A/N: IMPORTANT-PLEASE READ

So this story will be multi-chapter. I've uploaded the prologue because I was curious to see some reactions. The next chapters will come soon, but me and my editor are still trying to solidify a plot. I would like this story to be well-rounded so I am still coming up with plot devices, back-stories, etc. I will do my very best to keep Sasuke in character, as well. Sakura may be a bit OOC, but in time I hope I can make her true steadfast nature shine through. I have a couple main events in mind, but I do not want to post the next chapters until i've decided where I would like this story to go. Thanks for your patience, and don't forget about me :D

In this story Sasuke wears a "Shihakusho", which I have a link posted on my profile of what it looks like. It's essential Shinigami wear!

I'd also like to add that this story takes place in an alternate universe "New York city".

Enjoy :D

The Book of Shinigami

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Prologue

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"Sakura-chan! Look out!"

Sakura snapped her head to her left as her feet froze to the pavement beneath her tiny white-flowered sandals. The headlights; bright, blinding, and flying towards her at an unforgivable speed were two blazingly white eyes that bathed her completely in their washed-out spot lights. Her eyes widened, glazed over with horror as the glaring headlights drew nearer and nearer. Her lips parted ever so slightly, perhaps to scream—

—but was swiftly silenced by the crack of a windshield.

What really happens, when we die?

The age old question has perplexed the human race since the beginning of time. Perhaps because it is the one thing we all experience; the single event we all have to face in the end. And, whether you lived your infinitesimal life as a saint or tainted your soul with sin, you died just the same.

Death did not discriminate.

On the contrary, death was the one thing—the one phenomenon—that brought individuals together. And although death brought with it despair, it seemed, as unlikely as it may sound, to also bring with it peace. Hunched shoulders—garbed in black and heavy with anguish—brushed one another, differences aside, as the humans mourned their lost loved one together; as a whole. They assembled around what he knew was a casket—the dead's final physical resting place—but did not bother to attempt to peak through the slits in the dark mass of mortals to confirm it. Their black umbrellas shielded their fragile bodies from the icy rain drops that fell in a torrent around them.

Sasuke stood invisible to the human eye, behind the mass, waiting impatiently for the soul of the deceased to rise and find him as thunder rumbled in the sky—the dead always tried to prolong their fate. Purple lightning branched across the black clouds just above them, illuminating the somber crowd for only a flicker of moment. Although he could feel the rain drops pelting his pale skin and dampening his raven locks, he made no move to cover himself. A shiver shot up his spine, and the sensation itself was almost strange, forcing him to feel somewhat as if he were human again. And although it was a rare, fleeting moment, he could not help the guilt that tightened his chest with the unexpected nostalgia.

He was, by definition, still a physical being. He knew that. But sensations were not the nearly same as they had been when he was once human—they didn't feel the same. They weren't the same. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what cold rain actually felt like against a warm body. But, his body was not warm. There was no contrast between the icy rain and his cold skin.

Because he was not alive.

Another rumble of thunder shook the sky and—as if on queue—a wispy, transparent and horror-struck soul rose above the crowd—imperceptible by the mortal eyes around them—and Sasuke almost sighed in relief. Almost. He did not want to spend another second in the numbing rain; he did not want to be reminded that he, too, was once among the living.

Humans, he thought bitterly, were pathetic. He watched the soul levitate hesitantly above the group who were still mourning him. They were messy, unorganized, primitive creatures; all diseased flesh and bone. But, above all, they were pitiful; every last one of them were cowards in the end. 'Please' their souls would beg on their knees, looking upon his dark winged form with large, teary eyes and runny noses—as if he would truly spare their miserable lives.

He couldn't anyway, but if he could; he wouldn't. Why should he? What made each and every one of them so special that they believed with all their heart that they would be spared?

Everyone dies. Every last living thing. Even him, eventually. Time turned endlessly and it stopped for no one. And when time finally decides that a life has reached its end—its fate—it will be done, and by his very hands. No one being can delay the inevitable; not him, nor their gods they prayed so fervently to.

Well, all except for one—a being he would rather burn himself alive than ever beg in all his lifetime.

"Oh, man!" A voice laughed behind him, causing him to tense slightly in surprise and wrenching him from his strange, distracted thoughts, "I thought that guy was never gonna' let go of his body!" Sasuke turned to throw an icy glare over his broad shoulder at his partner, who seemed completely unfazed by the daggers that Sasuke was shooting at him with hardened, onyx eyes. His partner blinked back with innocent, violet eyes before casting him a toothy grin, one that always eerily reminded him of a shark, "I'm just sayin'—I hate when they do that. I mean, we don't have all day, buddy. We got places to go and souls to take." He chuckled at his own dry humor.

Sasuke turned back to his task with a grimace, ignoring the man behind him with little effort, and found that the soul was now searching around frantically, unsure as to what he was supposed to do—or where to go. When his translucent-like blue eyes met his own, their eyes widened with surprise, flickering nervously to the sheath on Sasuke's hip which held his kusanagi, and then looked beyond him—at Suigetsu no doubt—before retuning their alarming gaze back to him. It was an older man, for which Sasuke was thankful, as he assumed he would have no problem with crossing him over—unlike the younger, untamed souls he'd had to deal with in the past. Older souls were more likely to accept their death in peace, and without a fight. He could not say the same for children and their selfish mothers.

The soul studied him in mistrust, but before it could come to its conclusion, Sasuke held out his hand in a gentle coaxing gesture, as if to offer the promise of safety. Carefully, albeit unsurely, the soul levitated towards him, drifting over the sea of umbrellas below. Sasuke reached a little further out to him—

—when a muffled, high-pitched scream filled his ears.

At once, Sasuke took a hurried, uneven step backwards and slapped his hands flat over his ears to silence the tormenting sound. The soul, as if the silent promise had been broken with a snap, began to hover backwards in fear before it flew off into the distance—he was getting away!

"Sasuke, what the hell?" he heard his partner scream, but could not grasp his thoughts as the high-pitched scream ricocheted around his skull—bouncing around his conscious like an angry pinball. Sasuke hardened the pressure of his hands against his ears, falling onto his knees in the mushy, wet mud below, shaking his head back and forth violently as if he could break loose the scream from his mind. His ears were surely bleeding, and as he tried to pry open his eyes—with great effort—he could see the muddy grass below him blur in and out of focus. Despite this, he was still painfully aware of the consequences that would befall him if the soul managed to escape.

"S-Suigetsu—" Sasuke managed through gritted teeth, "stop—him!"

He barely registered when Suigetsu zoomed past him, unfurling his gigantic ivory wings and taking off into the black sky in hot pursuit without a word. After Suigetsu was long gone, and a few more excruciating minutes—which felt like hours—passed, the scream finally came to a halt. A sharp ring lingered in his ears and Sasuke fell forward onto all fours with a wave of incredible relief, and his slender fingers squelched in the mud. Huffing, he desperately swallowed breath after breath as his 'heart' thrummed against his ribcage. What in the hell was that?

He slowly picked himself up, staggering a bit, and scowled at the mud on his hands before wiping them off angrily against his already sullied black shihakusho. The crowd of mourning humans before him—undisturbed in their ignorance—broke off at the fringes as they began to disperse, their pale faces sunken with grief as they passed by him—and through him, which always came with an uncomfortable tickling sensation. He hated when they did that.

That scream, he realized soberly, was indeed a soul. A very anguished, tormented soul. He could feel it now as it pulsed hysterically in his conscious. It was beaconing towards him—as souls usually do when they were ready to be taken from their hosts—in the far off distance, deep within the confines of the city's skyline. But… it was…

The soul was fighting with tremendous strength against crossing over. A fire lit within him as he knew this was something he simply could not allow. His fists curled up into shaking rage at his sides. How dare someone—a human—he corrected himself dangerously, cause him such physical pain! He had never in this life experienced something as harrowing as that scream. No soul had ever reached into his conscious like it had just moments ago. He felt disturbed.

Within seconds, his giant raven-feathered wings unfurled with a resounding flap behind him before he launched himself off the ground—which crumpled underneath his feet with his take off—and shot headlong into the gloomy sky. His wings carried him far over the treetops of the central park and into the city as he zig-zagged in between the towering human infrastructures that reached miles into the sky. He caught an air draft between the massive buildings, allowing himself to glide sideways steadily and ride the air stream over the bustling streets of downtown Konoha with ease. The rain had ceased—to his satisfaction—but the scowl on his face remained nevertheless.

It was not hard to locate the temperamental fool of a soul.

As he swooped down, he suspended himself around twenty feet above the chaos. There was unnecessary screaming below—though it was not even a fraction of the blood-curdling scream he had heard before—and he looked downward with a frown, where the streets had already been blocked off by what had been a motorized accident by the looks of it. He'd seen those before—many times. They were often gruesome deaths—blood splattered as far as the eye could see.

A flashing ambulance was stationed at the scene below him in the middle of the road and several humans gathered around in dare he say: excitement—how thrilling it must be to watch another die, he mused in disgust as dozens of them swarmed like ants to a sugar cube—all seemingly coming out of nowhere. They obscured his view of the dead. He could just barely make-out the tiny legs that lay motionless under all the frantic hands. A very blonde head blocked his view from the other side of the girls body. He was hunched over her, his hands pressed against her cheeks. Even though his face was not visible, Sasuke knew the man was grieving by the trembling of his body. Scowling, he lowered himself a bit more, utilizing his wings to flap against the air resistance and keep his height level. A silver-haired medic, who had been rudely blocking his front view, moved slightly out of the way, rubbing some sort of metal equipment in his hands together with sparks. As the medic moved out the way for the tiniest of moments, he saw a girl—with long pink hair—lying in a pool of her own blood and her short, green dress was blood-smattered. His left wing twitched. Was this the soul who had tormented him only minutes ago? This girl—no, young woman, had caused him such inconvenience? This slight a thing? He frowned slightly, before finally blinking in boredom, only to stiffen in surprise.

That was when he caught a glimpse of her wretched soul.

As the silver-haired medic leaned over her motionless body, he touched two metal objects to either side of the girls chest—screaming 'clear' or something of the sort—and her body immediately convulsed, sending her soul flip-flopping out of her body—like a fish out of water—with a piercing scream and he winced, before it was sucked back into its physical shell, to his relief. His eyes widened marginally at the peculiar sight. He had seen plenty of souls return to their bodies, but simply because it was not their time—but this… Her soul was literally screaming at him—through his head—and she was fighting her death, tooth and nail. And somehow winning. Aiming a scowl below him, he quickly held his hand out forward, willing the item he pictured in his head to come forth, and, with a 'pop', a small black book appeared in his slender hands. He opened it, leafing through its contents impatiently before stopping on a single ivory page that had the word 'assignment' scrawled at the top in neat, inked pen.

He narrowed his eyes. It was blank—which meant that Suigetsu must have caught and lassoed the runaway spirit from earlier and was successful. Perhaps the girl is to live after all, he wondered bitterly as he stared hard at the blank piece of paper. But, before he could snap the book shut with a grimace, a single name, written in large, artistic calligraphy, slowly materialized across the page, along with a faded profile picture of a very pink haired girl and her green eyes were large—almost innocent in their human nature.

Sakura Haruno.

Tch. He snapped the book shut with a triumphant smirk, and the book disappeared in a tiny puff of smoke. It was time for payback, after all; he would make her crossover very painful. It was only fair—an eye for an eye. Before he began his decent; he stretched his wings outward as they steadied themselves—carrying him elegantly to the ground in a slow downward spiral, like a deployed parachute had attached itself to his back. The cold air ruffled through his charcoal feathers—an amusing feeling—and retracted to his back as he touched the ground one beige Geta sandal at a time. A few stray black feathers that had broken lose fluttered to the ground behind him in his graceful landing.

When he was firmly on his feet, he took a step forward—his view now clearer than ever before. A few of the medics stood and ushered the other humans to stay back; they obliged, but now made a human ring surrounding them and the soon-to-be dead girl. They huddled close to one another as their thrill seemed to heighten with the metal thing—a defibrillator, he remembered now, as bits of his human memory made its way back to him. It was being used to shock the young woman's un-rising chest.

He towered over their hunched forms—glaring down at the pink-haired girl who had just unknowingly signed her own death wish with her blasted screaming. His onyx eyes flickered to the crying blond man hunched over her, whispering incomprehensible sentences over and over to her lifeless face, his tears dripping onto her cheeks and sliding down her pale skin. Sasuke's wings twitched.

The silver medic, now that he could see him up close, wore large circular glasses; the things humans wear when they can't see. He fired up his equipment and Sasuke's eyes narrowed into slits as the silver-headed medic rubbed the two metal handles together again. A futile attempt. This girl was as good as dead. The strange sound of electricity charging up—a pitch climbing in frequency—came from the machine in the medic's hand as he prepared to deliver another shock to the feeble, motionless body below him. It was a miracle, with her weight, that she didn't die from the delivered shocks alone. She was a tiny thing—small, fragile, and weak. Like all humans. She couldn't have weighed more than 115 pounds if he had to approximate. Her body would waste away within hours.

"Please wake up, Sakura-chan—please—please—please—" the blond boy choked in despair over and over again as he continued to caress the girl's pale, blood-smattered cheeks with trembling hands. The silver medic pushed his hands away hastily, making room for another attempt to save her.

"Clear!" the pitiful human bellowed as he firmly placed the electric handles onto the girl's chest once more.

He smirked when her body—Sakura's body—lurched, spasming for several moments before hiccuping with a finality that declared she was most certainly dead. He could hear her heart stopping and starting before it finally gave out. With her body laying still, the silence around him grew heavy, and uncomfortable. Only the scream of police sirens and blaring of car horns echoed in the city's distance. He hated when he could feel their emotions practically tangible in the air around him. The girl—Sakura, he kept reminding himself, though he hadn't known why he bothered to remember her name at all—was dead and the humans—the strangers—that gathered around would forget about her after she was gone. There were no feelings of sadness here; only the need to belong. Only the selfish desire to make the humans feel like they were doing something to help. He scoffed at their mocked-up tears, but was interrupted by a cry of anguish from the blond man as he cried out, grief-stricken. The blond man covered his eyes in quiet shame, tears rushing in torrents down his tanned, strangely whiskered cheeks.

After a very pregnant pause, Sasuke waited for Sakura's soul to stir and rise to meet him—like he waited for every soul to do. Finally, after beginning to doubt she had not actually died, her soul roused from her body and sat up—separated—from her lifeless one.

Finally, he breathed to himself, he could snuff out her annoying spirit and move on. She seemed to notice him then, as he held out his palm to her, as was his usual routine when coaxing souls to come with him into the afterlife, and waited for her to catch on. Her eyes were bright green, even in their transparency, as they looked to his palm, back to him, and then back to his palm with piqued curiosity. Come, he snapped impatiently to her, waggling his fingers in agitation. She reached out to him, slowly—their fingertips brushed and he felt her soul begin to pull toward him like a magnet as he mentally tried to yank her into the afterlife.

Without warning she snatched her hand back as if she were seared by flame. Holding her harm protectively against her body, her eyes flickered with something strange; it made his wings twitch behind him in slight apprehension as he faltered. Was it anger he saw? Desperation? Determination? He did not understand.

Before Sasuke could even blink, her soul was jerked back into her body with such force that her physical body shook with the aftermath.

With an air-starved gasp, she shot upwards into a sitting position, gaping up at him. She stared straight into his eyes as she became rigid; paralyzed with fear. There was no mistake. She blinked—once, twice, thrice, never once tearing her horror-struck viridian eyes from his. The blood drained from his face.

Startled and visually disturbed, he took a staggering step backwards and almost stumbled over his own two feet as he returned her horrified expression with one of his own.

No. It's not… He took another wobbling step backwards. Possible…

He knew then—without a shadow of a doubt—that she could see him.

That was when she screamed.

A/N: SO WHAT DID YOU THINK?! PLEASE REVIEW! Hopefully not bad for a first-timer, eh?! XD