Chapter twelve

For the next few weeks Lizzy did nothing but go through the motions, perfectly and without fault, but with no heart behind it. To the other reapers she was a model employee, no failed collections and no misbehaviour. Only Ronald and Grell knew that something was wrong, but then again how could they not know? Didn't matter how well she acted, they could knew her to well to fall for it.

The only time that she let her control slip was when she was practicing her sword, when she let all or anger at herself, at Ciel, at that bloody demon turn into precision and ferocity.

It was after one such session that Grell told her about her assessment.

'Are you serious? Grell, I haven't been collecting souls four more than a month. How can you think I'm ready?'

'Darling, you collect souls better than some of the Reapers who have been doing this for decades. That is saying something considering that, as a trainee, you don't customised glasses or scythe. It would be insulting to your skill if we were to put this off any longer.' Grell looked at her as she bit her lip.

'I know that you have been feeling a little out of it lately, that your emotions have a little haywire after seeing Ciel in that girls records, and that seeing him again yesterday in that man's probably didn't help. But a reaper's job means that we can't be ruled by those feelings when out it the field, something you pulled off effortlessly.'

Elizabeth sighed in resignation when she realised that Grell had a counter for any and all objections she could think of.

'Who assess me? And when exactly is it?'

'William will be the official Assessor, as the dispatch head, but you will also be judged by myself and an old Reaper by the name of Samuel, to make sure he is fair. As for when; Wednesday, so three days from now, don't worry darling, you'll be fine.'

Lizzy sighed and turned to her sparring partner to request another round. Fencing calmed her down and after Grell's announcement she felt she needed some de-stressing.

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Elizabeth lay on the ground with claws on her throat and her broken arm pinned to the by a talon like foot. The other three reapers lay in similar states all around the street.

This hadn't been a robbery, this had been an ambush.

And it had all started with her exam.

Lizzy felt herself flying as she ran across the roof tops to the address she had memorised from the To-Die List. This was her assessment; that meant that she had to complete five set collection throughout the night. Because it was an assessment she had to find her way to all of the locations by herself, she had to correctly end the records and collect the souls successfully. She had to be on time and unnoticed by all except those she was collecting. She could not ask for help or acknowledge those currently following her in anyway. She was not to show emotion or get flustered. She had to conduct herself in the manner befitting of someone of her station, a reaper, a death god, someone who was trying to redeem themselves of the mistake of suicide.

And so she did exactly that.

The first soul, an old seamstress passing away in her sleep, was easy. She lived alone, had lived a long life, and done nothing remarkable ever. Lizzy knew the area well so she didn't get lost there or back, and had completed collection in record time without making any mistakes. She headed to her second appointment at a steady pace so as to arrive on time without being ridiculously early.

Her second appointment was … difficult. An unnamed babe in the East end dying of malnutrition. Somehow she managed to keep a straight face as she plunged her scythe into that pitifully small chest and watched the painfully short records. Finished she moved onto the third.

Now that was interesting, and in her opinion an unreasonable collection for a lady, but she kept her composer.

A young noble man, some Earl or something, was to die rather suddenly of a heart attack while doing strenuous activity at midnight.

That strenuous activity being bedding three of his female servants; at the same time.

She wasn't sure how she kept the blush of her face when she removed the records, or when she watched said records to find that this was a regular event. When that one night were he had bedded his footman came up she couldn't help noticing Grell out of the corner of her eye, the red head was looking at William with eyes that reminded her of that time she walked in on them a month ago.

She was incredibly glad when she could move on to the fourth, a rather skilled shoe maker. She was very nearly late; the Earls records had focused in great details on his many exploits, which were many, and it had taken a while to view them all.

She didn't flinch when this man thought about the time he had sold shoes to a young Nobel couple, didn't react when a few days later the young boy who was a Earl destroyed the Mafia branch that had been troubling his costumers, didn't show her emotions at seeing her own face in someone else's records.

It was the last one when the demons attacked.

They waited until she had released the records of the young man who had just been killed in a robbing gone wrong. Only once the cinematic records were flying about did they spring the trap.

There were nine of them; two per reaper and the Orchestrator that all reapers had reported. She lost track of the others as she fought with the two currently trying to steal the souls she carried. Felt her scythe pierce one of her attackers, watched his blood dribble from his shadowy mouth as he gasped his last. But even as he when down the other had her in his grip, throwing her to the ground and holding her there, sharp claws digging into her neck as he prepared to tear out her throat, the one of the talons on his feet stepped on her scythe hand, slicing through her arm to dig into the concrete below.

They would take the souls from her dead corpse, if she had had her sword this would have gone very differently.

From this vantage point she could see Grell in a similar position, her blood blending in with her hair. She heard two thumps and noticed that William and Samuel had also been disposed of similarly.

Then the hand on her neck was gone.

Turning her head she looked into a familiar face, into the blood red eyes of the demon previously known as Sebastian Michaelis.

And that is Sebastian's guest appearance, which is almost the entire reason for this fanfic (joking, mostly).