Render me Scytheless

Chapter 2: The Final Exam - Part 2.

Rowan headed back down the stairs, Grell following close behind him. The both of them were completely unrecognizable. Grell was wearing a red dress, his hair color temporarily turned into a dusty brown color. He'd curled his hair and weaved it into a braid, saying that it was a familiar look for him. He even went as far to wear heels (Rowan hadn't yet noticed that this aspect was in fact normal). By the time Grell had finished, he looked one-hundred percent female. Rowan had allowed Grell to instruct him into turning his hair brown as well, and he was now wearing the clothes of a normal english boy.

"All right, what do you think?" Grell asked, giving his signature grin. "I'm a beautiful, young maiden, and this is my lovely son."

"Haha, sounds like you're just fulfilling a fantasy," Ronald snickered as Alicia giggled from across the room, "senpai."

"Oh, how cruel of you to say such a thing," Grell protested, before walking out of the building with Rowan. "Well, now that we're disguised, all that's left is to get back into the crowd of normal people. It won't be too much trouble, as long as you stick close to me." Rowan shyly reached up, and took the other's hand, but almost recoiled again when Grell looked down at him. "That'll do just fine, dear," he said with a wink.

The two maneuvered through the streets once more, and eventually arrived back on a populated street. "Um, Grell-senpai?" Rowan began. "What was that street we were just on?"

"You might want to call it a hiccup in the space dimension," Grell chuckled. "It's a little distortion made by us reapers. Humans can't access that place. It's very useful for getting into disguise or resting between screenings. Again, its very useful, remember where it is."

"I will... thanks, senpai," Rowan said, grinning. How exciting it was to know something that other recruits didn't.

"So, then, how long do you have on your target?"

"Two weeks," Rowan answered.

"Hm, not bad," the redhead said with a nod. "Would you rather find your man first, or would you like to see my target and watch me screen and collect?"

"Well... I want to know where he lives so I'll be able to find him easily," the younger answered. Grell smiled, and gave an approving nod.

"That's good. What's his name?"

"John Rocksworth," Rowan answered. "He's a shoemaker." Grell stifled a chuckle, but didn't go unnoticed. "Senpai?"

"Do you suppose he works at Rocksworth's Shoes?" the older reaper laughed, indicating to a building that said the name in big, capitalized letters.

"I... I guess so," Rowan answered. "Why didn't I see that earlier? All right, I'll remember where that is."

"Fufu~ Let's head out then, hun," the redhead said. "The woman I'm screening isn't far from here. Come."

The two headed on their way, and soon came to a tailor's shop. They walked inside, and Grell brought his 'son' over to a shelf, then made gestures like he was intrested in the clothes, while murmuring, "She's at the counter. At three past ten, her heart will stop. I'll show you how to collect a soul from there."

Rowan nodded stiffly, then glanced over his shoulder at the woman. "Is it really okay to get this close to her?" he mumbled.

"It's fine, dear," Grell said. "Back when I was having my final exam, my partner introduced himself to his target, even identifying the both of us as reapers. Thankfully, this guy was a novelist, and he thought we were actors."

"Really? That's lucky...," Rowan sighed. "And you collected his soul?"

"Ha, well, sort of," Grell laughed. "Will is the one who started and finished it, but I did help out, of course."

"Will? Do you mean William T. Spears?" Rowan asked, incredulous. "Is that who you were partners with?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," Grell hummed. "The darling loves to play hard to get, you know? He and I go wayyy~ back."

Grell and Rowan spent the rest of the day observing the elderly woman without being seen, and it wasn't long before night fell to find the two in her bedroom, waiting for 10:03 so that Grell could reap her soul. But when the clock turned to three minutes past, Grell didn't do anything, and Rowan soon saw why. "One, two, three, four five, six, seven...," Grell began to count the seconds, before suddenly revving his chainsaw and slashing it across her body. Blood didn't gush; instead, a bright, bluish glow came from the wound, and Rowan watched in awe as strips of memory flew out of the now dead body. As one flew past him, he was able to watch her as a little girl, playing with friends. "Tch, such a dreadfully boring record," Grell sighed, easily collecting the record with his death scythe. As the last of the memories flowed into his chainsaw, the clock changed to four past ten. "My, I must've miscounted a couple seconds," Grell sighed. "It's an instinctual response with us reapers, how we manage to collect souls perfectly on time. But as I wait, I get antsy, and I make these little mistakes. Doesn't matter much, though..."

"All right," Rowan answered. "I get it. It doesn't look much different from what they showed us in school."

Grell gave a grin and a wink. "While it may seem that way, there's a reason new recruits work in pairs. There are some souls who fight back, trying to resist death. You can't let them do that. Don't give them the chance to attack."

"Thanks, senpai."

Two weeks later...

"Finally!" Alicia laughed. "We get to take his soul!"

"Yeah... just leave the reaping to me; I watched Grell-senpai do it," Rowan said with a trace of irritation. "I can handle this."

"Oh, no, Rowan, I can't let you do that," Alicia protested, glancing back at her partner. "You can't even wear a tie properly."

"Excuse me?" Rowan said, glaring. "I most certainly can."

"So why does Grell-senpai always help you?" the other challenged, giving a teasing grin. Rowan frowned, and immediately wielded his death scythe.

"Are you mocking me?" he snarled.

"I guess," Alicia answered. "But we can't fight now; we only have ten minutes until we reap mister Rocksworth's soul." The green-haired male watched as Alicia ran off towards the shoemaker's shop, and he clenched his fists.

'Maybe I should just let her try to handle it,' he wondered. 'After all, if she gets hurt, it's not my fault.'

"You know that if she gets injured, your grade will suffer, right?" came Grell's voice from right next to the other's ear.

"Wah- Grell-senpai?" Rowan protested, leaping back away from the red-haired male. "What are you doing here?" He should've gotten used to these frequent and random visits from mister Sutcliff, but every time Grell approached him, the redhead somehow managed to scare the younger.

"I wanted to see how my cute little apprentice handled his first reaping," Grell answered with a wink. "And by the looks of it, said apprentice is slacking off."

"I am not!" Rowan answered, blushing. "We still have ten minutes!" The redhead shook his head with disapproval.

"Come on, now," he sighed, taking the other by the wrist and pulling him over towards the shop.

Suddenly, several gunshots rang out, and the two reapers watched as a man ran out of the shop and disappeared from sight. "Hurry, it's going to take several minutes for you to collect his soul - that's fated - but hurry anyway!" Grell urged, and Rowan ran into the shop. Alicia had already started to collect the soul, so Rowan ran over to help. He took out his training scythe and immediately placed it against one of the memory strands, but he fumbled, and the memory moved past the scythe, hitting him directly in the face. His glasses went flying, and he groaned, trying to shield himself from the memories that came flooding into his body. The man's life flashbacks - the Cinematic Record.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" came Alicia's maniacal laughter. "You look so silly without your glasses."

"Ugh... sh-shut up," Rowan growled, desperately drying to find his spectacles. Grell watched from the door, knowing he ought not to step in unless things became serious. Alicia eventually grabbed her partner's glasses, and placed them back on his face, smiling.

"Didn't Will-senpai tell us to be careful with these?" she chuckled. Rowan watched in suprise as she continued to collect the soul with one hand, not even looking at it. Her hand moved to adjust with each movement the record made, and in that moment, Rowan realized that she was actually a skilled reaper. But shaking off his suprise, the male quickly went back to collecting the soul, and this time, when the memories swooped to attack him, he dodged the record, simultaneously reaching out to stop the string with his scythe. The glowing eventually died down, proving that they had succeeded in their task, just as the town clock's hands rested on eleven fifteen.

"Beautiful work, you two," Grell said, grinning. "I suppose this one was a bit too weak to fight back. I'll meet up with you outside the spectacles department, all right~?"

"Sure, Grell-senpai," Rowan agreed, returning the smile.

Later...

"Congratulations. You are now an official reaper," said Anderson, the spectacles crafter, as he handed a pair of silver-framed glasses to Rowan. The younger happily took them, and slowly put them on. His vision was much sharper through these glasses, and he knew immediately why these were so important to death reapers.

"Aw, look at you, you're expression totally reminds me of Will's when he first put on his glasses!" squealed Grell, crushing the younger in a hug and swinging him around several times. Ignoring the fact that his senpai appeared out of no where again, Rowan sighed, and gently pushed the older back.

"Thanks, Grell-senpai," he murmured.

"BWAHAHAHAHAAA!"

Startled, Rowan jumped, unintentionally clinging to Grell in the process. He glared over at Alicia, who was wearing some sort of weird glasses with frames in the shapes of stars. "What was the laughing for?" he growled.

"Laughing? What laughing?" Alicia asked with a blank face, before running off. "Enjoy your boyfriend!"

"What did you just say?!" Rowan roared after her. Grell grinned down at the younger.

"For a kid, you really aren't that bad," he hummed in consideration. Rowan was about to protest, when a man he recognized as William T. Spears walked past the entrance to the room, and Grell made some sort of fangirling noise. "But that doesn't matter if Will's here, so I'll see you later, dearest!" he called, before chasing after the black-haired male. Rowan found himself smiling, and he shook his head, before heading back to get a death scythe.

His career as a reaper was only beginning.

-End Chapter

I'm incredibly happy as of right now~ Y'know why?

Phoenix of Starlight recently got her 100th author alert! *throws confetti and cookies to the reviewers, followers, and favoriters* XD Lol, is favoriters even a word? I don't think so. But I'm so happy, I could just... just...

Attempt a mass upload, perhaps? I'm trying to dedicate today to my fanfictions! Hold your inbox at the ready! Hehe~!

Review if you want this story to have another post today!