Ronald Knox stares at the door after it closes, his whole body cold and unmoving as her words echo in his ears. Her green eyes, so full of humanity and anguish, flashing with horror as he pushed her into the realm between the worlds.

Ron, please.

Begging for him to stop and listen to her. She called him Ron, not Mr. Knox. He couldn't listen, though. Liz...how could she? He knows he should be sprinting back to Grell, to face William's wrath at keeping him from reaping such a murderous human and to check to make sure his self-proclaimed, 'Big sis' was still alive. Never in a thousand lives had he expected to find a girl...no, the girl, standing over his upperclassman with a trainee scythe shoved deep within the chest. So close to where their hearts once resided.

Still, he doesn't go back to the office. He begins to walk towards her room, now his again, but he'll never be able to think of it from now on as anything else but her room. With heavy feet, he trods across the courtyard, feeling his chest constrict as he remembers all the places where they practiced.

She has the potential, he remembers Grell sing-songing one day after practice, as his flamboyant friend pranced about in his office, In more ways than one. At the time, he'd told Grell to piss off, but his 'sister' was right. He'd thought Liz to be beyond an ordinary human. Potential. Yeah, that was the word, of course...but even a reaper could be wrong, sometimes.

His footsteps echo in the narrow stairway, and he feels the eyes of first years upon him, wondering what such a cool, high-ranking reaper was doing back in the dorms. Ron wonders if she missed her stunning home, having to live in such a place as this for so many months. He wonders if she missed her family...he cannot even remember his; the years flew by so quickly.

When he opens the door, he expects to catch a whiff of her perfume, or see the remnants of her breakfast with Grell lying on the little table. Instead, he's greeted with the overwhelming stench of death. Corpses, rotten corpses, like the kind left out in the sun...mixing with the scent of decaying lilies, a horrid smell that makes him retch.

"Fuck, I...fuck," he gasps, covering his nose and trying to see what made that horrible smell. It seems to come the strongest from her bedroom, so he staggers towards the door, opening it and trying not to puke at the even stronger scent. There is nothing odd in her bedroom upon his first glance.

Then, on his second take, he sees a piece of parchment tied with a cream colored ribbon perched atop a rumpled bed. A fresh sickness overtakes Ron; he picks up the paper and unrolls it.

Her soul shall be delicious.

He recognizes the looping script and catches a whiff of something sweet. The ribbon. It smells like her hair. The wave of realization crashes into him, sending him staggering onto the bed as he understands what he's done.

She didn't go visit Michaelis.

Michaelis broke into the realm.

He shoves the note into his pocket as he breaks into a race, sprinting from the room, down the stairs, trying to reach the office as soon as possible. None of them are safe. None of them at all. A reaper made it into the realm once, and caused her to go hurt Grell. Were it not for his smell, nothing would have happened.

He skids into the office to see a nurse tending to Grell, covering up the nasty gash with a healing solution and plenty of bandages. William paces back and forth, chewing on his lower lip with his brow furrowed. Grell winces every so often, whimpering about how it hurts as he struggles to stay awake. When William sees him, Ronald ducks out of the way to avoid his fist.

"Calm the hell down!" he shouts, pushing his senior away, "I can explain this...well, I can explain most of it. With trembling fingers, he pulls the putrid smelling note from his pocket, uncrinkling it to show William. The stoic reaper recoils from the smell, but still manages a look at the phrase. His eyes widen in shock, and his mouth hangs open.

"You don't mean to tell me he broke in, somehow, do you? He got past Undertaker?" he asks, staring at the fancy script spelling out Liz's doom. Ronald nodded, putting the note back inside his pocket. The realization broken out over William's face causes discomfort for him, as he's so unused to seeing the calmest reaper so dismayed.

"He manipulated her. He knew that she would go to confront Grell...and he also knew that Grell would go insane. He planned for this. He wants...he wants to take her soul. Or something else," he says, stomach twisting as he remembers the rumpled state of the bed. Imagining her, lying trapped on the bed as the reaper took advantage of her humanity...it made him want to kill things.

"Ronnie?" he hears Grell gasps, and darts to his senior's side, crouching next to the weakened reaper. Grell's still caked in blood, but the color's slowly returning to his cheeks. He looks much older than normal, as though the wound added a thousand years to his age. "Ronnie...do you know where he is right now?" William sits next to Grell, subtly taking his pale hand in his own. Ronald shakes his head, feeling stupider than ever for kicking her out of their world.

Wait.

She's back in her own world. Which means...

"He's in the human realm. He's got to be. Grell, he's going after Elizabeth right now. He's going to kill her, oh, hell, and it's all my fault." He feels nauseous at the idea that he'd carelessly thrown Elizabeth to her doom without knowing the full story. Grell's eyes appear more serious than he's ever remembered seeing them before as he sits up, a hand pressed against the deep wound.

"They don't call me the strongest reaper for no reason," he laughs, wincing as he stands up. William looks at him, completely amazed as Grell ties the bandage around his wound. He gives the nurse a look, and she hesitates before handing him a small vial. Grell takes a sip, shudders, and his cheeks turn pinker.

"There. That...that ought to fix me for a few hours. Definitely enough time for us to get her back to safety."

"What did you just take?" William asks, hovering over Grell, who nudges him away with a shake of the head.

"It's safe, if a little taxing to the system. It will heal the injury for a few hours so I can finish my work. You never used this when you first learned to reap?" he asks, querelous as the color returns to his cheeks, "Before I got my perfect marks, I did have a few...accidents."

"You had a C in ethics and if you think you're going on a mission in this state, Grell Sutcliff-" William starts, but Grell places a blood coated finger to his lips with a stern expression. Then, to Ronald's relief, a seductive smirk signals the return of normal Grell.

"Now, boys, where's my coat? I do believe we have a maiden to save."


"You're an interesting one," Undertaker muses as she pours over yet another book. Back home, she'd never been one for reading nonfiction, and certainly nothing of the occult, choosing instead interesting stories about fantastic places and dashing men. Now, she tries to work her way through a strange man's library, all to discern the best way to kill a demon. She imagines that they were almost to this part back in the reaper realm, as Grell commented more than once that she was practically a reaper already. However, that may have just been a kind comment from a seemingly benevolent teacher.

"Am I?" she responds in the dullest voice she can muster, "I suppose the talent of hiding a small army's worth of swords in my petticoats makes for a good party trick." He doesn't laugh, and she supposes that she's only funny when she's trying to be serious. Such is the plight of women, she thinks, flipping yet another page. The illustrations to the books are gruesome and dark, full of corpses, rotting flesh, and twisting limbs, but after the first fifty or so they stopped having another effect.

"Ever killed someone?" he asks, completely changing the subject. However, it's about the sixth or so time he's done that in the past couple of hours, so Lizzie's also used to it by now. With a sigh, she shakes her head. Contemplated murder, of course, plotting against demons, definitely, but she'd never been able to think about killing another human before. Humanity seems even more delicate now than it did a...she's lost count of the months now. Time's become more meaningless by the day.

"How about you?" she responds, arching an eyebrow. The Undertaker takes pause mid-page turn, lets the parchment flutter back down, and smiles to himself.

"That's a story for another day, littlest lady."

Elizabeth catches another glimpse of the green, and cannot help thinking of Ronald, Grell, and Mr. Spears once more. Did Undertaker work with them? Were they ever close friends, once upon a time? Ronald seemed so defensive and gruff when she remembered them speaking; it seemed as though he borderline detested the man. When she finally begins to read again, she sighs and closes the book. Something tells her that Sebastian is not an African demon.

"Is there an easier way to tell?" she asks, "What kind of demon he is, I mean? It's a little frustrating, pouring over these books for so long and getting nowhere." The Undertaker didn't seem perturbed at all by her complaints, but instead merely shrugged and went back to playing with the tips of his snow colored hair.

"Do you know the story of how young Mr. Phantomhive came to meet Michaelis?" he queries. She takes pause, pursing her lips as she thinks back to the death...the horrible, gruesome death of Ciel. Eyes blown open, if only for a moment as Sebastian's silhouette gutted his soul. It'd been her first time seeing his other eye...in years...but...but she hadn't quite thought to remember it so closely. But, now, with her clearer head and less tear-blurred eyes, she can see the eye clearly now.

"Well...several years ago, kidnappers took Ciel," she whispered, feeling her body go cold despite her stoic voice, "He was gone for a month, and I thought he was dead. But then he came back, with an eyepatch." She grabs a pen and roughly sketches the marking on Ciel's eye as best as she can, which causes Undertaker to make a noise of contemplation. His body stiffens. With a pale finger, he traces the mark, lips pressed into a thin line. It's almost as if the man recognizes the mark; his black fingernails grip the table beneath. With a sinking feeling, Lizzie realizes that she should've shown him the mark, first thing. My mind...my mind, it always fails me when I need it, she thinks, her inner voice full of mirth as she keeps her eyes trained on Undertaker. When he speaks, he does not look at her.

"Littlest lady, are you sure you will use the information I can give you wisely?"

"I'm going to kill a demon," she repeats, "Whether that's wise or not is subjective. What is he, Undertaker? Please, I beg of you, tell me who Sebastian really is."

There's the green glint of his eyes once more, as he turns to face her. There is no more goofy Undertaker. There is only this man, this morally grey man who, for some odd reason, is helping her.

"If I speak his name, he will appear before me. Now, we can't have that, can we? But, I can tell you how to lock him in hell...for there is no way to kill that demon. Littlest lady," he stops himself, and she finds a near-fatherly hand resting on her shoulder, "I feel like I should warn, it will not end prettily for you."

Lizzie rises from the table, a pen in her hand and loose blonde waves hanging down her back. The mark of Ciel's eye stares back up at her, the curves of the lines taunting her. With a curled-back lip, she stabs the writing instrument into the wood, and it splits in two. Black ink, darker than night, spills over her hand. Oh, that'll stain, she frowns. Her fingers look like they're rotting, and the crisp smell of ink fills the air. A cooling on her cheek tells her that it's also flown into her face. So be it.

"Mr. Undertaker," she speaks calmly, wiping her black hand against her black dress, "It'll be a long time before I start caring about 'prettiness' once more."

The Undertaker's lips spread into the biggest smirk she's ever had the misfortune of seeing.

"Then, let's proceed, shall we?"


She waits until midnight, and midnight exactly, standing on the roof of the Undertaker's shop in her midnight dress with long, pale blonde hair tied in the pigtails she knows Sebastian will want to pull. A lump rises in her throat as she thinks about Undertaker's words, but a coldness presses into her stomach, reminding her of what she must do.

Ciel, she thinks, looking up at the waning moon, shining a crescent of white light down on the world below, Are you watching, Ciel? Can you see me? You never were one for being a guardian angel, she thinks, remembering how he'd run off for months at a time, leaving her behind, But do you still check in? Hah, you probably think I've gone mad, or that I'm acting even stupider than normal. You've probably forgotten about me. Silly fiancee. Silly girl. Even so, Ciel...her hand finds its way to her cheek, wiping away stray tears, I hope you know that I'll always love you.

Lizzie takes a deep breath, the cold London air strangling her lungs and ripping at her throat as she musters up the courage to shout:

"SEBASTIAN!"

The word draws out into a scream, carried away by the night air, tumbling through the city and maybe further, to wherever the demon may be.

Before she can even take another breath, she feels his presence behind her. It sends chills crawling up her spine, to have him so close. Yesterday, he was on top of her in her bedroom, that seductive voice practically licking her with words she never wanted repeated.

"Hello, my lady," he says, tone so smooth it's practically honey to listen to. Play your part, Lizzie...she reminds herself, turning to face Sebastian with a light blush spread across her cheeks. That isn't acting, though. It's his power to do this, and she must remember that. He wants her. She doesn't want him. But, on the roof in the dead of night, there's nobody to see her be a wanton actress.

"I see you've left that miserable realm," he murmurs, taking a step even closer. His red eyes glint with what she thinks is lust, and he licks his lips in a most lewd manner. Her chest rises and falls in a steady motion, and she forces herself closer.

"Yes, I have. The reapers were not as agreeable over me killing Grell Sutcliff as I hoped they would be," she quips, hoping her lie is convincing. Except, I hardly know if it's a lie, she thinks, the remorse stabbing her deep within. Sebastian looks unconvinced as he places a hand on her waist, massaging his fingers against the corset.

"Really?" he asks, that deep voice sending shivers through her body. His mouth quirks upward at the corners, forming a smile that would have every women out of her clothes at a moment's notice. But she is not every woman. She is Elizabeth Middleford. Bold as can be, she raises her hand to Sebastian's face.

"Care to see for yourself?" she asks, closing the gap between them even further. Sebastian closes his eyes and inhales deeply, his evil smile spreading across his face even wider. With his eyes half-lidded, he licks at the palm of her hand, just briefly, before kissing the skin there. His lips are cold and she shudders, but he mistakes it for arousal. Fixing his eyes to hers, he begins to unbutton her sleeve, pushing the fabric up her arm as he kisses along her veins.

"So delectable you are, now," he groans, sucking at the pale skin of her arm with equally pale lips, "That you have the scent of murder upon your flesh. I could just drink it in." Lizzie pulls her arm away, draping it over his shoulder, a practiced grin upon her own lips.

"Pray tell, Sebastian, what is stopping you?" she asks. Please, please forgive me, Ciel, she thinks, fighting back the urge to retch.

Sebastian's eyes widen, just slightly, in surprise, but an expression of want quickly takes place on his face. With more force than she expected, he completely closed the gap between them, placing his hands around her throat and ripping away the fabric there. Lizzie squeaks as he presses one kiss, two kiss, a bite, another bite against her neck, tonguing skin she never knew was so sensitive.

"Delicious," Sebastian groans, and her eyes widen when she realizes that there's a different hardness poking against her. There's another small scream that escapes from her lips once he places his hand against her breast, squeezing through the fabric. Every pinch, every lick and every suck fog Lizzie's head more.

Keep it together, Elizabeth, she tells herself, faking a moan as Sebastian kisses the hollow of her throat, gasping in surprise when he tears the fabric to expose her decollatage, even the tops of her breasts. You have the power, here. Your plan...remember the plan you made with Undertaker.

"Do you desire me, Sebastian?" she asks, hands pressed against his firm chest, pushing him away. Sebastian's face wears a mask of emotion she's never seen. Animal hunger, animal want, and it reminds her that Sebastian's base nature is of a beast. The quick glance he gives to the marks he's made on her throat serve as her answer.

"Miss Elizabeth," he says, trailing a finger over the half-moons of her breasts, peeking out from her dress, "Who wouldn't?"

She closes her eyes so she no longer has to look at his face. Ciel's face replaces his in her mind, with a flash of a certain blonde reaper that she must surpress. This is it, Elizabeth. You're almost there.

"Then, my demon," she coos, lips curled into a hopefully seductive smile, "I'll-"

A roar cuts her sentence short, a too familiar roar of a futuristic device. A scream soon replaces the sound, and she whirls around to see bright green eyes and a shock of blonde hair flying towards her.

No.

This is not part of the plan.


Sebastian rounds on her, a terrifying fury etched into his formerly handsome face. He's no longer the seductive butler, but a horrible demon. His red eyes now have slits for pupils, and his teeth elongate into horrid fangs.

"You...devious whore," he snarls, hand shooting out to wrap around her throat. She chokes as he lifts her from the ground, kicking her feet in hopes of hitting something vital.

"Get OFF her!" Ronald shouts, slamming into the both of them, knocking their bodies sideways. Lizzie collapses to the ground, coughing and spitting, looking up to see none other than a healthy Grell Sutcliff and cold-eyed Mr. Spears following Ronald.

Stop, stop, you're ruining everything, PLEASE, she wants to scream. Instead, she massages her throat, hoping her vocal cords aren't crushed.

"Hello, Ronald," Sebastian says, ice edging his voice, "I see you've come to fetch your damsel. What a silly, slutty damsel she is, too...throwing herself at me...does such an old reaper have feelings for a mere human?"

Ronald aims the death scythe at Sebastian, an expression of utmost hatred searing through his eyes.

"Don't you ever," he growls, "Call her a mere human again."

"Very well," Sebastian laughs, "I'll just call her a mere corpse."

With a snarl, Ronald raises his weapon, but the crimson reaper dives in front of him. With hazy eyes and ears, as though someone's placed a vaguely transparent sack over her head, Lizzie watches the scene unfurl before her, the scene of Grell taking Ronald's place in battle.

"Hush, darling, this isn't your fight," Grell's self-satisfactory smirk is back on his face as he raises his weapon, "I have a score to settle with this man...sending such a lovely lady after me, when he knows I much prefer men. So tell me, Sebby, would you like me to sever your head first, or shall I cut out your heart so I may hold it close?" The banter is just like how Grell spoke to her in the office. He's truly out to kill this time, she notes, watching him slash that magnificent weapon towards Sebastian. Their fight is practically a dance, as thought they've done this before. Which, they have, she remembers, but it's mesmerizing to watch anyways. They exchange words, and Ronald chastises them, she can tell, joining into the fight. Her eyes widen when she sees, by the light of the moon, Sebastian's hand transform. Claws now end his fingers, black talons gleaming too brightly.

"How did you react," she hears Sebastian sneer, "When such a cute little girl tore into you for killing her aunt?"

Grell freezes, and Lizzie wants to murder him for being so sensitive. That hesitation, once more, gives Grell's enemy the advantage. Sebastian raises his claw as Grell lowers his chainsaw just enough, and Lizzie can hardly see what happens next.

It's too fast.

Before she can blink, Mr. Spears jumps in front of Grell, shouting 'NO!'. Then Sebastian's hand slides across his throat, severing something that she doesn't know the proper name for. Mr. Spears stops, mid-air, turned to face Grell with a terrified look before crumpling to the ground. Red spills down his front, dying his white shirt. Grell can only stare for a split-second before a horrible scream escapes his throat.

"WILLIAM!"

Grell falls next to him, dragging the body away from Sebastian, the red becoming too bright in this dim light for Lizzie to bear looking at. She wishes she could turn off her hearing, because Grell's screams are too awful to listen to.

It's such an ignoble way to die, for a man like Mr. Spears.

Tears well up in her eyes.

It isn't fair.

Sebastian, not one to be swayed by such an emotional event, suddenly has a shocked Ronald by the throat, his hands squeezing tighter and tighter until he lets go of his death scythe. Lying weakened on the ground, Lizzie can only look up at the first man to make her feel like she has a real chance at feeling whole. The cold, unfamiliar weight presses against her torso, reminding her of how much she's failed. She has something that could end this...all of it. And yet, she's lying on the ground. Grell's completely gone, leaning over William's corpse and shielding him from view with his long, red hair. His whole body shakes with sobs, and the noises he makes send chills down Lizzie's spine. She would give Grell another few minutes before snapping and turning on Sebastian. However, Ronald would be dead by then.

"William," Grell whispers, "Will...come back. You can't leave me here. You can't leave me alone." Lizzie hadn't known that a reaper was capable of crying until then. She wants to offer Grell words of comfort, but when she remembers how she leaned over Ciel's dead body so many months ago, Lizzie realizes that she has no better coping mechanism now than she did then. Sebastian grins at her, his pointed teeth glinting in the dusk light. Ronald's beginning to go limp, the light fading from his green eyes as his skin turns paler and paler by the second. She can practically feel the smugness radiating from the demon:

I've won, little girl. I've won, and once I'm done with him, I'm coming for you.

"How does it feel?" she hears Sebastian gloat, smirking at Ronald, "Knowing that such a handsome, cocky young reaper like yourself couldn't even save one meager human...that you're leaving her to be devoured by a demon. Does it anger you, Ronald Knox?" Lizzie can see how the reaper kicks. She can hear his strangled cries, and it's killing her. But she still has her voice. She can still carry out her plan...but she knows it will kill Ronald to watch.

Lizzie takes in a deep breath, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes as she looks from Grell and William, to Ronald, to Sebastian. Her throat burns even more than her wrists, and she squeezes her eyes shut to imagine a young man with blue-gray hair and one single stunning blue eye...he becomes a child in her brain once more. She remembers being close to his age, when she was silly and young. She wonders if he felt this anguish. Now, it's irrelevant. It's her decision. Not his.

"DEMON!" she screams, her furious voice soaring upward to reach Sebastian's ears. His dark ruby eyes fixate on her, and he lets hand on Ronald's throat relax just a little. She struggles to sit up, tears trickling from her eyes as she tries to keep her voice loud.

"I'll make a contract with you!"