Black, polished shoes were tapping the clean white tile impatiently. It was an eerie sound in an otherwise quiet room, occupied by only six people. Five of those people stood behind tall podiums in a half circle around a female, who was looking rather annoyed at them. She was dressed in a suit identical to them, identical to all of them. A thick silence had saturated the conference room for a few minutes, before the female shattered the silence with an outburst,

"But WHY can't I go and see him!? That's why I was transferred here, right!? Because he and I were in love!?"

The Shinigami in front of her straightened his glasses, a bit startled by the sudden outburst after so much silence, not that it showed. He cleared his throat, and spoke in a monotone voice,

"Ehem...no, that is not why at all. You were transferred here because we are in need of assistance from other experienced Reapers. It was just a coincidence, I doubt he'll even remember you, the old bat. Reapers from the States have all sorts of crazy names, 'Lila' wouldn't strike him as too out of the ordinary. You have changed a lot since then, and so has he."

This was true. She was thinner, hair longer and pulled back into a low pony tail, just to keep it out of her face. Her eyes were predominantly green, but there was still a good ringing of typical yellow. Shiny silver glasses frames were a stark contrast to the slightly faded and worn suit she wore, refusing to accept a new one, now that she had left the States. Still, Lila didn't much believe that Undertaker would have merely forgotten her, or at least she was too scared to even consider it, and had to bite back a retort as another Shinigami to her left, whose name she'd never cared much to learn, spoke up,

"Furthermore, you are forbidden to go and see that Undertaker! Your papers came with you, and it is very clear your work is very much governed by your emotion! Frankly, I don't know HOW you have not contracted the Thorns of Death at this point, but it is only a matter of time! Going to see that man would only complicate things, and put you in more danger than what is necessary!"

Her eyes narrowed. Of course there was always danger associated with this job, and the summons she had received had been rather vague about exactly what was going on that was so important that one of the more experienced Reapers was suddenly being pulled out of that hellhole of chaos that was the States and thrust back to a place she hadn't been for one hundred and some odd years, especially considering she'd never worked here.

"What EXACTLY is the nature of this emergency?"

That seemed to bring the thickness of silence back, and the rising of anxiety with it. The Reaper at the front pulled from a briefcase an old and worn photograph of a large bell, maybe four feet tall from the ground to the shoulder, the mouth sporting a five foot circumference. It appeared to be made of predominantly black onyx, decorated with odd geometric shapes. It had a belt across the deadline, and peeking out from it was what looked like a large, closed dragon's eye made of rubies and sapphires. There were other small gems dusting it, and it gave off an eerie atmosphere of gloom, even just looking at the picture. It seemed to hang in an open air rigging on top of a mountain, presumably Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. The land around it was wild and undisturbed so far by human intervention. Lila turned away rather quickly, unable to quell the rising sense of doom when looking at it. The picture was quickly stuck back into an envelope, the envelope shoved into the locking briefcase it had come from, and a new Shinigami, to her right, began to speak in a voice that held more emotion than the others, even if just slightly,

"That is the Toltramon; the Dragon Bell, the Doom Bell, or the Fate Bell. It is said that the world will be engulfed in flames when it opens its eye and begins to ring. In order to guard it and keep it sleeping, a group of our best Reapers were sent to guard it from those who would want to wake it up, mostly the likes of demons driven mad with hunger. A few days ago, they sent us an urgent message, that the bell was beginning to move, though its eye hadn't opened. It moves only a few times per day, but this is very bad news. The Bell is beginning to wake up, and we need new ideas on how to soothe it back to sleep. If it was to ring right now, all living things would perish. We have no safe house prepared to evacuate to."

Lila had been taught briefly about the Toltramon, but not much. It wasn't supposed to wake up for a few thousand more years, so no one said much about it.

"We have summoned a few Reapers from every Division to try to come up with a plan, and so far we have failed."

He kept talking, but Lila had stopped listening after the explanation about the Toltramon. Her mind was consumed with plans to go and find Undertaker again, even if he really didn't remember her. No doubt they hadn't said a thing about the Toltramon to Undertaker, and if it did wake, the working Shinigami would surely be long gone. Even if they couldn't find a way to soothe the Doom Bell, and humans, demons, angels, and Shinigami alike perished in the flames, as the legend goes, at least she and Undertaker could die hand in hand, like they had always wished so many years ago, when London was wild and untamed.