Title: Hand of the Reaper

Genre: Adventure/Philosophical

Synopsis

The cycle of life and death continues as a young girl mercilessly slaughtered finds a rebirth as a spirit and two new mentors to guide her on the path to become a true goddess of death. Fate's threads weaving into a tapestry depicting a story of trials and suffering, of a child maturing both in power and in mind, placed in the body of a goddess and protected by the hand of a being whose power comes from the origin of all existence.


Prologue

The warmth of the sun on her back was gone in but an instant, replaced by the crushing weight of sand as it was pulled from the beach where the child had been building her sandcastle along with her 'big sister', Aster, a panicked scream escaping her lips when everything went dark and the pressure began to bear down upon body to crush her to nothing. A sand coffin created for one purpose and one purpose only, to take her life, let her blood seep into the sand.

'Big brother! Big sister! Please, someone help me! It's so dark, I'm scared, I'm scared... please... I can't breathe, it hurts. I don't want to go back to that cage again, they took away my hands- I- PLEASE! SOMEBODY!'

She was just a child, a child who had suffered enough in a life that had only lasted nine years at that point, yet retained a cheerful and curious disposition that had endeared her to others within the short time that she had been with them after she was rescued from a life as a disabled beggar wandering the streets. She did not deserve another death, but death came to all in the end and so she was crushed without a thought. The very sand that she had been shaping into a new creation now took her life, crimson blood seeping into the sand, the exact moment when she had died being imprinted onto the mind of the angel who had witnessed it all and who could only feel the horror of the moment crash into him. He had felt every single second of her last moments, her emotions and pleading for everything to just stop, for him to help her, leaving him with only the bitter taste of losing someone that he had been unable to protect again as Aster ran towards him, trying to reach Iranius before he was the next one taken down.

'No more pain... but it's dark... the darkness scares me. Where're you? Big brother? Big sister? Flower? C! … Somebody tell me what's going on, what's happening? I'm scared... Please... Zakra? Reed! Why can't anyone hear me?'

Everything fades, the world wavers around her as she finds herself staring at the stars of space even though she has not moved. Fear builds up in her mind and her heart is confused, she does not know what she is or why she is there, it's hard to even remember who she is. It would be so easy to just give in to fear and despair, but this darkness also feels familiar in a way that she cannot place. It reminds her of a person with a warm smile and a kind tone who protects her dreams and shows her the universe beyond, so she decides to wait for that person to reach her. It's all right with her, she can remain there in the darkness a little longer because she knows that it'll come again.

She sees the light, a spirit that takes on the form of a wolf, a guardian sent to bring her somewhere safe. Fate shifts once again. Death is not the end, it's just the beginning of a new cycle and the being that introduces himself as Nox brings her somewhere safe. She shivers silently to herself, thinking, feeling a wave of sadness and pain. Across the planet, across the galaxy, across the universe, across the omniverse, lives blink out like disappearing stars in the night sky and the pain of those left behind echoes in her mind distantly. Shivering to herself, she barely notices as a being wearing a black coat appears to take her somewhere safe. Safer... but can anyone hurt what is already dead? Maybe, maybe if she does not understand that she is dead and that her life is behind her.

"But child, this is just the beginning... the beginning of your new life and the fulfilment of your wish, the opening of a galaxy to you and the creation of a shadow of death to stalk the children of despair, to strike fear into the hearts of the hunter when they become the hunted. Let your heart be filled with light and purity for the trials that await you in these dark times will surely test you. Your story begins anew, from this very moment. In dreams and through darkness, I have chosen to guide and protect you, now it is time for you to meet the one who will teach you the ways of the battlefield even as I will teach you how to triumph in the battle that is life in all its forms."


Well, as you can tell, this is not going to be your typical Bleach story or even a normal fanfiction, it's written from the point of view of a child and it will include a lot of references to other stories due to the universe where she comes from. It's going to be sad and downright depressing at times as her story is revealed, as well as the stories of the characters around her as they tell her how they came to be where they are. But it isn't a story all about sorrow, it's about cycles, how life and death are the same thing in the end and she grows to become a goddess – not just a shinigami, but a goddess like in one of the Greek/Roman myths.

I'm rather new to writing Fanfiction since I have written stories before but since deleted them, one of them being a story for the Alex Rider fandom that I may rewrite and post though it is set in a different dimension from the one where Anthony Horowitz's story takes place.

Lastly, I have to thank a friend of mine for getting me off my lazy butt to post this story even though it's going to take a lot of writing since it spans over a period of about fifty years even if I may get lazy and do a number of timeskips. Search for her story under the name Tayomi Sakuri, it's under Bleach as well. I'd like to thank a number of other people who know who they are, for helping me role-play out the storyline that created this character and that's being made into a story right now, right here. You know who you are, so thanks. ^^ Thanks for reading this, as well, and I hope that you post reviews on the story so that I know where I can improve my writing style, though I'm afraid chapters are going to be slow to be uploaded. Stay tuned.

- C