Chapter 2: Child Reapers
Alternate Title: Koshinigami
For the next couple of days, Undertaker was busy figuring out how to make the place suitable for kids. It was not easy, at all. First of all, there were too many coffins, which he would have to move into the basement to make more room. As for the dead bodies, well, he was going to have to move them somewhere else and work on them when the children were asleep or something.
On the other hand, these were Reaper children. When they grew up, they would have to join the Grim Reaper Dispatch and collect the souls of the freshly dead. Undertaker had grown weary of that process long ago, so he retired in order to start doing something he actually enjoyed. He used one of the empty rooms he had at his disposal and used it for their bedrooms. He had to get the beds moved in, but it was pretty easy for him to accomplish, despite being an ancient Reaper.
And along with the responsibility of taking care of the children, he would also have to teach them the ways of the Shinigami. Since they wouldn't be learning at a basic Reaperling school for a while, he would have to teach them all he could until then. It wouldn't be so hard, since he was, after all, an ancient, who knew more about reaping souls than most of the others.
Undertaker sighed. He still had a few more days to get everything ready, but he was unsure how everything would go once he met the children he was supposed to look after. Since Reaper children had already lived once as humans, their personalities were slightly more mature than normal children, but they still were, in fact, children. And children didn't necessarily have an easy time hiding their feelings.
Another thing that weighed on his mind is how he would come off to them. He knew that his personality could come of as a bit strange to other people, but that was just how he was. He couldn't help it. He sighed again as he ate another of his favorite bone shaped biscuits. They always seemed to relax him in stressful situations, not that he had many of those.
Most of the time he was calm and relaxed, but there was occasionally, something that had him worried. Even his coffin naps weren't helping, and they always helped. True, he did have an actual bed, but for some reason, he always preferred coffins. His guests seemed to find them comfortable enough, after all. As he was working on his next guest, he was slowly figuring out that not even his most beloved job was doing anything to get his mind off of it.
The woman was incredibly beautiful, but he wasn't thinking much of it. He had three more guests to attend to that day, so he had to finish this one in order to get done before nightfall, so he could go to sleep. All he felt like doing at the moment was sleeping, even though the naps still weren't helping. He had to sleep sometime, though.
The Reaper Dispatch had always tried its best to keep everything in order and smoothly running, in order for their jobs to continue, resulting in them eventually being forgiven. However, there was the occasional thing that went wrong and they had to take some different measures to fix the problem.
Aside from the occasional screw up, the Grim Reaper Dispatch was the smoothest running business that the Undertaker knew of, and only a handful of humans knew it existed. Granted, most of them died afterwards, but they still knew of it. Undertaker could remember working as an active Reaper like it was yesterday. The process of collecting souls got boring after awhile, so he ended up retiring.
He wasn't sure what he had to do, exactly, to be forgiven, but he figured he might learn it eventually. Maybe. This guest was finally finished, which meant that he could go ahead and move onto the next one. The afternoon was slowly turning into evening, so it was about time for him to move on anyway. Undertaker sighed as he looked outside at the now setting sun. It was probably going to be a long next few days.
The next few days did, in fact, go by slowly, but the day that the children were supposed to arrive seemed to come quicker than expected. Undertaker was ready, though. Well, sort off. However, the children didn't come until later in the afternoon. He was sitting on one of the coffins, eating his bone shaped biscuits, when the same Reaper from the other day walked inside, accompanied by three small children.
He stood to greet the Reaper and examine the three children. One of them had long hair that was both red and spiky, wearing glasses that had chains on them. Another had shorter, slightly dark blonde hair and was wearing black rimmed glasses. The third one had black slicked back hair and was also wearing black rimmed glasses. Undertaker turned back to the Reaper as he held up some papers at eye level and began reading the information off of them.
"Alright, Undertaker, I have to present to you this information on the chosen children. First up, Grell Sutcliff. Date of birth, April 15th, 1845, Date of rebirth, September 4th, 1875, Blood type, B, Medical problems, none. Next up, Ronald Knox. Date of birth, January 26th, 1845, Date of rebirth, May 6th, 1875, Blood type, AB, Medical problems, none. Last but not least is William Spears. Date of birth, October 30th, 1845, Date of rebirth, July 14th, 1875, Blood type, O, Medical problems, none."
He looked back up at the Undertaker. "Everything you need to know is on these papers. All past medical information and C.O.S's are there for you to use."
The Reaper looked down at the children, as they had no idea what C.O.S even meant, and they wouldn't know for quite awhile, until they were ready. He looked back at Undertaker. "I assume everything is ready."
Undertaker nodded. "Yes, it is."
The other Reaper nodded and adjusted his glasses. "Okay. According to your record, you are famous for reaping souls such as Mary Antoinette, and you are famous throughout the Reaper Dispatch, including having your own statue in the main lobby."
Undertaker nodded. "I will not deny it."
"It is because of your capabilities that we have seen you fit for this job."
The Reaper adjusted his glasses and gave Undertaker a stone cold stare. "Remember, you must not let any harm come to them, do you understand?"
Undertaker nodded and countered the glare with a smile. "Of course."
The Reaper nodded and adjusted his glasses. "Very well then, you may contact the Reaper Childcare Services if you are in need of anything. I leave the children to you now."
And with that said, the Reaper left, leaving Undertaker with three children to take care of. He turned back to the children. The one with the red hair smiled, revealing his sharp teeth, a feature that Shinigami didn't typically have, and held his hand out. "Hi, I'm Grell, what's your name?"
Undertaker's smile grew wider and he knelt to where he was eye level with the red haired Reaper. "You can call me Undertaker."
The blonde Reaper spoke up. "And I'm Ronald. Nice to meet you."
The two of them shook hands. "Nice to meet you too."
"And this one over here is William. He's a bit shy, but he's nice once you get to know him." The red Reaper introduced.
William did seem to be a bit shy, shyer than the others, but he held out his hand for Undertaker to shake. "I-I'm William. It's nice to meet you."
As Undertaker shook William's hand, he was starting to think, that maybe, this wouldn't be so bad after all.
