault. Why are you walking around alone in the middle of the night, in any case? Aren't you a bit young to be on your own? You couldn't possibly be over thirteen…"

This provoked a sullen glare from the girl in question. "Actually," she huffed loftily, "I am sixteen years of age." Catching his dubious expression, her scowl deepened. "This is what I get," she grumbled under her breath, "for being short and skinny. No one ever takes me seriously."

"Sixteen is still young," the shinigami pointed out, unruffled. "What are you doing wandering around the streets at night? As you may have noticed, it's not the safest idea."

"Oh, running away," she replied offhandedly. "So, where are you headed now?"

The shinigami raised his eyebrows at her. He was done with his job now, and once he completed his missions he always wandered around in the human world for a time. It was a welcome relief after spending so much time in that dratted shinigami office building. "Nowhere in particular."

She smiled widely, olive green eyes dancing above their dark circles. "Great," she declared brightly. "That's exactly where I'm going! So let's go nowhere together, all right?"

He eyed her in silence for several seconds, slightly unsettled. Then, with a sigh, he began to walk towards the intersection. "Fine. But don't expect me to protect you."

She laughed and trotted after him, catching up and keeping pace by his side. "Oh, you don't have to," she said cheerily. "You just protect yourself. I doubt a murderer could survive that." She paused and watched with wide eyes as the shinigami held his huge scythe out to one side. It began to fade, and soon there was nothing left of it. He walked on as though nothing had happened, and she hurried to catch up. "That was fairly impressive," she commented.

Nathaniel snorted at this as the two turned onto the well-lit but empty main road. "Why are you running away?" he inquired dryly as they walked, glancing down at her from behind his shiny glasses.

Now a frown appeared on Alex's face, and she folded her arms across her chest. "The usual clichéd reason," she said wryly. "My parents are trying to marry me off. Or, rather, they've been trying to marry me off for the past three years. No one has ever been interested; I'm much too odd for anyone to consider, money or no money. And I'm not pretty." She pointed at her dark circles, raising her eyebrows. "See these? They don't go away. Insomnia." She made a face and went on. "So a week or so ago, my parents found some man who would actually be willing to consider me. He even has money." She scowled as though she thought this to be completely unimportant. "The trouble is, he's a complete and total drunkard. But my parents don't care. At this point they would be willing to marry me off to a mutant with three heads, as long as they can get me out of their hair." She sighed, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. The Death God noted that this girl was carefully concealing some powerful emotion; he could see just a dim flicker of it in her eyes. It looked like fear, though she was doing an excellent job of hiding it. "At first I did my best to be as uninteresting to him as possible. Which means, being my weird old self. One day, he told me:" She paused and cleared her throat with a self-important look, and her next words were uttered in a deeper voice, tinged by a mocking undertone; "Alexandra, you have such beautiful long hair. It's like a dark river down your back." She crossed her eyes before returning to her normal voice and expression. "So the next day, I chopped it off. He looked at me funny when he saw me, but it didn't dissuade him, oh no." She sighed heavily. "It went on like that for a while, but the man just can't take a hint. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life with someone who's going to beat me to a pulp every other day. So I'm left with one option, and that's to run away." She abruptly smiled up at Nathaniel and stretched her arms above her head jubilantly. "Ahh, the open road!"

He walked on quietly for a few moments. "So your plan was to become a hobo?" He asked dryly.

She brought her arms down and glared at him, one slim black eyebrow twitching. "Of course not," she snorted. "My plan is to go to some other town or city or something and dress up as a boy and get a job. No one will hire a girl, but that's okay, since my hair's already short. And I'm nearly flat-chested anyway, so it won't take more than some bandages to fix that dilemma. I can get by that way. I just need to buy some boy clothes and I'll be all set."

Nathaniel was silent. They strolled on for a few minutes, in the outskirts of London now. A little further and they would be in the countryside. She glanced up at him thoughtfully. "So, I've bestowed my annoyingly melodramatic story upon you. I'm even stranger than I thought; here I am walking around with a God of Death, and I spend all this time blathering about my boring life?" She shook her head. "So what about you?"

He looked down at her. "What about me?" he echoed coolly.

She tilted her head to one side. "You're the shinigami here. Your life must be a whole lot more interesting than any human's, right? Don't let me hog the limelight; why don't you tell me something about you?"

He frowned slightly as he walked. "Such as…?"

She gave him an exasperated look. "Well, let's see…" She said ironically. "How about… Oh, I know! You said that you're a reaper. As opposed to the reaper. There's more than one of you?"

"There are many shinigami," he replied dismissively. "Almost a hundred in my sector alone. Do you really think that a single reaper could harvest the souls of every human being who dies during the day, alone? We may be shinigami, but we cannot be everywhere at once."

She blinked and tilted her head. "Huh. I guess you're right. What's it like being a shinigami?"

He cast a doubtful glance at her; this was a question he'd never been asked before. He frowned. "Alternately interesting and dull."

Alex widened her eyes in mock astonishment. "How on Earth could being a Death God be dull?" She demanded.

Nathaniel adjusted his glasses as he strolled down the dark, cobblestone road. "We spend much of our time in an office building," he began wryly, "training and filling out paperwork and taking care of other trivial matters. When we do come to the human world to harvest souls, we have to go through each one's life story before we finish. Some are rather entertaining to watch, but most are incredibly boring. But some shinigami do enjoy their jobs. There are those that take pleasure in the actual reaping, others that enjoy witnessing destruction and mayhem, some who simply find it interesting to see so many lives play out before their eyes."

Alex was looking at him intently, her brow creased with thoughtfulness. "What do you like about it?" She asked promptly.

Nathaniel said nothing for a time. "Well," he murmured eventually, "I suppose I most enjoy visiting all of the different areas of this world. It's far more… picturesque than the world I am used to. And there is something to be said for watching the life stories of those who have had more… eventful existences." A faint smile curved the corners of his lips. "Particularly those who have made names for themselves," he added softly. "Watching their lives through their eyes, knowing the truth as no one else could. It is… rather satisfying."

Alex looked at him for a moment, eyebrows arched. "How many famous people have you judged?" She inquired curiously.

He shrugged carelessly as he walked. "I've lost track. Robin Hood and Marie Antoinette, to name a few."

The girl's eyes popped. "Robin Hood and Marie Antoinette?" She repeated, astounded.

Nathaniel nodded absently. "That's right. And many more. As shinigami go, I am one of the more experienced; I've been around for quite some time. I suppose you could call me an expert. Some call me legendary."

Alex paused in the middle of the road, which was now dirt-paved. Nathaniel strolled on for a few more steps before stopping and looking over his shoulder at her. She was staring at him as though he was a lunatic. "Let me get this straight," she said slowly. "You're not only a God of Death, you're legendary, too?"

He tilted his head slightly, still looking back. "Correct," he said smoothly, glasses shining.

She frowned at him. "And you didn't think it important enough to mention beforehand?"

He eyed her quizzically from behind his glasses. "Should I have?"

Alex let out a breath of exasperation, folding her arms crossly. "Well, yes," she said, looking at him thoughtfully. "And here I've been so casual with you all this time. I should probably be bowing and scraping all over the place." Nathaniel opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off with a sudden grin. "Oh, well! Too late now! I've never been one for bowing and scraping, anyway."

He gave her an odd look that said "you make no sense whatsoever, but I won't bother to say so" before turning his head to face forward again. He tilted his head back slightly to gaze up at the ethereal, glowing full moon. They were on a country road now, just outside the city of London, with grassy fields and hills rolling away to either side. The sky was strewn with stars, and a cool breeze whispered softly through the night. The shinigami was silent for what seemed like a long time before he spoke next. "I believe," he said at last, still gazing upwards, his glasses reflecting the starry night sky, "that it is time for me to take my leave."

Alex, standing just behind him and to one side, smiled ruefully. "That's a shame," she observed reflectively. "And we were having such an interesting conversation, too. Ah, well… I met a legendary shinigami tonight, so I should be grateful. Thanks for letting me tag along with you! I really enjoyed your company!"

Nathaniel glanced back at her in surprise. Very few people could say that they "enjoyed" being around him for any length of time. How odd. What an odd girl. He spent a second mulling over just how to respond to this, but she saved him the trouble and went on cheerily. "I hope I'll see you again sometime. If you're ever out reaping souls and happen to spot a boy with black hair, green eyes, and dark circles, say hi just in case it's me, okay?"

He looked at her, yellow-green eyes bemused behind his glasses. "I suppose," he said after a moment. "Well, then, I bid you farewell." He gave a slight bow as his scythe appeared in one hand, and then he turned and began walking away.

Alex waved, smiling. "Goodbye, Nathaniel!" She called. "It was a pleasure meeting you!"

He paused and looked back at her, finding to his surprise that it had been nice meeting the strange insomniac girl, as well. It was a refreshing change, at least. He half-raised one hand in farewell before turning away and suddenly leaping high into the air. Alex watched in amazement as he swung his huge scythe in a smooth arc below him, and the air ripped apart, leaving behind a glowing rift. The God of Death fell through the rift and was gone, and the fissure closed behind him.

Alex stood on the quiet country road, alone with the distant stars and night wind, reflecting that the only evidence that the shinigami had ever even existed were the footprints in the dirt that were being slowly swept clean by the cool, whispering breeze.