Warning; mentions of suicide, blood, gore, character death and depressing themes
Disclaimer; all rights to Yana Toboso, I own nothing.
Chapter one
The reaper looked at the crumpled form on top of the grave. Blond curls limp and green eyes glassy, her black dress hid well the various tones of red from the drying blood, the same blood that coated the ground and sword that lay beside the dead girl.
His death scythe snaked out and cut the soul away from the body and released the cinematic records. Quietly he sat back to view the life of the childish girl in front of him, the life of Elizabeth Midford.
Laughter and joy filled the air as the three children and a dog chased each other around and around the rose garden in an endless game of chase. Adults sat back smiled softly at the two older blonde haired children and the small black haired boy. How good it had been to be young and free, not knowing the pain of the outside world beyond the manor gates.
The blond girl, eleven now, stands with her family in front of three graves. They are dressed for mourning and missing is the black haired boy and his parents. No, not missing, they too are part of the gathering, sitting just a couple of meters under the feet and their presence represented by marble stones. Many are present, many are crying, including the small green-eyed, blond-hair girl as she grieves for her friend and fiancée.
The same girl a month later races of up-stairs that had been burned to ashes on that dreadful night. With hope and terror she flings open the doors with a cry of his name on her lips, should this prove a trick it will end her. But there he stands, her blue eyed boy. With relief and joy she flings herself at the small form standing in the middle of the room, glad to see the boy she thought lost had finally returned to her.
It had taken awhile but eventually she had realised in all the ways he had changed, that the boy that had returned was not the boy that was lost. She had grown to love this version of her loved one as much, if not more, than she had the previous.
Years passed, her love grew. He was strange, she saw the signs, but she also saw that there was nothing she could do. One conversation in particular stood out.
'Lizzy, can I talk to you?'
'What is it Ciel?'
'If I die don't follow me.'
'What!'
'My job is dangerous, there is a high probability that I will die before my time, and before you. Should that happen I want you to live your life as well as you can, to try and be happy for both of us.'
'Ciel you're scaring me.'
'Just promise me Elizabeth; promise me you will try to live.'
There was something in his eye as he said it, something that made her believe there was something else he wanted, no needed, to tell her. But he said nothing and simply waited for her words.
'Yes I promise.' It was a promise she could not keep.
Losing him once had been agony, losing him twice was her death. As a child she had not fully understood her grief, had not fully accepted her pain. Now she was older and it ripped through her like a sword. A miracle had brought him back the first time, just to tear him away again leaving an even larger hole than before.
No, she thought as she stood over his grave stone, it was not a promise I could keep.
The others had left her there with her black cloths and her grief, no one would stop her. She had been raised to always carry a sword, concealed but present, and she took it out now.
How should I do it? She wondered, with her sword she carried years of learning how to kill or fatally wound an attacker. How best could she turn that knowledge against herself?
She could slice her wrists or throat; she could stab herself in the stomach or heart, though the former would take a while. She sat on her husband's grave and listed all the places to wound in order to end a life and which best suited her current purpose.
Finally her decision was made and the cold steel of her blade parted her delicate white skin, staining both red with the blood that was quickly spilling onto the ground. Blood loss made her head light and her eyes heavy as it numbed the pain of her self-made wounds. Slowly she drifted into a sleep as her heart finished the job her hands had started.
I am sorry Ciel, I will see you sooner than you would have liked, and I have broken my promise, but please don't hate me. With these finally thoughts her eyes glassed over and the records came to an end.
The reaper sat back with mixed emotion. He was always conflicted when dealing with suicides. On one hand he would get less over time, on the other he understood the pain that had led to this death. His heart went to this girl who had made the mistake of trying to join her lover, and eliminated all possibility of it.
Soul in hand he left the body lying on the grave for her family to find as he went back to headquarters. Preparations needed to be made to welcome and train the new arrival. Things were always complicated with new reapers, but when you took your own life just to wake up as a godly being that was just the way things went.
