Chapter 7: Fading Rose

Disclaimer- I do not own Kuroshitsuji! But I DO own Lucia and this storyline.

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'This place is hell. No doubt. No, actually, it is almost definitely worse than hell. Hell spawned some pleasant things,' the thinker remorsed, 'Hell has personality*. This place sucks you dry until you have no personality left and then does away with you. It's even draining -my- vitality.'

*Albiet not a nice one.

The once extravagant being slumped herself against the grey stone. Her job was endless here in this grey emptiness. There was so much death, so much reaping to conduct! If she didn't know that all the other reapers were working just as hard, she would have complained ages ago* and demanded relief. But no, all reapers were so busy doing just the reaping alone, barely any paperwork could be completed. Not like she liked paperwork, of course. In fact, she usually liked reaping. She liked to see her favourite colour spread all over the victim's body, liked to see the cinematic records, and loved a good fight. But not like this. Not for so long without any signs of it waning! And most of the deaths were so dull and colourless! These people clearly had no conception of drama! There was no grace, no action, and no reason. It was like a really boring opera with tacky bland costumes in ugly grey and brown.

*More than usual, anyway.

Many of her clients were people who didn't deserve this. So many of them had never done anything wrong. So many of them were tiny children... Those were the cases that hit hardest. She was terrible with children, but she liked them and wanted some of her own. 'Bassy's and mine,' she thought with a flicker of her old shark-toothed grin.

After a whole minute of rest, she realised that she probably didn't even have a minute. She was right. Some poor old man had died in his sleep and now his untaken soul had attracted the unwanted attention of two demons. Now Grell had never minded some demons, the kinds who had morals*, and she realised that it wasn't really the demons' fault that they had to eat souls to stay alive, but it bothered her that so many were helping in this war for the sole purpose of feasting on the souls that the reapers couldn't save in time. Unfortunately, this was one of those cases. The demon soldier only grinned at her. Under most circumstances, they would have attacked each other, but in this war there were so many casualties that the demons had no need to attack the reapers to get their meals and reapers were too overworked to stop the demons. In fact, some of the reapers considered the demons a begrudged necessity at this point. If something didn't happen to the souls, they would be trapped in limbo and their body wouldn't truly die. At least if the demons consumed it, it would end up somewhere. But that didn't excuse the vile creature for actually taking a side and fighting in the war without contract. Despicable. She returned his grin with an exhausted look of hatred before he scurried off like the rat he was. It was going to be another long day...

*So basically, Sebastian.

Grell had to prioritise before she dropped from exhaustion. She simply couldn't save all of these souls. Children first. It was her least favourite job, but she knew she was doing them a service no matter how much it hurt her. Next teens. Then the people who stood out as helpful to the captured community. For the rest, she would just have to do her best. She felt awful for that, but she had been at this for half a month without stop. When the month was up, she would have a blissful week break to recharge and then have to go right back to another camp and be able to work at full force for about two weeks before losing vitality. She hoped the war would soon end. She hated that it made her so negatively emotional. 'Or,' she thought selfishly, 'At least -something- distracting would happen...'

As if on cue, she checked her "To Die" list and a grin slowly spread over her face, her vigorous returning. Oh~, it would get interesting after all!

One more chapter done and a new title! This is a lot of fun to write, but I've been busy recently and therefore- updating is SLOW! I'm so sorry!

~Sebassy-chan