Undead's Home Planet
Death Sensei's Home
Death brewing another cup of beer and sighed. Calliope hasn't come home yet. He knows that she will, merely zombie maker scientist are nothing compared
to his student. But god know how many rashness has contain inside his last student's head.
And the fact that she hasn't come back after the estimate clearing time has passed make him even more uncertain.
After finish cooking dinner for both (reaper doesn't need to eat.
But the old habit once they were mortal are hard to erased.)
Death sensei leaving two plates of cave crocodile eggs and mushroom omelette behinds before going to clean the floor, trying to make the house as cleanup
as possible before Mori will arriving their home.
After wiping every dust off the house, Death walking back to the kitchen and gasped, seeing that it was not Calliope but Artia, who sitting on the dining table
and sipping his beer.
" Nice meal aren't it? Remind me of our old time!"
" So, you are still alive after all. Did you killed Mori?" Death asked sharply.
" No! She nearly killed me instead. I must say that she is tougher than her look." Artia snorted.
Death chuckled. " That's my girl. She always has a promising future."
" You always said that to every one of you disciples. What about me and my 'promising future'?" Artia chuckled.
" You supposed to be one of the best reaper I ever teaches.
If it wasn't your stupidity-"
" I am at fault for wanting to revive my homeland? Old habit are hard to kill, old man. Like the fact that you are always preferred beer before dinner."
Artia sipping the alcohol and make a crappy face.
" Nothing last forever, Artia. It is your first lesson as a reaper." Death said solemnly.
" And that's including you too. Remember, you and that kid Calliope are the only reaper in this area. If you guys are gone, then there will be nobody to stop
me from reaping every soul in this city.
And I must say, that my souls quota is nearly finished.
So, I will not let you go easily like the last time. That, and the fact that you are foolish enough to giving your scythe to Calliope.
Nothing can stop me from killing you right now."
" Don't be ridiculous, Artia. You knows that reaper's weapon couldn't kill neither of us." Death sipping his beer and sighed.
" You are right. Which is why I have to using my magic!" Artia summoning three icy spears an controlling it to piercing at Death sensei body from under the
table, aiming at his chest.
But the skeleton man simply walking aside to dodged the attack and throwing invisible chain from his sleeves, wrapping it around Artia's neck and pulled,
dragging her toward his fist, which is punching hard enough to knocking the mad reaper down in one blows.
Artia rising her magic staff, but Death simply kicking the item away from her hands and pulling his chain again, bringing Artia closer to him as he start giving
her a chain punches, giving Artia around 30 punches in less than 5 seconds before he will kicking her heels and start wrapping the chain around Artia's neck
again, pulling harder this time.
" No use, little girl. This chain has been made from the noise of a cat's footfall, a woman's beard, mountain roots, the sinews of a bear, a fish's breath,
and the spittle of a bird. Or that's what those who selling it to me said so. The point is that you can neither see or being freed from it.
Bonus point: it is not reaper weapon.
So, there is no problem in killing you with it!" Death whispered as he is pulling even harder, making Artia choked and tearing clawing on her throat,
desperate to breath.
When Artia hands finally limping beside her body, Death relaxed his grips and sighed. " I cannot do it, little girl. You are always my beloved student!"
" Luckily that I didn't saw you as my teacher!" Artia snarled, summoning the icy spear that stabbing through Death's skeleton chest at point blank range.
She then quickly grabbed her staff and summoning ices blade as she is swinging it, cutting both of Death's legs in one sweep.
Sensei reaching for his invisible chain, but Artia is already ahead of him and swinging her blade again, cutting his arms and then thrusting her blade at him,
impaling Death with the wall.
" This is for your stupid mercy!" Artia pulling her staff out of Death's cripple body, letting him dropped on the floor like a sack of potatoes.
" I will always have mercy for my student." Death said, before asked solemnly.
" Will you just killed me now?"
Artia shook her head. " You are incapable of doing anything now, old man. Continues existing or not is none of my business.
Just lying here and watching everything dies around you… Sensei."
And with that. Artia simply disappeared inside the house's shadow.
…
Mori Calliope
" Old man, bad news.Sh*t!" Calliope who just coming back from her failed tasks cursed as she is seeing that the house has gone into mess.
The dining table and scrap of food falling on the wooden floor like there is some kind of fighting happened when she wasn't home.
Calliope holding her scythe upfront and glancing around, seeing nothing unusual, maybe Death Sensei is drunk and fight with himself or something.
But she has to be sure by checking every room first that everything is okay.
Reaper opening her teacher room and gasps. Seeing that Death sensei, who is crawling next to the small shrine in front of his bed.
Losing his arms and legs and has to use his mouth to open the medicine jar, making the healing liquid splatter all over the room.
" Old man, what's happening!"
Calliope asked, scurrying to help him picking the bottle up and tending his wounds. But Death shook his head as Calliope start pouring the black liquid on his
body.
" It is no use, little girl! My body is too old to healing from such wounds. If it was a century ago or twos. I might have some chances.
But this!" He chuckled wearily.
" Is my last day as a reaper. I am sorry that it has to end like this.
We should have a nice meal and proper good bye. But I guess I could give you a quick send off."
" No!" Calli gripping on her teacher long robe as if it was a life saver item.
" I can use 'shadow travel' movement now! See?" Calli wailed, using her new learned ability to teleport behinds the shadow and then come back to her
teacher again.
" Don't f**king dies on me! You have to teaching me about ' the last reap' act first!" Calliope is referring to the reaper special attack that Death haven't
taught her how to do it yet.
" Every… reaper… must learn about last reap by themselves. Either me will be able to see it or not… isn't matter. You aren't a quick learner, Calli.
But the fact that you finally learned how to using 'shadows travel' ability meaning that you can be improved."
"I am sure you will manage to perform every art of reap in time.
For my last disciple, you aren't disappointed me at all!" Death chuckled, choking as he is trying to laughed.
" Hold your horse, old man! I have to report the guild about who did this to you first… It was Artia, isn't it?" Calliope asked.
Skeleton man grinned. " She has talk about how you kicking her ass a little. I must say, I am proud of you."
" Artia talking madly about how her planet used to teems with life and being a reaper preventing her from restoring it. What was all that about?"
Calliope demanded, pretending to not seeing her teacher injury while she is asking. If she hasn't talk about it, it might not become reality after all.
" Yeah… Reaper are always the person with the past. You must doing something worth admiring in order to become one, like sacrificing yourself for everyone
to survived and such. So that management can know that you are trustworthy person." Death coughs.
" So, in exchange of all of our good deeds. We have to works as a killer in the shadow forever? Sound unfair to me!" Calli snorted.
" Life is never been fair. It's all about how you cope with it.
For some, it's mean that you have to destroyed everything you known in order for it to become 'fair'." Death lectures.
" And what Artia is doing. Does that count as one?"
" She doesn't want to destroy everything. She just wanted to revive her homeland by using other lifeforms souls.
Which wasn't evil on its own but is against the first rule of reaper. We must not abused the balance between cycle of life and death.
Gosh, this is why we have to deleted every reaper's memory before make them start working. They always interfere with the past.
Something they shouldn't." Death sensei groaned.
" Does that mean, like me. You have no memory of life before becoming a reaper?" Calli asked, both of them tip toed around this topic during her time as
death's student. Maybe this is the only time for her to make sure about the fact.
" Yes, and I hopefully that I will never knows it too. Just look at what the 'knowledge' did to Artia. She supposed to be the best reaper I ever teaches,
and now she is just a f**king criminal!"
Calliope watch her own hand in silence, what will she react if she has known about the past life? Will she become the aggressively destroyer like Artia?
Or she will just living happily, knowing that nothing she did will actually matters. Did she have mom and dad?
Or the loved one? How will they react after the new of her 'dead' reached them?
" It doesn't matter now." Death said, as if he could reading her thought. " There are no need for looking in other possibilities.
What's matter is now.
Artia Will performing the soul gathering ritual soon, I suspect that it will being performed on highest ground in this area.
You need to stop her before the ritual is over. If the ritual is completed, every souls that being captured by her will being transferred into the new energy.
Like how necromancer making their pseudo soul.
If enough number of what should have dead live and what should have live dead occur. There will become impossible to fixing the damages that has been
done.
And if balanced is being destroyed, the system might rebooting itself too!" Death clarified.
" Wait, reboot? You mean, like deleted everything and creating a new one?" Calli gasped.
" Why do you think I need to stop her that much? It's not about billions of death anymore. But the end of all thing.
My heart is too weak to killing my own student. So, I am sorry that you had to finished what I started billion of years ago!" Death concluded.
" Wait! Wait! Wait! Why can't you contacting the reaper guild?
Enma probably not going to let the whole thing ended up like that!" Calli demanded, remembered her interview with the head of reaper world.
Enma loved everything under control. She probably ordered a wild hunt party for every reaper in the area to cleaning this mess on no time.
" Do you think Artia is a fool? She already injected people from the nearby planet with a lot of souls she has collected.
It required almost millions of reaper to cleaning that up and even that is not quick enough for them to coming here in time.
That's the reason why Artia is chilling enough to playing with you and dismembered my old bones. By sacrificing a bit of souls in her pockets.
The reaper organization are being thrown in the false leads.
And she could collect as many souls she need on this planet while everyone wasn't looking."
" I will deal with her!" Calliope picked up the scythe, readily to running out of the house. " And then we will brought you to Enma's palace.
She probably have something to cured your injuries-"
" Calli…"
" And then we will having a nice dinner together! I will making the meal myself. But if you wasn't sure about my cooking skills,
we can always go to the fancy restaurant!"
" Calli."
" And then we will discussed about how to used my 'last reap' skills! Don't bullsh*t me about learning by yourself!
Everybody must've learned everything from someone else. Or no one will need the the adult at this rate."
" Nothing last forever, Calliope. Myself included."
" Even if your arms and legs couldn't grow back. We can find you a wheelchair or something. At least you can still teaching your long experience as a reaper
to me. So please… Don't say something like that!" Calliope wiping the liquid off her eyes and nose. She knows that it is being called tears by other living
creatures. But Calli never experienced it herself. Not until this day.
" Mori Calliope, tells me what is the reaper duty!" Death suddenly shouts, his voice stern.
" We… aren't the killers. It's our duty to… to sending being to the other side when it's about time." Calli wiped her nose and trying to repeat what she was
forced to remember since the first day as a reaper.
" Look at me, Calli. Wasn't it is my time to go?" Death asked, urging at Calliope to looks at his armless and legless body, along with three holes on his chest.
The skeleton man is not being damaged, he is wasted.
" There might be… a way.. to heal…" Calliope begged, almost praying.
" Don't kid yourself, kiddo. And don't looks like you are about to wept too. It wasn't bad at all to go. After all, it was finally my releases from billion years of
duty. You should be grateful, not sorry!"
Death said, probably stroking Calliope's head right now if he still has his hands.
After sobbing like a whiny girl for a few times, Calliope finally gets up.
" I am ready now. What do you want me to do?"
" Take this." Death said, biting into something invisible and dropping it in Calliope's hands. And she slowly seeing the item, it is a long chain that looks like it
wasn't made from metal like other chain she used to see. In fact, it was more like a hair and something slimy.
Not cool at all.
" You can see the item because I gave right of its owning to you. But this is actually an invisible chain, making from the noise of a cat's footfall,
a woman's beard, mountain roots-"
"The sinews of a bear, a fish's breath, and the spittle of a bird.
I know I know. You couldn't stopped bragging about it after the day you bought it from the online store." Calliope laughed tearfully, making Death chuckled
too.
" Like how I have taught you. Reaper's weapon couldn't send us to the cycle of life and death. So, I hope you can use this chain to… you know?"
" It's okay, sensei. You can relaxed now. Everything will be fine." Calliope whispered softly, wrapping the chain around Death's neck and start pulling it.
…
Inside the city of undead, Calliope walking in silence and looking at the night sky. After an hour has passed, she is still unable to find Artia's whereabouts.
Calli searching for the high building, but there are too many of them.
Undead civilizations love building tall buildings. It may have something to do with the fact that their sun is too strong in the past and forcing them to hiding
under their planet surface. Now that the sun finally moving away.
(creating new difficulties of the completed darkness per month and full daylight for the next month as it did so. But it is more relaxed than the day that sun
would get real close for half of year and moving very far away for another half before it's finally returning.)
Lot of undead seems to pop out of the land and building high tower as if to mocking the sun that finally leaves them alone at last.
The darkness that consumed the streetlights make Calliope winced.
She looks up and seeing that the silence is starting to spread from one of the tallest towers in the city.
It is being called Babel tower, reaching almost 3 kilometers height. Not exactly impressive, but good enough for the visitors to looks at it multiple times after
seeing it at first glance.
But tonight there's something weird about it. The artificial lights that always shine all the time during the 'dark' month on this planet seemed to dying away
for some reason, as if there is a problem with electricity.
Every shiny building are being faded away in the darkness as it start spreading around the city, followed by the haunting silenced instead of the liveliness of
the crowds city or shouting in panic that may be expected after the light has gone out.
The blackness finally passed her and everything else in the area.
Reaper watches in astonishment as the people around her suddenly falls down and dies while they were still talking and walking, as if their lives is has been
sucked out of their bodies.
Calliope turning her face into a skull and using her 'reaper eyes' it is the ways for reaper to searching for the soul that couldn't see with naked eyes,
or the gateway of using other reaper skills by lifting the 'shell' of their body up and letting their true face shows.
Calli gasped when seeing that hundreds, no, thousands of souls are floating towards the same direction. A Babel tower, the place where the darkness has
started.
Even a child must understand it. That tower is the place where Artia choose as her ritual performing place.
Calliope clenched her grips and stare at the tower. It is one thing to knowing where her enemy is located. Defeating Artia is the another story.
Calli sure she wasn't being cut into pieces during the first encounter with Artia because she is merely toying with her.
If it was an actual fight. What she is supposed to do? Attack blindly into much stronger enemy? Or planning, what kind of plan she could come up with before
the ritual will end? The time is going to run out if Calliope is still stand here and talking with herself.
Turning her face back to normal state, Calliope sighed and closing her eyes, trying to remember what Death sensei told her before he will joining the circle of
life and death.
…
Death limping body is slowly turning into an ashes while he is still laying on the floor. He looks ridiculously serene for someone who neck being snapped by
his own student.
Calliope wanted to looks away but knows that she couldn't.
It is the first time she ever seeing one reaper 'retired' from his duty.
And that person is her own teacher. Calli must make sure he is going to the other side as comfortably as possible.
" Don't worry, Calli. You can do this." Death said, calming his student down during the last grips of his own existence.
" Just remember the thing I have been teaching you since the first day of our lesson."
" What is it?" Calliope asked, touching his skeleton chest with her palm.
" Reap." Death said, before his whole body will turning into a gray ashes, breaking into dust and blowing away from Calli's hand despite the fact that there's
no wind in his house.
…
Calliope open her eyes and looking at the Babel tower again, before she will disappear inside the shadow of the building next to her, gripping the black scythe
in hands.