Chapter 3: anger

I walked home in a rage, with Grell struggling to keep up with me.

"Hey, Leah, talk to me! What happened? Why are you so angry?"

"It's that asshole William! God, I've never met anyone so irritating in my entire life! He dared to pick on me more than anyone else! He spent all the goddamn training day watching me and criticizing everything I did! I'm not going to be perfect all the time! I wish he'd go to hell!" My eyes were probably glowing so bright that people automatically moved away from me as Grell and I navigated through the big crowd of people in the city square. "We are coming home and you are retyping my entire resume for me, Grell Sutcliff. Don't you dare make a single mistake. I want it perfect."

Grell gulped.

"Sure I will…"

Grell and I shared a semi-detached house. I lived in one side, and he lived in the other side. We had several holes in the walls that separated us so we could talk to each other whenever we wanted. I slammed the door behind me. Only my determination to be a grim reaper remained of all my previous desires. I didn't want to face William for another day. I wanted to kill him so much. I slammed the door into my room and shut the window and locked it. Then I let things rip. This was the way I got rid of my anger. I would lift everything in my room, make it fly around in circles, slam into things, and then place it back the way it was. I was sure my room would look a lot more beat up than this after my training as a shinigami was over.

The last table clunked back into place. When the time came for me to fight my partner, I would make the arena look like a tornado had passed through it. Which it would. I slammed my fist down on the table and nearly broke it. Why did he have to get on my nerves so much?

Not only did he annoy the hell out of me, but I couldn't stop thinking about him! Why did I want to impress him so much? He was just your average loser shinigami who pissed me off endlessly. I wanted to make all the cinematic records in the library come off the shelves and bury him in a pile of books. Maybe I should steal his glasses when he wasn't looking? He was probably as blind as a bat without them. Hell, he was blind as a bat with them!

There was the other problem that every time I got pissed off, my eyes would start glowing yellow. He pissed me off endlessly. Would my eyes glow endlessly too? Everyone would think I was a freak and it would be all William's fault! Why did he have to exist?

Grell told me that the demon had flung Grell's chainsaw at William. I wished that it had actually hit him. I had been aware that he had been going around killing prostitutes with a human woman. I told him to do as he pleased, though it wouldn't end well. As usual, I was right. He had been demoted to scissors for two months. Every night he came back, he would invite me over and make me tea while he told me his adventures. He and William had fought a crazy angel who had broken into the library of cinematic records. I wished the angel had killed William.

He acted so prim and proper it was sickening. Maybe that was just me because I had grown up with Grell who was as stupid and improper as you could get. I certainly preferred Grell over William any day. Why couldn't Grell teach us? I knew the answer to that question already though

I spent all evening practicing, lunging with my axes, flipping them around, trying my hand with two, with one, with them in different hands, throwing them. I did this for roughly five hours, and I was dead tired by the time I was done. I will be the next legendary shinigami! I promised myself. Not Grell, not that jerk, not anyone in the managerial class, but me!

*The next day*

I woke up really early. The sky was still dark. I stared at the clock on the wall and then went to get ready with a malicious grin on my face. If William didn't want me to come late, I would come a few hours early. What better way than to contradict his orders? Call me evil but I love thinking up ways to annoy people I hate. Grell had gone to the human world to reap a soul, so I was pretty much on my own. Then again… I'd hate to be in the same room as William with no one else there. I had roughly about two hours before I was even supposed to wake up, let alone get going to training academy. I put on a plain red t-shirt and jeans, grabbed my Walkman and walked outside.

I sat on the pier and turned the volume onto full. It was nice, watching the sun go up as I listened to music. It took my mind off unwanted things-and people- and helped me relax and get ready for the day. I thought I vaguely heard someone calling my name, but I couldn't hear anything with my head phones on.

Someone walked up and tapped me on the shoulder. As usual, it was my least favourite person. I took my headphones off.

"It's not sensible not to pay attention when someone is talking to you."

"Sorry, my music was too loud." I shrugged and set my headphones aside, put my walkman on pause and looked at William. Just looking at his face pissed me off.

"I could hear it from over here. You like rock music?"

"Yes. It's something I picked up from Grell."

"I see. I came to return these to you. You left so quickly yesterday that you forgot some of the things at your desk." He passed me a stack of books. "Please refrain from it happening again."

"Thanks"

"It's Thank you sir."

"Thank you sir" I repeated. He should be grateful I even said thanks. Prick. I set the books beside me and put my headphones back on. I turned my back on him and kept listening to music. I waited until I was sure he walked away. I made the books levitate and smash into the fence, imagining the fence was William's face. I quickly put them back before anyone saw. I certainly made a dent in the fence.

It was with great sorrow in my heart that I packed my things and walked up towards the library. I was seriously considering quitting being a grim reaper, but I wanted to prove everyone I knew wrong. I headed up the pathway to the library. Some of the other grim reapers I recognized from my class were also walking up the path behind me.

"Oh there's Leah… she's senior Sutcliff's sister." I heard one say

"I heard that it was just a typo. Besides, they look nothing alike."

"Ha, who cares if she's that gay jerk's sister? She's just a little girl! She'll never make it into the academy." A third, loud voice said. Did he just call my best friend a gay jerk? Did he just call me a little girl? I would make scrap meat out of this guy. I took a look at him. No glasses, a first for a guy. He had very messy brown hair and a sneer on his face. He didn't see that I was watching.

"Watch the way you talk about them. I hear Senior Sutcliff doesn't like when people talk about Leah."

Great. Now I was the talk of the entire grim reaper facility. Grell did know how to get attention, and he did it very well, but he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that I hated the spotlight. I would be perfectly content being the wallflower of the class.

There was no lecture today, thankfully, but we went straight to the training arena to start combat training. Today, William didn't seem to pick on the way I used my weapons so much. I guessed I should be grateful for that. I paid more attention to the people around me. Many were wimps and could barely make a single cut on one of their dummies. Two of my dummies were in shreds already.

The boy without glasses who had insulted Grell was working pretty well, too. His targets and his dummies were all in shreds. As far as I knew, no one else possessed telekinesis, which meant that he was just a very good thrower. No one knew that I possessed telekinesis either. The only thing that gave me away was that my eyes would glow whenever I threw something. But no one would look in my eyes when I threw. I was perfectly fine. I hoped I would get paired with him so that I would kick his ass and teach him a lesson. No one insulted my best friend. Not even me.

Over all, there was not much competition in the class. I saw what William meant by 'only half would make it, and less than half of that would become real grim reapers.' A whistle blew and we stopped working. William walked down the stairs to the inside of the arena, holding a clipboard.

"The fighting pairs have been decided for next week's advancement. Please listen carefully for your name, as I won't repeat it twice…" He launched into a list of names. By the time he was halfway through the list, some of the other kids looked kinda panicky. I wondered who they'd been paired with. "Leah Hayes and Jordan Fox." He announced the last pair. The boy grinned at me. We were partners? I couldn't believe my luck. Not only would I get to punish him with my own hands, but I would also get to show how good of a fighter I was by beating out one of the major competitors. I was actually sure that William had put me and Jordan together on purpose to try to stop me getting to the next advancement. That wasn't going to happen though. I would become a grim reaper. That I knew.

Let the games begin.