Hello again, wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2023!

Chapter four is here and all I wanted to say is that... one more thing I wanted to explore in this fanfiction was to turn images into words. What I mean is that I tried to describe what we see in the manga panels with words, as if the story was written in a book first. Therefore, I know it might be boring at times - reading in detail what you already know - but please let me know if you like my descriptions, if I manage to create a concrete image in your mind while reading. Even if you don't remember the corresponding image from the manga, please, tell me if you get one solely out of my descriptions.

Thank you very much! Please, enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Kuroshitsuji or its characters. I entirely own only my OCs, arcs and ideas/themes not mentioned in any form of the franchise (manga, anime, games, movies or musicals).

Chapter 4: The Tutor, Reaping Battle

After a while they had reached the first class lounge, the device was positioned at the top of the grand stair, but the Viscount was not doing anything since he said the cast missed one more player, greatly confusing the trio. At that moment Rian Stoker appeared, already captured by the reapers, and started accusing the Viscount for stealing the machine. The Viscount unfazed by the accusations welcomed Rian and then started a delirium, saying that with the machine's help he would built a new empire.

"Come again?" Sebastian, Selina and Ciel said at the same time in a total loss.

"He who possesses eternity shall rule with immorality and decadent beauty. And it shall be called…" He paused for a greater dramatic effect. "The Aurora Empire!" He cried and performed the new Aurora pose. He stood on one foot, stretched the other in the air turning his hips whimsically, one hand touching the back of his head and the other stretched in front of him.

"This all seems to have turned quite pear-shaped, huh?" Ronald Knox said scratching the back of his head confused.

"I will make that cad the reddest of reds in the blink of an eye!" Grell announced, readying her chainsaw and herself to jump down from the levelled hall she was standing.

At the same time Selina spoke. "So, let me get this straight. He wants to become an emperor in an empire where people can die and then come back to life as a mindless creature with a sole purpose of violently consuming the flesh of other living people? Of their family and friends?" Ciel and Sebastian nodded that she was right. "This is sicker than any demonic apocalypse I've read about and stuff!" She looked really appalled and then sighed. "It's been three years since I've felt the absolute need to kill a human, but I do now. Can I, my lord?" She asked looking Ciel pleadingly and her eyes revealed a person used to commit killings fully consciously. At that point only the eye colour was what differentiated her from the demon in Ciel's eyes.

The boy was ready to answer when the Viscount made everyone freeze by threatening he would spill his wine on the device. Ronald threw himself on an enraged Grell, circling her waist and begging her to calm down.

"This sense of irritation just grows and grows. May I kill him, young master?" Sebastian asked in a whisper; a stone cold killer look in his eyes. Selina nodding at his side.

"No. Not yet, though I do understand how you feel…" Ciel whispered back having a dangerously similar look to that of the demon and the woman.

At that very moment, the deafening sound of breaking glass was heard and literally a horde of undead appeared through all the glass doors and decorative windows surrounding the lounge. The monsters stretched their hands in a desperate, mindless effort to grasp any living flesh and tear it apart. The number of them had no end and their advances seemed to be driven by a greater strength than any time before, they themselves were bleeding and coming to pieces while trying to pass through broken glass but they paid no attention, since their target was right in front of them. Ciel pleaded to Viscount to start the device, but the man did nothing other than proclaim himself Kaiser and actually blackmail everyone that he would not start the machine unless they called him that.

"Let us kill him after all!" Ciel suddenly decided.

"Please wait. Though I do understand how you feel." Sebastian answered and immediately turned to fight the approaching corpses.

Selina took her swords and supported him worthily, since the butler, still holding Ciel in his arms, could work only with his legs and one hand. Druitt continued his delirium of grandiose comparing everyone to Roman gladiators and himself to Emperor Nero.

"Argh! Can we kill him now?" Ronald Knox yelled once he heard that last bit.

"You just stopped me, did you not?" Grell cried while chopping down one more walking corpse. "Get a move on and start that thing up, would you?" She screamed towards Druitt.

The flamboyant blond man sighed and accepted to start the machine as soon as everyone performed his new Phoenix dance and pledged allegiance to the new Kaiser. "You too, my darling Empress!" He finally said looking Selina seductively… supposedly.

"I would gladly throw myself to Lucifer's feet to be his bitch rather than your Empress!" Selina screamed to the man, who only smiled waiting.

A snickering Undertaker reminded everyone they needed to see what the device was for and that left them with no choice other than to compromise according to Druitt's whims. They finally performed the new Phoenix dance and then Druitt pushed one button, while Ciel was pulling his hair in fury and Selina seemed ready to vomit. Sebastian stared at the two humans stoically.

A few seconds passed and nothing happened, the monsters kept walking towards the humans with no intention of stopping. Out of the blue, Undertaker burst out laughing and Druitt exchanged accusations with Rian that the one tricked the other.

"What a farce this is!" Grell announced and jumped down chopping to pieces every zombie in her path and running towards the Viscount of Druitt. Ronald Knox whistled in admiration to his superior's abilities, but then realized where Grell was heading and started yelling to her that reapers should not kill humans.

Grell was deaf to all this but was stopped, right in front of Druitt, when the Undertaker jumped in holding as a weapon a sotoba, a wooden grave marker with Japanese letters on it, and shielded the Viscount.

"He he! It has been ages since I laughed so hard. In my humble opinion, losing such an amusing chap would be a loss to the world. Do you not agree, my little reapers?" Undertaker said still giggling a little.

Grell could not believe her death scythe, that was supposed to cut everything, could not cut through simple wood. Undertaker threw Grell away and more wooden markers followed as he swirled his black cape. Grell was pushed through the glass ceiling of the room breaking it in countless pieces. Glass started raining and Sebastian hugged Ciel closer trying to protect him, while Selina was trying to cover herself and place her body as a shield for the child.

"Ah… How sad it is… that laughter should vanish from this place." Undertaker said running a hand through his long silver locks always covering his face, now revealing two yellow-green eyes. It was a very distinctive combination of colours, meaning they could only be the eyes of a reaper.

"He masked his presence most skilfully." Sebastian said to a totally surprised Ciel. "His eyes have always been hidden as well, so it escaped even my notice."

"Same here. He fooled me good." Grell said squinting her eyes to see better, while Ronald asked for confirmation that they indeed were facing a rogue reaper. "Yes. That chartreuse phosphorescence, without a doubt can only belong to a grim reaper!"

At that point, Rian Stoker ran to Undertaker yelling at him, how he tricked him about controlling the corpses with the device and about the trip to America to make known the revolutionary discovery. Undertaker, in a very cool manner, explained that his promise was due to the scientist's quite comical and amusing efforts; Rian could never revive a dead body and stopped being a scientist the moment he relied heavily on Undertakers' far from scientific method. The scientist's illusions of a great scientific discovery crumbled and made a rack of the man.

Of course, the time for revealing the truth was not over yet. Undertaker confirmed Ciel's impression of being the founder of Aurora Society out of simple curiosity, and explained how he tampered with the cinematic records of the dying people. He discovered that the reanimated corpses, 'Bizarre Dolls' as he called them, were in search of what they were lacking, a human soul.

For some reason, he found really beautiful these dolls and when Ciel stated this was really sick, Undertaker informed him there were many rich and noble people who really liked his dolls since they were the perfect killing machines. Besides, that was the main reason for the current situation, Undertaker intentionally unleashing all this corpses as a live demonstration for the interested parties and a game survival. Even Sebastian had to admit that Undertaker had totally lost his mind and the two reapers decided they could not overlook all this.

In a few seconds a screaming Grell was attacking Undertaker and Ronald was ready to back up his supervisor when a hard kick sent him flying at the other end of the room.

"Sebastian darling, what do you think you are doing right now?" Grell asked furiously.

"We cannot allow you to haul him away." Sebastian stated in a matter-of-factly manner.

"We ourselves are tasked with presenting the truth before Her Majesty, the Queen. We must not let him escape." Ciel announced standing on the stairs with a silent Selina standing behind him as a shield.

"And so… we shall take him into custody." Sebastian said pulling up his gloves again and getting ready.

He and the two reapers spent some more minutes arguing whose concern was this matter, making Undertaker smile totally flattered and Selina starting to shake from anticipation.

"My lord, we could always kill him and explain the situation to the Queen. I'm sure she would understand." She finally said to Ciel in a low voice and when the boy turned to look at her, he saw a… wild cat in the form of a woman with burning eyes fixed on her prey, in this case Undertaker. Her hands were clutching her swords meaningfully.

"No. A previous time I acted like this, I exterminated all the guilty parties and the Queen was not happy… Her punishment towards me and my household was not pleasant and I do not have time to fool around like this again." The boy said firmly showing that his mind would not change for anyone's sake.

At the centre of the lounge room, the vicious battle, or rabbit hunt as Undertaker called it, had just began with the three attackers launching themselves on their prey. However, the identity of the prey seemed to be an unstable notion for the participants, since at some points Sebastian was becoming prey for Ronald and vice versa as well as Grell became Undertaker's prey and so on. Grell seriously doubted her eyes when she managed to cut through Undertaker's sotoba but after a while could not. It was at that point that Undertaker revealed that one of these sotoba was actually his death scythe; he had managed to hide its true form in order to sneak it out when he retired. A death scythe can cut through anything except another death scythe… and the presence of at least three death scythes of course abolished such an ability making the battle even more vicious.

Undertaker decided to stop playing games and started actually hunting the rabbits. With his scythe he smashed one of the columns supporting the stairs, which started shaking instantly and a part of the balcony collapsed. Ciel felt he was losing his footing but Selina in a flash had sheathed one sword and wrapped her arm around his waist steadying him. Sebastian with a quick glance made sure his master was safe and launched an attack to Undertaker by throwing him tables. Undertaker sliced them in pieces easily, like 'breaking biscuits' as he said.

"I simply wanted to get inside the wide range of your scythe." Sebastian informed him sliding closer than ever.

Undertaker evaded Sebastian and jumped in the air. "You thought up an amusing notion, master butler. Then…" He landed on the stairs, behind Ciel and Selina. "I shall first dispose some cheap imitations… and do the same!" He pulled Selina from Ciel grabbing her by the hair and throwing her away, directly on a crowd of undead. Finally, he completed his movement by grabbing Ciel by the front of his shirt.

All this happened extremely fast, so that even the demon could not react in time. Sebastian jumped towards Undertaker, but as he was getting closer, the rebellious reaper threw the child over the banister, forcing the demon to change his course and try to catch the boy.

The last thing Selina saw was Undertaker's scythe impaling the demon making him spit blood and Ciel falling to the empty space beneath him, heading towards the lounge's floor. Agony and panic seized her at this sight, but an excruciating pain robbed her attention as some undead were digging the flesh on her arm with their fingers, while some others had grabbed her locks and were trying to chew them off or were pulling her towards their mouth.

By the force with which Undertaker had thrown her she had lost hold of her sword and now she was struggling to reach one of her daggers strapped on her ankles. The only thing she could hear, besides the hungry gurgling of the undead, was a reeling sound that she knew was Sebastian's cinematic record. She did not have the luxury to pay attention to any of that as she was keeping away the corpses' jaws with one hand and with the other she managed to grab one dagger… plus she already had knowledge of what these records entailed.

She started plunging her dagger to the spongy flesh of the undead but they were too many and their hold on her hair was pretty strong, so she cut them off and jumped up leaving some of her golden curls behind. She quickly found her sword, threw a glance towards Undertaker, who was now standing in front of Sebastian and Ciel, with his scythe lifted up, as if ready to slice both males.

"Thank goodness, they are okay!" Selina thought as she saw Sebastian's chest covered in blood but the demon was alive and Ciel on his lap. Right after that her ears caught a whimpering and her eyes locked on a terrified Viscount Druitt, trying to crawl away from chaos. She jumped, grabbed the man by his golden, soft mane and pulled him upwards.

"Undertaker! Stop! Leave them alone or your plaything is dead!" She screamed pointing her sword at the crying man's throat.

"Hmm? Oh! How amusing!" Undertaker said looking at her without lowering his scythe. "This little puppy barks quite loudly, he he! Nice! Although I seriously doubt you have it in you." He again turned towards his targets.

"Try me!" Selina growled staring at the silver haired reaper with a very challenging look in her eyes and started forcing the tip of her sword in the man's soft flesh.

"Aaa! Please! She really does it, she is stabbing me!" The Viscount screamed feeling his blood trickling from the tiny puncture wound.

However, he was lucky as at that moment the ship shook violently and started tilting upwards due to the great amount of water it had taken in at the back. Selina lost her holding on the man, who immediately grabbed the banister and started pulling himself upwards while everything else was falling to the back of the ship due to gravity.

Sebastian was hanging holding a piece of the banister that had fallen down and with the other hand was clutching Ciel on him; the child had also hugged the butler's chest for safety. Rian Stoker had already fallen among the ship's wreckage and lost his life. Grell collected his cinematic records and then informed Sebastian she did not have time to spare, therefore she would take care of Undertaker, who above all odds was still walking with ease on the tilted floor of the lounge, trying to get away from the surely sinking ship.

"I cannot allow y-" Sebastian yelled to Grell but did not get to finish since Ronald Knox's lawnmower attacked him roaring and forced him to let go of his holding, allowing himself to slide further down before he grabbed a column.

Ronald did the same and informed Grell she should take care of the stronger Undertaker, while he would "put this weak, worn-out old dog over here out of his misery" referring to the wounded Sebastian. The panting demon glared at the young reaper with a clearly murderous intention. To his surprise, his young master started taunting the reaper and highlighted how strong and dependent his butler was; a flesh wound like that would never stop him. Sebastian agreed with his master but the sudden cough that followed sputtering some blood seemed to make fun of the demon.

Ronald Knox sighed and started talking to himself saying he felt like a bully picking on the weak, so that he did not notice a figure sliding suddenly past him. Selina stopped right next to Sebastian, hugging the same column, and extended her free hand to Ciel; Sebastian transferred the child to the strange bloodied woman and then, free of his burden, landed a fist on the soft young cheek of the surprised reaper.

"What was that you were saying… about picking on the weak?" Sebastian mocked Ronald, their faces inches away, grabbing the reaper by the shirt before they resume their punching and kicking contest.

This went on for a while, until the young reaper collapsed on some debris with a face swollen from the demon's strong punches. He could not believe how the demon butler – already seriously wounded from Undertaker's scythe – could still be so active and strong. The only answer he got was that since the master issued an order the butler could not disobey, right before one last punch landed on his face and the reaper lost consciousness. In a while, Grell landed a few meters away from Ronald having received a similar treatment from Undertaker.

"I say! How soft the youth of today are!" Sebastian's ironic voice was heard from where he was standing, leaning leisurely on Ronald's scythe with Ciel and Selina standing next to him. Hearing his comment, Selina looked at him confused, her eyes went to Ronald and Grell with a pained expression as she was rubbing her jaw; she seemed to be remembering something… not pleasant at all.

Now only Sebastian and Undertaker were actually still standing. The two rivals looked at each other but did nothing more, since the ship started shaking harder as it was sinking faster and water rushed in from everywhere accelerating the process even more.

"Well, the time has come to say our farewells at last. I must say it's been cracking good fun!" Undertaker giggled.

A determined look appeared on Sebastian's and Grell's faces as they both launched a final assault on the rebellious reaper. Undertaker successfully thwarted both attacks, although Sebastian's kick managed to break a chain with various lockets the reaper was wearing. Ciel caught it and was surprised to see Undertaker's fear of losing the trinket turn to an undecipherable expression on his face as he smiled to the child.

"Lord Earl. I entrust that to your keeping for the present. Please take it with you and treat it with care… for it is my treasure." He said with a quite nostalgic look on his pale face. "So long, my lord. Let us meet again." He finished and then swung his scythe cutting the sinking ship in two pieces.

Not much of Selina in this chapter, right? I didn't want her to literally steal the limelight from the series protagonists or majorly change the manga story, because I think of her as a supportive character... for now. There will be times where she will be more to the center of things and show us her true potentials, I promise. For one, next week she will be more active and will start interacting more with everyone. :)

Thanks again! Till next time! :D