Chapter One

March 12th year of our Lord 1887

Shinigami realm

Ronald Knox, the youngest Shinigami in the London Dispatch Division (something he took the upmost pride in, to the point of being cocky), sat at his office desk typing up his reports for this specific day. This was the part of the job he really hated, the action of hunting and gathering souls gave him the rush of a lifetime, but this was basically torture. It was what the job demanded and he made sure it was all in the form that his boss, William T. Spears, demanded.

The black and blonde haired young man paused in his work and his brow wrinkled in thought. Speaking of his boss, he could not recall if he had seen William around the office. Other then it being a pretty normal workday, that was the only thing that really stuck out as odd. His boss was always around. William was well known for being the first one at the office and the last one to leave. His piercing green eyes shifted over to the desk that was two behind him, those eyes of his landed upon a vibrant red head.

"Oy, Grell! Do ya know where William has gotten off ta? I 'aven't seen him all day." He leaned back in his chair draping a bit over it in order to be more comfortable while looking back at his co-worker.

Grell sighed some and tapped his fingers upon his chin in thought, "I think he said he was going out to take care of a few personal things, and that he would be right back. You would have heard this if you came into work on time Ronnie Darling…"

Before he could prevent it, his eyes rolled in response. "Yeh, o' well, but 'e 'asn't exactly 'come righ' back,' e's been gone all day."

"Sadly William is more dedicated to his job then me or anyone else, I'll never know why…" He sighed heavily, "but I'm sure he'll be back as soon as he possibly can."

Ronald frowned briefly and swung back to face his desk feeling more antsy and restless but he did eventually buckle down and got back to work. Time seemed to go by much slower then.

A few hours passed, Ronald was now finishing up his reports, much to his relief, when he heard shouts telling people to clear a path in the halls. A strong sense of panic and alarm took hold of the young Shinigami causing him to jolt out of his seat and stand on his tiptoes to see what was going across the office. All he could see were two people walking briskly, one in front of the other clearly carrying something between them. He could not see anything specific since a crowd of his coworkers obscured any chance he had to see what it was.

Anxiety finally got the best of him motivating him to push through the crowd of people that blocked Ronald from the point of interest. All he was able to see was a quick glimpse of onyx hair in between the two carriers before they disappeared into the infirmary.

Whispers and mindless chatters of gossip sprung up amongst the large group of Shinigami that gathered the moment they were out of view. Ronald could not help but roll his eyes. He did not have the patience for such purposeless drabble, unlike them he was going to see if he could do something, anything, to help if he could. He finished pushing through the remainder of people that had not yet gone back to their desks until he reached the door to the infirmary. It did not take any thought at all to push open the door and slip inside the room.

The first thing that caught his eye was the doctors and nurses hectically running about as they attempted to get the needed supplies to tend to the sudden patient. Ronald watched them a moment before allowing his steady gaze to scan the technologically advanced medical center. Whilst the humans were still struggling to understand everything about humanoid anatomy and medical benefits of the natural world, the Shinigami were much more advanced in both knowledge and their technology. They could easily treat something as simple as a cold, or in this case, something much worse…

Through the hustle of the doctors and nurses, Ronald finally spotted the figure on the hospital bed across the long room. Currently it was the only person occupying a bed, thus he had to be the one that was just brought in. He swallowed stiffly as he felt great dread come over him as he crept closer to the bed. Feet were heavy as concrete, weight on his chest made it hard to breathe and his heartbeat sped up and muted all sounds around him. All that mattered was closing the distance between him and that bed.

It was his slow arduous pace that made the walk feel like an eternity until he was at the end of that bed peering down at the figure that lay upon it. It was at that moment Ronald felt his growing fears come to life. His eyes fell upon the stiff, pale, unresponsive figure of his boss: William T. Spears.

Dry blood caked and covered his thin-pursed lips and several tracks of that blood ran down from his lips and down his chin and neck. Bruises and cuts covered the middle of his slender neck screwing up what Ronald saw as perfection. Lastly he noted the slashes and cuts that laid around and across his boss's eyes, which made him note another important fact: William's glasses were not on his face. He looked and saw they were not even set upon the bedside table where he would have expected they would be if a doctor or a nurse took them off as they examined him.

The building fear inside the younger Shinigami got even more extreme and overwhelmed every inch of his being. Not only there was a creature or a being out there that could defeat his boss, but there was a being that beat him in an unresponsive state. Ronald almost didn't want the doctors to strip the rest of his clothes off and show the state of his body if everything above his collar was marred to this terrible state. For a moment his eyes had fallen on his boss's neck for a little too long by accident and he swore he saw veins protruding a little in the deepest section of the main cut.

Though he had a terrible urge to throw up all the contents of his stomach, he did his best to hold himself together. Ronald had seen worse admittedly, but seeing a person he knew and cherished in such a state, riled his insides to the upmost degree. He had to hold himself together for William's sake, for the man was still unconscious to the world.

Ronald was soon brandished to the side by two nurses and a doctor who, at last, got all the supplies and equipment they needed to start tending to the boss of the division. The youngest Shinigami watched with an anxious gaze, until a nurse led him out of the infirmary. She promised to get him the moment they stabilized William before she quickly disappeared back into the medical ward.

All he had to do right now was wait. It was all he could do.

"Ronald? Ronald Knox?" A few eternal hours had passed when the nurse finally came back out and called for him.

He had been sitting still, stiff with stress and his fingernails were now nubs, but the moment he heard someone call his voice he had jolted up without hesitation. "Y-Yeh?" He asked as he rushed over from the waiting bench. He had refused to go back to work he knew he would not be able to concentrate on it.

She led him back towards the infirmary talking to him all the way back there. "Now, I must tell you, his physical state has stabilized but that does not mean that he's anywhere close to being where he was, it will take a few months to get back to his former status…"

"Is e'… ya know… awake…?" Ronald wanted to talk to him, look into William's eyes as he reassured him that everything was going to be fine and he was there for him.

"I'm afraid not. Mister Spears is still in a deep coma and it seems he will be that way for quite some time. His conscious brain functions are still not responding. I'm sure they will with time. We just have to be patient right now and take this at one step at a time… It was a miracle he survived at all considering what was done to sections of his body. We must not discount that."

Ronald just nodded at this staying silent even as they re-entered the infirmary. The moment he was able to, he rushed to his boss's side sitting in the chair beside his bed once again. It was then he reached for his hand gripping it lightly and tried to smile.

William's neck was bandaged all around the slender contours. His face and lips had been cleaned up of all the blood that had been caked upon it and of course, the deeper gashes had been stitched up. Lastly all the cuts around William's eyes had been disinfected and Band-Aids had been placed on the more serious of them.

The blond had to admit despite the bandages, William looked more relaxed then he had ever seen him. He found it sad that this was the first time he had seen his boss without a stick up his ass. There wasn't even a single frown on his face; it was completely relaxed. Ronald did not know whether to find comfort in this alien sight or to be bothered by it. Nevertheless, he finally got to see what some of the girls in Generals Affairs were saying. William actually was quite good-looking, if you had a thing for the stiff, official bookish types that is. Why he had to see this now whilst his boss was such in a dire state did disturb him some, but he tried not to think too much more about it. Even if William was unconscious, he needed to be mentally in the present in order to be alert while William could not be. Most of all, he felt like he should be doing something to help him get better faster, but he could not. Ronald never felt more helpless in his existence as a Shinigami.

"Boss…? Boss?" He whispered holding his hand clasping it between both of his in a tender warm touch. "Please wake up… Open yer eyes; we're all so worried for ya… We all want teh bastard who did this ta pay fer hurtin' ya…" He had let go of one of the hands to use it to tenderly stroke William's soft pale white cheek gazing longingly at him. He slowly drew his hand away shaking his head at himself, "nah, ferget what I said… Relax fer once, get better… but teh moment yer better, ya open yer eyes or I'll never fergive ya fer makin' me worry longer then I 'ave ta."

William did not stir. He was as still and pale as if one of their fellow reapers had stolen his life-essence away. It was so disturbing to the young Shinigami that he had to slide his finger off of his boss's cheek to the side of his neck, pressing his fingertips right against the indent there in order to feel the small weak pulse that still kept William very much alive, though it was not apparent in the least.

"He's still very much alive, I can assure you strongly of that. If not for his strong essence and determination not to let him fade away he would have been long gone." The head doctor over William's care had made himself known by walking over to the bedside and close to Ronald. "You must be Ronald Knox, I heard quite a lot about you from the nurses, gossip and all that."

Ronald let out a little strained laugh and he smiled feeling embarrassed, "eh, good things I can 'ope."

"Well, that you are quite the charmer naturally, and that you're a hard worker with poor motivation. Lastly that though you try not to show it outwardly, you care deeply for Mr. Spears, it does show at times like this however." He shook his head, "pardon me for the little rant there, what I meant to say is that the pleasure is mine, I am Doctor Calloway." He bowed his head a little then stepped towards William's bed clearing his throat before he started to speak again. "His case is a disturbing one, I have never seen anything like it. Whatever attacked him to put him in such a state is no laughing matter. It truly knew how to attack a Shinigami's essence and how to tear it apart. Luckily enough Mr. Spears is strong and did not allow that being to succeed in its endeavor."

Ronald's eyes widened considerably in his surprise, "O' blimey! There's somethin' out there tha' can do tha'?!" He felt like going after his superiors, taking them by the shoulders and shaking them like crazy for not notifying him of this danger. First, he had to absolutely make sure that William was going to be ok and pull through this horrible ailment.

The doctor sighed heavily then, "apparently, no one was openly aware of it however. At least there are no accessible records that describe these symptoms after an attack by anything that we're aware of…"

"Do ya at least know why e' can't wake up? I mean we're not 'umans, so a simple bump on teh noggin' couldn't 'ave caused this, righ'?"

"You're correct. A concussion did not cause this… In fact we do not think that any of Mr. Spears physical injuries have caused this deep coma, we believe after or during attack, whoever did this has messed with his own Cinematic Record."

Ronald felt himself stare the doctor down in mild confusion. He had been a Shinigami for quite some time now but certain specifics about his new life tended to go through one ear and out of the other. William was the one who lived for specifics, he himself preferred to live life to the fullest and learn about specifics later when he needed them. Now was one of those times it seemed. "Cinematic Record? I though tha we no longa 'ad those since we are dead 'umans tha' are reborn inta Shinigami an thus we dun 'ave a Record anymore."

"Yes… and no. As you know when humans die Shinigami reap their souls and collect their Cinematic Record, but those who lived a misfortunate life, or whose lives were taken from them before their scheduled time, have the chance to be reborn as Shinigami. Only if their soul is strong enough to endure the transition of course." The doctor took a breath as he glanced briefly at the comatose supervisor. His eyes lingered before they drifted back to Ronald after a moment. "A human's Cinematic Record ends when they die, and then it is collected and stored as you know. However, if they become a Shinigami, a new specialized reel begins as the person starts a new life. And instead of a soul, Shinigami have 'life-essence.' "

Ronald nodded occasionally to show that he was listening and paying attention but he almost felt bewildered by the amount of information that was coming at him at once. Still, if listening to all of this meant understanding what happened to his boss, he was more then certainly going to listen to all of this. "So uh… ya said it was 'ose things tha' were damaged an' rendered 'im in tis coma?"

"That is the most basic version to explain it, so yes that is correct, but let me emphasize that this is extremely rare. I have lived this life for a long time and have not yet come across an occurrence like this before. Mind you, records three hundred years ago mentioned a string of attacks on humans that had this pattern of wounds that rendered them in a comatose state or killed them. However, records never indicate that the person behind the attacks has never been indentified."

The young Shinigami paled further at this information. Even he understood the implications of this. Either there was a very dedicated copycat or the perpetrator had remerged from the furthermost depths of recorded history to continue what he began three centuries ago.