Previously:
"Well, the time has come to say our farewells at last," Undertaker said. "I must say, it's been cracking good funnn!" Grell and Sebastian started. They couldn't let him get away. Sebastian held Ciel while he two of them charged at Undertaker.
"!?" Undertaker said, dodging Sebastian's kick while blocking Grell's death scythe. Sebastian's kick hit his chain of mourning lockets and sent them flying into the air. Undertaker's eyes widened. He tried to catch them, but they were beyond his reach. They flew towards Sebastian and Ciel. Instinctively, Ciel snatched it from the air as it passed him. Undertaker was surprised. He stared at Ciel with wide eyes, then smiled. "—Lord Earl. I entrust that to your keeping for the present," he told him. "Please take it with you and treat it with care." Undertaker landed on higher ground. "For it is my treasure."
'Treasure?' Lacey thought.
"!?" Ciel gasped. "Wait, Undertaker!" he called as the Reaper turned to leave.
"So long, milord," Undertaker said. He raised his scythe and swung. "Let's meet again."
—^—^—^—
BOOM!
Outside, there was a huge explosion as the whole ship was cut in half.
That Butler, Fighting Valiantly
The top half of the ship was falling.
"Th-The ship has split in two!" a man in a lifeboat shouted as they all watched, horrified. People who were in the water near the ship struggled to get out of the way.
CRAAASH!
WHIZ!
The top half of the ship slammed into the water, killing many. Something shot out of the water. It was Sebastian, holding Ciel and accompanied by Lacey.
"Thanks for the lift!" she said as their feet touched the deck, and they ran as fast as they could up the deck, which was tilting again as it filled with water.
"It does not seem that the bow here will hold for long either!" Sebastian observed. The ship rumbled as it began to sank. Sebastian leaped here and there with Ciel to avoid screaming people as they fell, with Lacey not too far behind. A life preserver ring fell toward them. Sebastian snatched it and landed on the railing at the tip of the bow. "Young Master." He slid the ring down around Ciel as Lacey scrambled up behind them. "Take a deep breath!"
"Eh!?" Ciel exclaimed. "Wha—!?"
"Just do it, Ciel!" Lacey told him.
"I hope that you can stay with him for the time being," Sebastian told Lacey.
"Yeah, no problem. Don't die," Lacey said, grabbing hold of Ciel while she kept a firm grip on her death scythe. Sebastian picked them both up.
"The situation being what it is, please do forgive me!" Sebastian told Ciel.
"What are you d…...UWAAAAH!" Ciel yelled as Sebastian hurled him and Lacey as far away from the ship as possible as it was pulled under. The water rushed up to swallow it, swirling around in a dangerous undertow. Grell floated on the surface of the water a short distance away.
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.
William T. Spears's death scythe extended to hook onto his clothing, and William dragged him up out of the water.
"To think you can't even reap souls properly… Good grief," William said, annoyed. He dropped Grell unceremoniously into the boat on top of Ronald, whom he had already rescued. "Did you allow laziness to get the better of you during your suspension?" he muttered. "I'm not even part of dispatch, and yet here I am, a member of management, out in the field. I really do wish you'd give some thought to how I feel. Why, I shan't be able to clock out on time once again… dash it all." He stomped on Grell's face and whacked Ronald with his scythe. "Wake up! Grell Sutcliff! Ronald Knox!" he yelled at them with a vein throbbing on his head.
"Owww…" Grell groaned. "—Oh, Wiiill~! " he said with hearts in his eyes, perking up when he saw who it was. "You came to get me!!" He launched himself at Will with open arms. Will dodged and let him fall face-first into the ice cold water.
"I have not come here to get anybody," Will said angrily with his face cast partially in shadow. He pushed Grell's head back down with his death scythe. "I have come here to clean up after a good-for-nothing employee who can't do his job. We will set to the work of retrieval without delay, do you hear?"
"But…! We're all worn out, in case you hadn't noticed..." Ronald said wearily.
"The duty of a grim reaper is to collect souls reliably and punctually, whatever the situation," Will said mercilessly.
"That colder-than-the-sea gaze you're leveling at me at you trample my individual rights—! It's making my body do just the opposite! I'm burning up!" Grell said, blushing as he leaned on the side of the boat.
"Can't say the same for me, sir," Ronals said. "You sure seem to be rarin' to go, Mister Sutcliff, sir~!"
"I will require you to return to head quarters and submit your report immediately after we've finished our collections here," Will said, all business. He adjusted his glasses. "Your report on the transgressor, that is."
Meanwhile, in another part of the ocean, Ciel was gripping Undertaker's mourning jewelry tightly in his hand while he clung to the life preserver ring. Lacey was treading water beside him. It was harder with her death scythe gripped in one hand, and her dress was really dragging her down. Her face was barely above the water. They could hear other survivors screaming and splashing in the water not too far away.
"Ugh..." Ciel groaned, shivering so violently that his teeth were chattering. 'It hurts. My body feels like it's being stabbed all over by ice. My limbs won't move—' Ciel began to slip from the ring.
"Whoa!" Lacey said when he went under. She quickly reached down and grabbed him before he got too far. She stuck her arm and her scythe through the hole of the preserver and hauled him back up above the water.
"Bwah!" Ciel coughed, choking on water he had swallowed.
"Hold on, Ciel! I can barely swim in this thing!" Lacey told him. "I know it hurts, but move your legs! You have keep moving, or you'll freeze to death!"
"No, he won't!" Sebastian said, arriving in a boat.
"Good. I thought that's what you were doing," Lacey said as he pulled up next to them and took Ciel from her, lifting him into the boat. Sebastian helped her climb in as well.
"They must have been unable to lower the lifeboats in time. So I have come with the one I borrowed from the sinking ship," Sebastian informed Ciel. Ciel coughed. The cold might be aggravating his asthma. "Please put this on." He handed his master his jacket. "I do apologize that I cannot prepare some hot tea for you."
"Pfft, hahaha!" Lacey laughed. Was that all he had to say at a time like this. "You're so English!"
"Please bear with it for the time being," Sebastian asked Ciel as they both sweat-dropped, staring at her. Was this really the time for laughter? They could still hear people screaming in the distance.
"Waaaaah..."
"Help meee…"
"Waaah..."
"Hellllp..."
"Waaah..."
"Waaah..."
"Uwaaah!"
Sebastian could see very clearly that the survivors were panicking, pushing others down to keep themselves up.
"If we go back, this boat will be dragged down as well," he said.
"..." Ciel shivered. Lacey put her scythe down and hugged him. "W-What are you doing?"
"Sharing my body heat to warm you up," she said, as if it should have been obvious. "You're welcome."
"Let us depart," Sebastian said. He hopped overboard.
SPLASH.
"What are you doing?" Lacey asked.
"This will be faster than rowing," Sebastian said.
"If you say so," Lacey replied. Sebastian kicked them further away from the frenzy.
'My hair has turned to ice...' Ciel thought, still shivering, even though Lacey was rubbing his arms. He realized her hair had frozen, too. 'I'm sleepy..." He started nodding off.
"H-Hey!" Lacey said. "Stay awake, Ciel!"
"!" Sebastian said. "Young Master! You must not fall aslee—" Something yanked on one of his legs. "!?" He looked back and saw a bizarre doll was holding his leg. "Wha—!!?" It sank its teeth into his calf. "Kuh!" He turned and kicked the top half of its head off.
"What the hell!?" Lacy said.
"These things can move in water!?" Ciel asked.
"Since they do not need to breathe, it would follow that they also do not drown," Sebastian said.
"That means—" Ciel said.
"!" Sebastian gasped and covered Ciel's mouth. "Hush! Be quiet!" the water bubbled up before them in a wide stretch of water. It looked as if the freezing sea was boiling. The tops of heads began to appear.
"D—Don't tell me..." Ciel said as their heads made it above the water.
"Get in the boat, Sebastian," Lacey said.
"… These are all—!?" Ciel said, shocked as he looked out at the army of bizarre dolls that had gathered. Their combined moans and groans were a roar.
"Get in, Sebastian!" Ciel and Lacey shouted together, offering him their hands. Sebastian climbed into the boat. The zombie that had been about to bite him gnashed its empty teeth together.
"!?" they all gasped as the boat swayed. The zombies were crawling into the boat. "!!" Lacey immediately grabbed her death scythe, and sliced their heads off. She and Sebastian kicked them out of the boat. Sebastian grabbed an oar.
"Uwah…!" Ciel cried when one grabbed him. Sebastian bashed its head in with the oar.
"Ciel, get in the middle! I'll protect this end, you protect that end!" she told Sebastian.
"Yes!" Sebastian agreed.
"J-Just how many of them are there!?" Ciel asked.
"I cannot say… however… they will likely only search for souls until their bodies are no more… and that means you are the soul living human in this vicinity, Young Master," Sebastian stated. Ciel looked from the bizarre dolls next to him to the other lifeboats in the distance.
"Then… we can't run…" he said. "If we do, Lizzie and Chêne and the other survivors will be targeted. We can't expose them to danger…" Sebastian and Lacey had their hands full fighting off the zombies. "Call it good fortune or ill… they seem only to attack the soul nearest to them! We will stop them here. You can do it, can't you, Sebastian? Lacey?"
"Heh! Who do you think you're talking to?" Lacey said with a smirk, lopping off three more heads. "I'm the zombie queen!"
"You do not need to ask your servant," Sebastian said. "Simply command what you will of me." Ciel removed his eyepatch.
"I command you, Sebastian," he ordered forcefully. "Exterminate them!!"
"Yes, my lord," Sebastian said, determined. "We will pitch around a bit. Do please hang on to the boat!" The zombies were fighting tooth and nail to get aboard. Sebastian and Lacey were jumping around, coordinating their efforts to make sure the boat didn't capsize. Lacey sliced and slashed, while Sebastian stabbed and whacked. The zombies were fighting each other to get closer. Always their dead, grasping hands reached for them. "How amusing..." Sebastian beat back more of them. His eyes glowed red. "Even in death, humans continue to attempt to kick others down to obtain that which they desire. What truly avaricious beings!!"
"Heh! You said it!" Lacey agreed with a grin, cutting down five with one sweep.
The other lifeboats were full of nervous people. They could all hear the moans of the bizarre dolls beyond the reach of their lanterns' light.
"Wh-Whose voice is this…?" a sailor manning a lifeboat asked.
"What on earth is going on…?" another man in the same boat asked.
"There may be more survivors!" Edward Midford said. "Let's turn the boat around."
"That's impossible!" the sailor manning his lifeboat said. He was trembling from fear and cold. "It's too dangerous to move around carelessly in the dark. And if those monsters are still alive..." The zombie's moans echoed eerily across the water.
"I'm scaaared..." a little girl cried, clinging to her mother.
"Smile..." Snake said, huddled up with his snakes under a blanket. Edward's face was cast partially in shadow. He was frustrated. He wanted to save the other survivors, but he had his sister, who was still unconscious in his arms, to think of.
"Ciel!" he said, gritting his teeth. Chêne had been holding herself to keep warm. She gripped her arms tighter.
"They'll make it," she said with a furrowed brow. "The three of them are together. They'll make it!" They sat there through the night, listening as the moaning gradually began to grow weaker and weaker.
=†=†=†=†=†=
Dawn came. Debris from the ship could be seen floating in the water. The head of a zombie floated into the sign for the D-deck. Sebastian and Lacey stood staring out at their handiwork. The sea was red with blood around them, and littered with corpses that had finally been permanently stopped. Sebastian was panting.
"Is it... over?" Ciel asked, poking his head above the seat he had been taken cover under. The oar Sebastian had been holding hit the floor of the boat with a clatter as he collapsed to his knees. He held his arm over his chest. His expression was pained.
"Hey!" Lacey said, worried.
"Sebastian!" Ciel said, startled. They were both concerned.
"The blow of a death scythe… was hard, even for me," Sebastian said, sighing. He held his hand over the wound in his chest. Ciel furrowed his brow.
"Here, sit back. Take a load off," Lacey said, helping Sebastian onto one of the seats. "I think we can relax now. Ciel looked down at the mourning jewelry he was still clutching in his hand.
"The Undertaker… what on earth was he after…?" he asked.
"That is beyond my comprehension, but… as long as you keep that chain of hair lockets, I trust you will see him again, Young Master," Sebastian said.
"True, they seemed really important to him," Lacey agreed.
"He seems to have no intention of harming you, Young Master… but I personally can do without that reunion. Koff!" Sebastian added, coughing hard.
"!" Lacey and Ciel said. They couldn't see that side of his glove, but they were sure there was more blood on it.
"This is the first time I've seen you in such a state," Ciel said.
"Pardon me for being so ungraceful… I am unfit to be the butler of the Phantomhive family," Sebastian said, bowing his head.
"Hey, I don't want to hear any of that," Lacey said. It was obvious how much he was suffering. "Say something, Ciel!"
"..." Ciel stared at his butler.
HONNNK!
They looked over in the direction of the sound of a horn and saw another ship on the horizon.
"It's a rescue boat. Thank God for that," Lacey said. "We can get Chêne warmed up now." The wind swept over them.
"… Sebastian," Ciel said. "I can't afford to have the butler of the Phantomhive family stay in that state forever. Make sure you rest up when we return to the manor. You did well today."
"Young Master..." Sebastian said, surprised. He smiled a little ruefully. "Please stop. I cannot believe I am hearing you say these words… I would prefer not to encounter a storm after this."
