Chapter 36: Putting Death Into Perspective

The White Space

Paperwork had new competition on Minato's list of things he despised. He and Jiraiya had been working on the complex network of seals for hours now and they had made very little progress. Which was the kind way of saying they had made no progress. This was going to be a terribly boring day to follow Minato, but alas not even the afterlife of a judge of the dead can be exciting every chapter.

Minato was running very fast to check on a specific seal when he attempted to run over the Shinigami.

Luckily for the man in question, the Shinigami stumbled only for a brief second before quickly righting himself. He looked at Minato and tilted his head. His favorite minion looked very haggard. He also had a very sullen look on his face, suggesting that he hadn't been screwed in days. The Shinigami decided to save his vast stores of cruelty for the Uchiha bloodline and said, "Minato-kun you know I am never one to pry, but I could have sworn I hired you to judge souls rather than to work on arts and crafts with your father figure. Now on the other hand if you need me to find Kushina and lock the two of you into a bedroom for an undisclosed amount of time to work through your whole 'being a weak mortal' thing I'd be more than glad to." The Shinigami was proud of himself; he faked generosity so well.

Minato shook his head, blushing. "No, that's quite alright. The work we are doing here is actually pretty important. Although, don't tell Kushina I said that."

The Shinigami made a mental note to inform Kushina her husband had said that as soon as possible. "Of course I won't, Minato-kun," the Shinigami lied easily.

Minato eyed the Shinigami suspiciously before shrugging; he knew any argument with his boss would only end in a headache for him. "Right, anyway this is really important and I am sure you have better things to do than hang around here."

The Shinigami was not used to obvious rejection and felt something move inside of him that made him quite uncomfortable. For a moment he feared he may have felt an emotion but then remembered what he had for lunch. He knew he should have deep fried that soul instead of eating it raw. "Very well Minato-kun, good luck in your endeavor."

The Shinigami, knowing when to depart, returned to his office for a little down time.

Shinigami's Office

The Shinigami sipped on the tea he had prepared and took out his day planner. The Shinigami, contrary to everything he did, said, and thought, was not one to do something for pure whimsy. No, the Shinigami always had a plan.(1) Plans were awesome.(2) Step one: write something down. Anything at all would suffice; sometimes he just wrote down a grocery list. Be assured though, it was an evil grocery list. Step two: Laugh maniacally. If there wasn't a sense of dread washing over the universe before his plan was put into action, the Shinigami just wasn't living up to his own standards. Step three: Take action. The second most important step, behind the evil laughter, is where the Shinigami's plans came to fruition, some assembly and blood required. It was a process and one that worked well for the god of death. In the event that it didn't he just stabbed something with a rusty butter knife forged in the heart of a dying galaxy until it was either stabbed to dust or there was blood everywhere. Someone might wonder what stabbing something – or someone- might have to do with the plan. For that matter someone also might question why it was strictly necessary to use a butter knife forged in the heart of a dying galaxy. These both might well in fact be very good questions, but unfortunately at this time that very someone is currently being stabbed with a rusty butter knife forged in the heart of a dying galaxy. What an unlucky coincidence.

The Shinigami opened his day planner and let out a sigh. He had nothing planned for the day. In fact, he had nothing planned for this entire week aside from his usual fun with Madara. The Shinigami viewed torturing Madara like a small, disobedient child might view playing with his or her food. The difference between them was that there was more of a chance of the carrots leaping off of the plate and killing the child than Madara ever had of harming the Shinigami. However there was only so much torturing that could be done to an egotistical madman with delusions of immortality before he decides that life isn't worth living and does something regrettable like commit suicide. If that happened the Shinigami couldn't make Madara's life miserable anymore, and that would be a sad day indeed.

The Shinigami understood his main problem quite clearly. He had been very busy at one point and had decided it would be a good idea to not take on so much torturing at one time, thus showing he did not in fact have perfect judgment. Now he had nothing on his to do list; said to do list being formatted into two columns with the first saying 'torture' and the second having a person's name. He had either decided that he more pressing matters or he had settled on delegating the tasks to other people in his stead. It was time to take the reins once more. The Shinigami opened a portal to the mortal world and stepped through it.

Uchiha Battle Site

Upon arrival the Shinigami was greeted with a very boring sight. Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke were having a staring match to the death; the death of everything entertaining and exciting, to be exact. He walked between them and waved a bony hand in front of both of their faces. Neither one blinked. This was not what the Shinigami would call fun. The threshold for fun involved a lot more suffering than this and at least a bucket of blood. Each. He spotted Bertha watching what supposedly passed for a battle from a folding chair approximately twenty feet from where the two were staring at each other.

Bertha was her usual attractive cat-girl self. She had a blue dress shirt on which appeared ready to burst from the seam the moment the cat-girl took in a deep breath. She had on a loose-fitting tie that curved along with her breasts and barely touched her stomach underneath them. To go along with the top she wore a grey skirt and her legs were crossed in an almost suggestive manner. It would have been any man's dream if not for the intense expression on her face. She was currently scribbling furiously onto a notepad that was in her lap and wore a harsh frown on her face, as if she couldn't quite figure something out. She looked between the two Uchiha and let out a breath. She was clearly frustrated. Her day was not about to get any better.

"Ah, Bertha-chan, I see you are still hard at work on the task I assigned you," The Shinigami said from behind Bertha. He had taken the opportunity to sneak up on the cat-girl because he thought it might provide an amusing reaction. He was not disappointed.

Bertha screamed out in sheer terror, a perfectly normal reaction when Death itself walks up for a chat, and fell out of her chair right onto her firm ass. It did not take her long to realize who had been speaking and she blushed in embarrassment. Mentally chiding herself for her unprofessional conduct, she picked herself up off the ground and brushed herself off. She squared her shoulders, put on her sexiest smile, and said, "Ah, Shinigami-sama. I didn't expect you here. I am not prepared to give you an evaluation quite yet."

The Shinigami waved her off. "No need. I have already looked over your progress."

Bertha stilled at the casual comment. It was not good when the Shinigami showed initiative into anything you were doing. The Shinigami did nothing without reason.(3)

"Is something the matter with my work, sir?" Bertha asked, more than a little worried. She had every right to be.

"Indeed there is," The Shinigami said, "I am not the one doing it."

"Excuse me?" Bertha questioned, confused.

The Shinigami chuckled, causing Bertha to shudder. The Shinigami had seen people look more cheerful on their deathbeds than Bertha looked then. He had to hand it to her; she was a smart little cat-girl. "It is funny you should choose to say that. You are indeed excused, Bertha-chan."

"You're firing me?" Bertha asked disbelievingly as her bottom lip trembled.

The Shinigami briefly wondered if he had accidentally slipped into an ancient language when he had begun to speak to the cat-girl. He tended to do that around cats. It had been fine back in ancient Egypt when their language was in fact ancient, but return trips to the Nile were never the same. It never hurt to ask. Well, never hurt him at any rate. "Bertha, have I been talking in a language you are incapable of understanding?"

"No, I can understand you fine, Shinigami-sama," Bertha said.

"If you understand the words that are coming from my mouth then why pray tell are we still having this conversation?" The Shinigami peered into Bertha, waiting for a response.

"I-It's just that I have put so much effort into this. I have done so much work! I took all these wonderful notes! Want to see the notes?" She shoved her notepad out in front of her. "Please take a look at the notes!" Bertha pleaded. Either her notes were very awesome or she was very deluded.

The Shinigami took one look at the notepad and suddenly had a bad feeling that he was going to be here awhile if he didn't get creative with Bertha. Sure, he could have chopped her into bits and had some cat tail soup tonight but that would have been a waste of a resource, not to mention effort. Plus, cats didn't taste nearly as good as he would have thought. Another lesson learned in Egypt. He had been warned when he had gotten her on loan that she was very obsessive. Actually, that had been the very reason he had chosen her. What better way to torture a teenage boy than to attach an obsessed, murderous, and attractive femme fatale to the case. The problem here turned out to be that she had traded in her murderous nature for a notepad. The god of death couldn't simply state his problem though; that's just not how talking to women worked.

"Bertha-chan, kindly put the notepad down. I am merely reassigning you. Your efforts have given me many ideas on how to personally torture your subject. I trust you are not offended that I believe I am more capable of personally handling this boy than you are?" The Shinigami made it clear what the correct answer was as he casually sharpened his scythe while waiting for the cat-girl to reply.

Bertha eyed the scythe and said, "No, of course it isn't a slight against me to say you are better than me. I am honored you would even think to use one of my ideas."

The Shinigami clapped his hands together causing Bertha to jump a good two feet off the ground. "I am glad we can agree then. You can go back to your masters at the talent agency and tell them that you have performed your duties well. In fact, if you get out of my sight within the next minute you can be assured I will report that you deserve full marks for this assignment."

Bertha beamed at the Shinigami and moved to hug him.

"Touch me and the only thing you will be given from me is the ability to play dead very convincingly," the Shinigami threatened.

Bertha was gone before he had finished speaking.

"Ah, peace at last." The Shinigami looked over at the two Uchiha. "Well, for me at least." The Shinigami snapped two bony fingers and the Wheel of Uchiha Doom appeared next to him. Unlike the normal Wheel of Doom this one was, surprisingly, tailored to suit the needs of exclusively the Uchiha family. It was this type of personal touch that made the Shinigami famous throughout all worlds. Well, that and he killed everyone.

The Shinigami decided to start with the elder brother, Itachi, and gave the Wheel of Uchiha Doom a spin to see what his fate would be. The wheel spun at a frantic pace for several moments before slowing down and then finally stopping. The Shinigami was forced to squint to see what option had been chosen as the text for it was very small.

Doomed to be killed by the only person in the world he still loves in such a fashion which will allow said person to be very easily manipulated by the person he hates most in this world to negate all of the careful planning and years of self-sacrifice that was solely done so that the person he loved could not be manipulated by the person he hated.

The Shinigami tilted his head. That was very specific. The Shinigami approved. He reached out and spun the wheel for Sasuke this time. Once again the wheel turned again and again until it came to a standstill. This time, the Shinigami could have been facing away from the wheel and he could have read the large print written on the space it had landed on.

Doomed to be Uchiha Sasuke.

The Shinigami almost frowned at how boring that sounded. The cruel deity was about to spin the wheel again when his intuition told him that it was best if he didn't. The Shinigami shrugged. The Wheel of Uchiha Doom didn't like to be second guessed; it always tended to backfire on the Shinigami when he decided to re-spin the wheel.(4) The wheel seemed to always take offense and do something downright positive to the subject. That was why the Shinigami always respected the wheel's wishes in matters such as this.

Of course, that is why the Shinigami always brought the Wheel of Misfortune along for occasions such as this. There is nothing wrong with complimenting one wheel with another after all. The Shinigami gave the second wheel a spin and watched it until it too slowed to a stop. The Shinigami glared at the result.

Has the misfortune of being Uchiha Sasuke.

The Shinigami threw his arms up in the air. It appeared that fate had its plans for the youngest Uchiha and the Shinigami wasn't going to be allowed to interfere with it in any shape or form.

All of the wheel spinning had gotten Shinigami into a sour mood. Mortals had a saying of when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. The Shinigami had such a saying as well: When Life gives you lemons, torture Life by throwing him into the same room with a psychotic fox-lover until the god broke mentally. Life didn't give the Shinigami, or anyone else for that matter, lemons anymore.

While thinking of Bob made the Shinigami less bitter about his wheels betraying him, it was not enough. Someone was going to have to be tortured for this. Then the Shinigami would laugh at them while sipping on some tea. Or maybe milk. Yes, milk sounded delicious right about now. In fact, what better treat to go with milk than cookies?

The Shinigami stopped suddenly and a wicked grin formed on his face. Three galaxies away a planet exploded in direct response to this event. The god knew exactly where he was going to get his cookies.

Suna

Gaara's head suddenly snapped up and his eyes narrowed. There was a disturbance in the Cookies. The red-head calmly got up from his desk and walked the few dozen feet to the adjoined room next to his office which he had labeled the C room. When Gaara had still had an insane demon manipulating him he had run on a seven day cycle that involved the use of the C room in some capacity.

First was "Calm." On these days, Gaara did not want to rip people apart while laughing over their freshly shredded corpses. Gaara saw these days as good signs towards his integration into normal society, and so the C room was used for arts and crafts.

Second was "Collected", which was not much different from the first day other than a nagging feeling in the back of Gaara's mind that ripping people apart while laughing over their freshly shredded corpses may in fact be worthy of further consideration. On days such as these the C room held a whiteboard which Gaara used to write "I will not murder the people that love and adore me" a thousand times.

Third was "Cranky." Instead of a nagging feeling, his entire mind was nearly overwhelmed with the pleasure he would feel when he ripped people apart while laughing over their freshly shredded corpses. The dull ache in his bones when he resisted the urge made him almost impossible to talk to during these days. The C room was used for target practice as he destroyed several training dummies in a storm of sand. At least, he would claim they were training dummies when questioned later.

Fourth was "Creative." By this point Gaara dropped all pretense of wanting to fight the urge to rip people apart while laughing over their freshly shredded corpses. On these days he would gather prisoners from the depths of Suna and usher them into the C Room for a group session of arts and crafts. The art being blood painted on the walls, and the crafts being the bones scattered all over the room. Sometimes the bones would make a shape such as a triangle; this amused Gaara.

Fifth was "Crazy." As the title implies, by this point Gaara had lost his damn mind. He would feign as much sanity as was required in order to rip people apart while laughing over their freshly shredded corpses. His advisors, always eager for his ear, would not notice anything different until the C Room's door locked and the sand vortex had begun. By the time it had ended the entire room was nothing but red and Gaara was enjoying a special treat he referred to as an Advisor Smoothie. Shaken, not stirred.

Sixth was "Calamity." It is so vicious and terrible that the font has switched to bold. No one knows what happens on these days because there are no survivors and Gaara doesn't remember anything the following day except feeling like he swam a lot the previous day. It probably involved Gaara ripping people apart while laughing over their freshly shredded corpses.

Finally, there was "Crying." While Temari scrubbed the walls of the room Gaara held his teddy bear and rocked back and forth muttering about raccoons being evil.

Whenever he had a bad day he would retreat to the room to calm himself away from anyone who might disturb him. It used to be a lot harder to control his urges. That was then, this is now. Now the C stood for "Cookies". Cookies were a source of great comfort to the current Kazekage. If he wanted to viciously murder a foolish advisor he would instead eat a cookie. Sometimes two; his advisors could be very annoying. None of his advisors had died since the process had been implemented so Gaara thought this was an awesome idea. It is possible that the lack of grisly deaths had something to do with the fact that Gaara was no longer the jailor for a vicious demon, but the thought had never occurred to Gaara during cookie time.

With no hesitation Gaara opened the C room door to see… nothing. Gaara blinked. There was nothing in the room. Then Gaara smirked, because that was exactly as he had left the room. Gaara entered the room and with a sudden burst of chakra dispelled the illusion he had placed on the room.

Suddenly a table appeared in the back of the room that had several bags of cookies placed on top of it. Gaara smiled boyishly as he inspected all of the bags. He saw all five bags of chocolate chip cookies were in place, as well as two bags of white chocolate chip that sat right next to them. He slowly moved his eyes across the table and noted that all of his snickerdoodle, peanut butter, and sugar cookies were there as well. Gaara paused after a moment and swept his eyes over the table several more times. Something was missing here, although he struggled to figure out what it was. Without taking his eyes off of the cookies Gaara shuffled to his right and took a clipboard off of the wall. The clipboard contained the inventory for this room that Gaara checked every night to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. There had only ever been one discrepancy, which soon resulted in one bloodstain in a dark and deserted alleyway. Gaara glanced down at the clipboard and saw the problem. His bag of thin mint cookies were missing.

This was not good for Gaara's anger management issues.

Gaara did a quick sweep of the room and found no trace of a secondary exit. Someone must have snuck in right under Gaara's nose and escaped with the cookies. This was almost unimaginable to the young leader. He had put considerable effort into making sure that his hidden cookie stash was safe and sound. Now it was not. That was just all around displeasing. Things died when Gaara was displeased.

The Shinigami on the other hand was quietly enjoying his bag of thin mint cookies as he watched Gaara get more and more worked up. The Shinigami didn't particularly like cookies as a rule, but knowing that these cookies belonged to Gaara and their disappearance caused the young boy distress made them much more delicious. The Shinigami took a sip of his milk before popping another one of the tasty treats into his mouth. The next part was going to be awesome. Well, for him at any rate.

Gaara took a steadying breath and realized that the cookie thief could be caught and tortured later. While he did enjoy mint, other types of cookies were certainly up to the challenge of soothing him. Gaara reached for a bag of oatmeal cookies and opened it. To his horror, there were no cookies in the bag. Gaara tried to calm his breathing by reaching for another bag, this time white chocolate macadamia nut. Gaara tore the bag open and found the same problem: there were no cookies in the bag. Gaara did this with all ninety-eight bags of cookies on the table. There was not a single cookie in the entire room. His stash had been emptied right under his nose. Was life worth living without cookies? Gaara didn't know. Then Gaara remembered he had a bag of cookies still stashed in his desk in case of emergency.(5)

Gaara rushed to his desk and ripped open the bottom most drawer, not even bothering to unlock it, to find his prized possession: A bag of snickerdoodles. Gaara's mouth watered as he grabbed the bag and ripped it open.

The bag was empty save for a single piece of paper. Gaara, his hand shaking, reached into the bag and grabbed the paper. He unfolded the paper and quickly scanned what was written on it.

The cookies were delicious. Also as a reminder: your mother didn't love you.

Gaara sank to his knees and screamed in despair.

The Shinigami took a deep breath, taking in the feeling of misery that Gaara was giving off with delight. While cookies were all well and good, the torment of mortals was always going to be the more delicious between the two as far as the Shinigami was concerned.

Footnotes:

1: This is a complete lie, but no one is going to tell the Shinigami that.

2: This, on the other hand, is a universal truth and any who dare to disagree with this are said to be struck down with either lightning, the plague, or made to eat Brussels sprouts depending on a planet's chosen deity, in order from least to most cruel.

3: Showing just how little Bertha the cute cat-girl knew about her employer.

4: Once he had decided to attempt a redo on Uchiha Madara many years ago and had gotten 'Doomed to be an asshole for way longer than anyone else could ever dream to be.'

5: In this case an emergency would equate to Gaara being too lazy to get up to get a cookie.

A/N: Well I didn't keep up my crazy pace but I have managed to sneak a chapter in before the end of the month! This was actually a bit of a reversal in my writing process. Normally I will have a lot of trouble starting a chapter but the end really got me on this one. Not so much what you see but what I cut out of it that I am going to expand in the next chapter. I promised you nothing but Shinigami, and I basically gave you nothing but the Shinigami. I like this chapter. Not too long, not too serious, just Shinigami all the time and I am happy with what I have got down here. If you agree or disagree, please review and let me know either way. Oh, speaking of reviews I hit my yearly goal of fifteen hundred way earlier than I ever expected! I really do love seeing everyone's thoughts, especially the good ones they brighten my day, although the constructive ones help me as well. New goal! Before the end of the year I want to try to make it to two thousand reviews! I view this as an impossible dream, but might as well set the review goal high since I already broke my former goal. But yeah, review, it let's me know you care!

Next chapter I am going to be back with Minato and he is going to go on a quest with Jiraiya. It will involve Hotsprings! A pissed off Kushina! Zabuza! Rin! Obito! And the return of a character that has not been seen in over twenty chapters! Dun dun dun...

Poll: What character do you think I am going to be putting in next chapter that hasn't made an appearance in twenty chapter? First one to guess right gets a super special awesome mention in an upcoming chapter!

Seems like a fair reward if you are clever.

Also I had to fix a minor error on September the 10th and I've noticed that not a single reviewer has gotten the question right yet. Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.

Until next time.

~ Chris