The Adventures of Death
Inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel, Mort. Naruto (of course) belongs to Kishimoto.
Chapter 1Travel via Death Scythe teleportation was a fairly flashy technique. It was the sort of transportation that had required decades of perfection and refinement to master. Its purpose was to awe-inspire his subordinates and make them quake in their boots, to remind them that he was Death, a being whose existence transcended life itself. When Death arrived, the local wildlife instantly became as silent as the grave, and what animals weren't frozen in fear, fled the site filled with terror. The flora around him wilted dramatically and the once luscious grass beneath his feet curled and faded to an unsightly brown as its life was smothered by Death's presence.
So it was a bit of a let down when, upon his truly malevolent show, appearing out of a whirling tear in the fabric of reality, the reaper in front of him gave a carefree wave of her hand,
"Yo Death, how's it hanging?"
The blonde girl, who, by mortal standards looked about fourteen years of age, was lounging on a fallen tree trunk in the abandoned forest clearing and had a cheeky glint in her eyes. She wore the standard reaper uniform; a black billowy cloak not dissimilar from his own, as was regulation for all his field-working minions. Then Death noticed the pair of glaring red converse that she clearly didn't try to hide, as she swung her legs in a carefree manner. Those … were not strictly regulation. But Death never seemed to be able to get this particular reaper to follow the rules. Or respect his authority.
"YOU HAVE LET THEM REINCARNATE … AGAIN."
Death may or may not have let a slight whine into his voice. The reaper – Corentine was her name he remembered now – grinned mischievously and let her hand drop.
"Ah. Well. I just couldn't help it you see." Her pitch dropped at the end and her demeanor became more serious. Death suspected shenanigans.
Whatever this was, he wasn't going to like it. Death very carefully didn't sigh. Or let his shoulders droop like he wanted to. Instead he summoned an aura he usually saved for confronting his white collar subordinates who did irritating things like taking extra break time to gossip, using the photocopying machine inappropriately, and filing his paperwork incorrectly. The effect was instantaneous. The air became thick with dread and dark whirls of thick shadow oozed from beneath his cloak.
The reaper finally seemed to realize that Death was serious. Or at least seriously irritated. And so she leapt to her feet, frantically waving her hands in front of her, as if to calm down her boss and hide her sudden nervousness.
"J-Just wait, I have a reason! A really, really good reason!" Her high-pitched whining resonated in the silent clearing.
Death didn't stop emanating his unpleasant nature, but he didn't dial it down either. Slowly, after a pause, he tilted his head to the side slightly and stared down at his unruly subordinate through his eye sockets.
"EXPLAIN."
It turns out that the two souls of world #27182818285 had caught his reapers attention because they still had unfinished business. Death had always been wary of this world, and its ability to bend reality. He prided himself on being the ultimate life taker, and when souls cheated him of this title by attempting to make deals with him, avoiding him and circumventing his reapers, Death got fed up. The problem was, Death was only able to keep records of souls living and souls that he would need to take, in order to keep balance in the universe because he had a deal with Life. Despite Life's stuck up attitude and benevolent bullshit, the two of them worked well together. Where Life gave, Death took. Life and Death micromanaged the universe together and somehow managed not to screw anything up irreparably. So far.
According to Corentine, there were extra, unaccounted for souls slinking about in world #27182818285. It had started with that soul who took the form of a woman and used her grasp of Chakra to … take over the world? Death vaguely remembered being told about her by one of his assistants at one point.
Probably.
Maybe.
He had probably been watching reruns of his favourite sitcom at the time.
Regardless, the new unexpected presence had been noted by Life, and he had run damage control countering her presence with his and taking a few extra souls that year. He also remembered when Life told him that the woman had had sons. Two sons. But again Death was notified about this, and Corentine had taken care of it. Death had let it slide when Corentine had later let the two souls reincarnate again because she had been new at the whole reaper thing and everybody makes mistakes. Even if it irked him.
Apparently now the issue was that the unexpected soul … woman, hadn't had two sons. No, she had later spawned another. A third. This new third soul hadn't been noticed by Life.
Death didn't like knowing that there were souls that could go unnoticed by Life. It was a little unsettling to know that the plans of a being that held the entire universe together could easily be thwarted by a measly soul.
Corentine had informed him that the issue would take care of itself, because it was prophesized by the prophetic division on the fourth floor, that the two reincarnated souls were destined to destroy the black, third son anyway and save their world from the terror of war. Personally, Death felt that winging the possible existence of the universe on some prophecy made up by the prophetic division on the fourth floor was a terrible idea.
The prophetic division's job was to direct the flow of the lives of and behaviours of souls by releasing their predictions to their respective worlds. They bestowed visions on certain individuals in hoping that they would make reapers' jobs easier via the power of suggestion. Most of it was rubbish. But when the visions were imparted to respected figures in society, and heard by the right people, sometimes they actually worked.
Death always had a good laugh when they did.
Death was torn from his musings as the gaze of his empty sockets rested on his reaper, who had stopped spluttering long enough to inform him of this dilemma and was now bouncing on the balls of her feet and grinning up at him madly.
"So do I get a pay rise for this?"
A pay rise? A pay rise. She wasn't kidding either. Not if that stupid smirk was anything to go by.
"NO. I MUST CONFER WITH LIFE."
Then he paused before,
"DO NOT REINCARNATE ANYTHING ELSE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. I'LL BE BACK."
This time Death didn't bother with a flashy exit. His mind was otherwise preoccupied. He needed to sort shit out. Whoever or whatever that black soul was, he didn't like it, and he needed to talk with Life to get the full picture.
The only silver lining was that it wasn't his people screwing up this time. Life couldn't blame the recent events on him.
He tapped his scythe twice on the forest floor and disappeared silently and without a trace.