Consider this more an interlude than anything. Sorry it's so short, but I really don't want to mess with the chapter breaks I have in place, and obviously, when I was writing this... I wrote really short chapters ^_^. For those that have seen it, yes, I did borrow a character from Yuu Yuu Hakuusho, and she is used without permission, just like the Gundam Pilots.

Part 7 of ?

Shinigami stood in the middle of the vandalized room and let his senses expand around him. The first thing he felt was the taint of another immortal. Unfortunately, whoever it was was masking their signature. There was the faintest hint of familiarity, but not enough for the angry god to figure out who it was.

The god of death was furious. Duo Maxwell was his! True, he hadn't yet claimed him officially, but that didn't change the fact that the boy was his high priest if nothing else. Another god was supposed to ask for his permission to court the mortal. Permission which, of course, he wouldn't give.

The feeling of evil that Duo and Quatre had felt with the second watcher was obvious in the room as well. Unfortunately that didn't help all that much. The whole 'gods are good and demons are evil' myth was just that, a myth. Gods were gods and demons were demons and good and evil had nothing to do with it. In fact, more than half of the gods under him in the House of Death would be considered evil by human standards, as would most of the gods in the House of War, even some in the House of Nature. By most standards, humans would consider him, as well as the Gundam pilots, evil. Simply because of their jobs and duties.

Shinigami shook his head. This wasn't getting him anywhere. He needed information, and he wasn't going to be able to get it here. He sent his senses out to check for danger to his special priest and didn't find any. He, all of them in fact, would be fine for a little while as he checked in at home.

Shinigami spared a thought for the situation between Duo and Wufei. Something was going to have to be done before it went any farther. Unfortunately, the stupid rules set up by Kami-sama made it almost impossible to do what he wanted to do. He couldn't just go in and take what was his, couldn't even show himself to the one he loved, not yet. Soon though. All the requirements except one were in

place. He just needed to keep Wufei and Duo from each other for a short while. Maybe if he put Wufei in the hospital...

Oh well, he'd think about it later.

Shinigami ghosted outside, unsurprised to find a large white mare waiting for him. With no more than a pat to her flank, he swung up onto her saddle. It took no time at all to reach the temple that was his home and the main headquarters of the House of Death. He headed to the control room, absently responding to the greetings from the various beings around him.

He didn't bother stopping in at his office, he didn't want to know how much paperwork was probably waiting for him. His assistants knew how to get in touch with him if there was a true emergency, but there was a ton of things that weren't that important but he was still supposed to take care of himself. He couldn't wait for the next century to be over, until it was finally time for someone else to take over as the Head of the House and he could go back to his own job.

"Shinigami-sama! You're back!" Hinageshi smiled, looking up from the computer screen in front of her.

Shinigami shook his head. "I just came to check on some information."

Without hesitation, the ferrygirl got up and gave her seat to the god. She hadn't been working on anything important, after all.

"Arigotou, Hinageshi-san," Shinigami sat down and started working. First he checked the dates of death for his favored mortals. He let out a breath in relief. Not that he would hesitate to change the date if he wasn't happy with it, but thankfully it didn't seem to be necessary. He hadn't bothered to check before, being interested only in the one pilot, but now they all had a place in his heart.

Hinageshi watched the emotions flashing across the face before her. Until Shinigami took over as Head of House almost four centuries before, she hadn't had much to do with the solemn god, their jobs simply didn't intersect that much since the consolidation of the world's gods millennia before. His duty suited his personality, but made him a very cold, stoic and lonely god. It was nice to see him actually interested in someone. And the lengths he was going to! If it hadn't been for Kami-sama's decree, she was sure the young mortal that had taken his fancy would already be firmly ensconced as Death's consort. She smirked behind her hand. Maybe it would make the god less of a stick-in-the-mud.

Shinigami searched the databanks, looking for the locations of the gods in both the House of Death and the House of War. The other three Houses were not likely to be interested in the Gundam pilot. Even after discarding all of the gods that wouldn't be interested, such as the god of Peaceful Death in his own house, and the ones such as the god of Mischief that had unbreakable alibis, it still left almost a dozen possibilities. Two more he discarded because he knew that blood soaked flowers weren't their courting style.

He was about to go search out the first person on his list when a warning went off in the back of his mind. He needed to get back to his priest, something was going on. He turned to the red haired girl behind him. He handed her the list. "Put a watch on these if possible. At least the ones in our House. Let me know immediately if any of them go near my priest."

"Hai, Shinigami-sam..." He was gone before she even finished the word. She shook her head in exasperation, but there was a smile on her face. She truly couldn't wait to meet this priest of his. He must be something to engender this degree of obsession with the normally unflappable god. She set out to do as she was asked. After all, this boy might be good for the god, but she was sure he wouldn't change him enough that she shouldn't be worried if she failed in her duty.

Shinigami ran through the temple, not noticing the wide-eyed stares following him. He needed to get back to his mortal. Now.