AN: This chapter includes descriptions of a child's assassination and death cults. Feel free to skip the last few scenes after they accept the mission.

Shin village was a rural part of Japan, secluded behind tall thick trees. The buildings and totems were barbed with large bamboo spires. The Star Clan had been given a request to collect a potential Kishen. However, when they arrived, the streets were barren of life. Only a few, farmers were milling about.

"You," White Star pointed his sword at an older man, "where Kenzo Tanaka?" The house had been completely abandoned. Even the building where supposedly his father worked had been walked away from.

"I-I don't know who you're talking about." The man said and tried to walk around them.

"He's about yay high." White Star held the blade out in the man's path. "Black hair, son of the god damn mayor. Where'd he go?" Cassandra inwardly cringed. They'd been given the run around all day, sure, but waving a sword around wasn't helping.

"Kenzo's a good lad." The old man said. "I already told you, I don't know where he went. No one does."

"He's attacked this village weekly for the past two months." White Star said, ready to tear his hair out. "He's still fucking here, eating your babies and scaring your children. Where are you hiding him?"

"No one's hiding anyone." A different old lady said. "We told Lord Death that three days ago."

"AND THEN ANOTHER BRAT GOT EATEN!" White Star shot back. One corrupt human was not worth all this trouble.

Cassandra focused on the name of the target. He was supposed to get run through by a sword today, by that strange totem pole. She tried to trace back the moment in her head. He had been running west, from behind where they were standing.

"There." She pointed at a cellar door. "We should check in there." One of the villagers ran ahead and blocked there view of the cellar.

"That's private property." White Star shoved him out of the way and slashed the lock to the cellar door open. Large, steal needles shot out of the cellar. One got him square in the jaw, another nicked his shoulder and he was thrown backwards into the village square.

The creature had spikes lining it's back, it's face more reminiscent of a marionette than a human being. On it's hands and feet there were several attempts to chain it to a wall, but the deadbolts dragged behind it as it crawled out into the light.

"You were keeping it alive on purpose." Cassandra said as multiple villagers tried to talk the creature down like it was a frightened animal.

"We just need to find a cure." The mother cried. Of course the Kishen Egg wasn't targeting her, it'd already chosen more vulnerable prey. "This isn't any of your business."

From the ground, White Star threw a shuriken at the monster, drawing it's attention away from the crowd. His shirt was dyed red and blood dribbled out of his sliced cheek.

"That was a dirty trick, asshole." White Star said. People were coming out of their houses into the street. He weaved around the civilians to attack it. It shot an arch of needles his way. Rooftops were skewered, windows were shattered and still the people tried to defend the monster.

"Get out of the way." Cassandra twirled her kunai on chains. She still wasn't precise with her strikes, but she could make it difficult to cross into the battle field. "There is no cure! He's just going to keep hurting people in this state."

"He's just scared!" The mother lunged with a broom. Cassandra shattered the handle, cutting the woman's hands the processes.

"I said get back!" She couldn't control where the blades landed while twirling them. If people kept running toward her, they were going to get hurt.

White Star used one of the spires buried in the earth to launch him under the enemy's feet. He drove his katana into the soft palette under the jaw and dragged the blade down to the earth. He put the Kishen Egg in a jar while the mother screamed at them.

"We got what we came for." He glared at the crowd, his face still hurt like hell. "If I ever have to come back here, I'm killing everyone in this village!" He motioned for Cassandra to follow him, chased out of yet another town. Once they lost their pursuers, he dug around in his pack for some rags and shoved them against the gaping wound in his face. "In the future, could you point out where the damn thing's hiding before I eat shit?"

"Yeah." She said. His expression softened a little and she took the rag off his face so they could properly bandage it.

"Wait, really?"

"You shouldn't have said those things to them." She scolded lightly.

"Look what that thing did to my face!" The adrenaline from battle was wearing off and he could feel each searing wound. "Those kids-"

"By all means, resent them for allowing it to hurt people." She said. "But you can't blame them for caring about the person he used to be. He was turned into a monster against their wishes."

"Like hell I can." He grumbled. "You really can predict the future or some shit?"

"I can see people's deaths." She said. "The ones that were supposed to occur." That Kishen Egg should have died two months ago before eating a single soul. Perhaps the mother had something to do with it after all. "And the ones that will be." The gauze was already turning red. They needed to get him properly stitched up as soon as possible.

"So you've seen when I'll die?" He half joked.

"Yes." She lead the way back home. "I've seen when all of the Star Clan will die. I don't know if they feel me watching though. It would be nice if they could, the ending can be quite scary for some. I'd like them to believe they're not alone."

"You don't have to tell me." He said, a little wary of her somber demeanor. "Half the fun of a battle is not knowing how it'll end." He jogged to catch up to her. "You get to see anything else?" She shook her head. The limits of her power often frustrated her. "Then why the hell was all this your favorite part?"

"Because I love you." She said. "I loved you then, I love you now." Even if he had made a real nuisance of himself all of last week. She could tell he was trying to do right by them all in his own boisterous way. "And I'll love you in the future." If the people of Shin village were foolish idiots, then so was she.

She didn't experience time the way everyone else did. The future felt just as real as the present, and her past was clouded with the memories of two futures. The one she dreamed of and the one she was participating in now. "If there's one thing I can count on, it's you getting in over your head."

"Yeah, sorry your husband's gonna have a butter face." He said, a little woozy from the blood loss.

"...you really mean that?" She asked.

"I don't think stitches are enough to fix all this."

"Not that," she nudged his good shoulder, "the husband part."

"Well, yeah, isn't that what you wanted?" What she wanted? She wanted to hurry up and get to where they were at in a few years time. Where he trusted her visions without question and she knew he'd always be there to protect her. A time when he overcompensated for the devastating losses with a sarcastic remark or joke in poor taste.

Receiving a proposal because she seemed the most useful was not ideal. Though in hindsight perhaps their relationship had always started out as some sort of 'trade'.

"Am I no longer a minor inconvenience?" She asked with a wry smile.

"You know what, I deserved that." He said. They began a long trek back toward their home. "Seriously though, if anyone of our family turns into one of those things, no protecting them from hunters. You got that?"

"You don't have to worry about that."

In a graveyard with bone white trees, Eibon was writing more in their book. The accuracy of the soul collection tool was gradually improving. Satisfaction with living in a world alongside gods and witches was improving on a whole.

"How's the observational study going?" Shinigami-sama asked.

"It took 731 years for someone with potential to partially awaken and be found." Eibon said. "She's retained a descent amount of humanity as well. I think it's entirely possible to be able to train new role holders without causing any anomalies." They closed their book and looked at the reflection of Shinigami-sama in their mirror. "I have had multiple instances of people requesting more compassion."

"I'm plenty compassionate." Lord Death tilted his head. Evil people were being brought to justice now instead of milling about their lives unnoticed. The witches that lorded their power over the weak were also being dealt with. Weapons were slowly integrating into society without harming the natural order. Everything was finally calming down after Arachne's death.

"Agreed." Eibon said. "Human's tend to personify things with soft features as friendly. Perhaps a rounder mask would help?"

"That's a lot to ask of a mask." Lord Death sighed. "Who exactly have you been hearing this from?"

"Witches mostly." Eibon flipped through their notes. "Family members of Kishen Eggs and those old enough to remember the Old Ways as well."

"Well that's the problem." Lord Death stood up straight. "You can't please everyone, especially rule breakers."

"Nonsense. There is always a solution." Eibon skimmed the chapter of Envy. In order to learn about human virtue, they first had to understand sin. "Things aren't always black and white Mortis, there is a grey area between all things. What we've seen is just the tip of the iceberg." They could wax poetic about dialectics all they wanted, Lord Death rarely paid attention. "For example; if absolute power corrupts absolutely, why does the absence of power refuse to uncorrupt? Broken things have to have a way to be fixed, otherwise they're not broken, they're something else."

"Eibon, I need you to focus." Lord Death said. "I need a power source that doesn't come from someone's soul. The city can't run on man power alone. It's not sustainable."

"I thought for sure letting Maba's eye get stolen would balance out the birth rates." Another problem begs for solution. "Motion generates energy, but how to get it to feed into itself?" How do you make something that can do what is asked without micromanaging it? What piece is missing in order to have a 'compassionate' Death. Or perhaps was something added that should be taken out? An interesting puzzle indeed.

"Eibon, are you able to do it?"

"Of course."

"And please, nothing with dolls." Lord Death said. "They're getting confused with humans again."

Asuka village was full of light as lanterns hung in every home and lined the pathway to the main house. Live shamisen players accompanied the ceremony. Everyone watched Cassandra's old name burn inside a tea cup. The way the ashes lay determined which star she'd be known as now that she'd married into the family.

Charon was beside himself with joy that for once White Star had listened to him; chalking up his new found humility to botching a mission. Still, Venus couldn't help but eye the supposedly happy couple with suspicion. What possibly could have changed overnight to make him act this way? It was almost like magic.

Her concern fell on deaf ears. The older heads of the family were determined to drink themselves stupid over the slightest bit of good news.

"Elaine, was it?" Venus pulled the dark haired girl to the side. "You've been rather close with Genbu lately, haven't you?"

"In a way." She said. Good, the girl was just as perceptive as Venus had assumed.

"I need someone to keep an eye on my brother." Venus said. "I'd feel better if a smart girl like you were to keep me updated, rather than more biased individuals." She grimaced as the two in question laughed at an offhanded comment.

"Naturally."

The waves of people that came to congratulate Cassandra and White Star was exhausting. Many of them, they would never see again. The last person she expected to congratulate her was Bonnie. She took White Star's seat when some of the groomsmen tore him away for a silly game.

"So we're all supposed to call you Nova now?" Bonnie said with a tilt of her head. "Am I going to get my head cut off if I keep using your actual name?"

"No." She laughed. "Though it'll make things more difficult around here than it already is." They watched the party goers put a few small children on a brand new bed. "We're only seventeen." She wrinkled the nose at the practice. It was way too early to go speculating about children.

"I've never seen a family this big not hate each other." Bonnie laughed. "Or this drunk."

"Are you not staying?" Nova asked.

"I miss New York." Bonnie said. "I need to find some normie dork so the state considers me safe to be around other humans. Not a lot of jobs for guns out there. I don't plan on sticking around after that."

"I thought you were a trained assassin?"

"Me? Fuck no, they were accidents." She leaned back. "Can't say I miss them though. They were real shit heads." Casually she scooted closer to Nova. "Can't say I'll miss him either." White Star was politely nodding to whatever Charon was drunkenly telling him. "Say the word and that fucker'll have his own accident."

"That's my husband you're talking about." Nova punched her lightly in the arm, though she appreciated the concern. She, more than anyone, knew what she was getting into. "The same goes for you." She waved back at her husband. One of the guests wanted to talk to her. "If you need help, I'll be there."

(1982 AD)

With persistent training, Nova was almost able to keep up with the other trainees. Her kunai slowly felt more like an extension of her arms. Her fighting style flashy and dramatic. Not exactly peak assassin material. White Star always hid his face around other people. It was a shame he felt the need to cover his scars in order to be taken seriously. Critiques from the other branches of the family that she'd brushed off as hazing started to turn more sincere.

"She's still years behind on training for her age." Venus said during her yearly visit. "She hasn't made a single attempt on anyone's life, let alone taken up a mission." They were accused of playing house. With no heir on the way, the elders of the family were getting antsy. "She's not a real assassin."

"Crazy as it sounds, I don't mind sharing a room with someone who doesn't try to kill me." White Star rolled his eyes. "There's no crime in being nice."

"There's no crime in being dead either. I'm sure she'll do both nicely."

"I have no problem taking missions." Nova said, testing another one of Elaine's 'surefire' poisons. "I just never seem to get any." White Star brushed off her pointed stare. No one else in the main house saw issue with him withholding her missions, but clearly it was a problem with the family at large.

"You're in luck then." Venus pulled an envelope out of her sleeve. "We've received a request, but everyone in my branch refuses to take it. I'm sure it'd be perfect for your skill level." White Star snatched the paper from her. He took one glance and ripped the request in half.

"No, absolutely not." He said.

"What's their name?" Nova tried to grab the torn pieces of the note from his hands.

"Arelete Lustosa." Venus said with a predatory grin. Nova focused on the name. There were a few out in the world, but only one had a fate thread that was overdue. "Is there a problem?"

"No, I'll do it." It's what they were paid to do.

In plain clothes, Nova and White Star were able to blend with a crowd of visitors that came to the hospital ward. They passed a hallway of grunting babies to a dark, private room. Once White Star was inside, she used a small cantrip to jam the lock. No one was to interfere.

"Hello sweetie." Nova approached a bed where a baby lay in the dark attached to a monitor by a curtain of wires. The baby followed the sound of her voice with her eyes, but was too weak to move her head. "No one wanted to be the one to say goodbye, is that it?" Her thread of fate was so badly frayed it was hard to tell how long ago she should have passed. Each breath was shallow, her skin pale and marred with red webbing. She tried to cry, but couldn't move her mouth to make room for the sound.

"Come here." Nova turned the alarms off and held the baby in her arms. "That's it, it's okay. You can go to sleep." With a heavy heart, she turned the breathing machine off.

"We should go." He said. There was only so long they could linger before one of the nurses found them.

"Not yet." She bit her lip. The baby's arms and legs went ice cold. "It'll be okay dear, I'm not putting you down yet." One last sigh escaped her lips before Nova set her back down on the bed. From down the hall, they could hear someone approach the door.

White Star opened the window. Nova lingered at the child's bedside. There wasn't a single picture or stuffed animal in the room. The tiny soul came to her easily as she put it in a jar. She followed him silently as they crept out into the hospital parking lot.

"Hey..." White Star broke the silence. Nova's solemn expression a shadow of what was going on in her head. "For a first time, it could have been worse... You were," he gently nudged her shoulder, "you did good." He shrugged off her silence. "Shouldn't go around touching things though, it leaves evidence."

"Lord Death has no right to interfere with people's lives like this." Nova said. "What good is extending someone's life, if no one is there to see it?" She clutched the jar tight in her hand. "Fixing his mess from the shadows will only make things worse."

"If we don't do it, who will?" White Star recited from heart.

"We will." Nova said. "We'll prevent those monsters from ever getting made, and we won't let innocent people suffer in the dark hoping someone hears them."

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" White Star asked. She held up her pair of golden sheers, the magic from past fate's lingered on it like finger prints. Without the help of the other fates, she would have to guess when things were supposed to happen. She might be off by a few days or months, but cutting a life too short had to be better than letting it suffer.

"We go by the original list."

San Fransisco California in June was a miserable, muggy eighty degrees. Inside the temple, people were being kept like cattle in boxes, barely surviving on rations. Nova memorized every plank of wood and felt the cyanide from her tea prickle at her tongue. At night, the demon lord would send his men to check on the captives. He had everything he needed to become a powerful Kishen, now he was just waiting for them to die.

The grinning plastic masks everyone was forced to wear was uncanny. With people lying through their teeth and looking for ways to make it seem like they'd accepted the poison without actually taking it. Nova looked her guard dead in the eye as she downed the cup in one swallow.

This was where it all began. Where she'd fallen asleep to the sounds of people gasping for air night after night only to be scooped up at the last second. She thought of her first vision, the rows of freshly plotted graves, the injustice that waited for all of them in the end. She sobbed fresh wet tears behind her plastic mask.

"Another." She held out her cup. "Please, I have to get to paradise." Instead, they unlocked her cage.

"On your feet." They dragged her out for the first time in days. She leaned into the pain, wailing out in agony as they dragged her before a golden stage at the podium. The demon lord was in poor health, with black beady eyes.

"Now, now," he said, "there's no need to fret my child." Long, yellowed nails hooked under the chin of her mask and lifted it off her face. "Where's that happy face?" She turned up the corners of her mouth as he poured a large glass in front of her. "See, we're just trying to help you." She nodded. "Just take your medicine like a good girl, and you'll start to feel better like the rest of us." He limped toward her, a symphony of grunts and coughs escaping him the whole way over.

"Thank you." She reached for the cup with trembling hands. "Really, I don't know what to say." With each word her voice was quieter. He leaned in a little closer. "I'd be lost without-" He grabbed her cheeks and forced her mouth open. Just as the glass touched her lips, she was able to grab through his chest to that golden thread he had tucked away. She pulled it taut, snipping it from his soul with her scissors. The shine dulled from his eyes. He lurched forward and he crashed into the floor. "Can you handle the rest?"

Members of her new family crashed through the windows and blinding the gunmen. She tidied up her face. Her armed guards now bleeding on the floor like roses thrown at her feet. There wasn't much that could be done for the other victims, but at least the bastard died before eating a single soul. Nova bowed at the emphatic applause of her husband.

"Stunning performance as always." He said.

"Thank you. I was trying to channel Telenovela." She stepped over the bodies to join him. "In another life, my name would be in the Walk of Fame." The only problem with assassinating Kishen Eggs before they turned, was people didn't pay as much for the job. She tried to ignore the members riffling through victims' pockets, hoping to scrounge enough to keep the lights on. "I hardly noticed you this time, did you see me secretly flip off the guard that hit on me?" The man was already dead, but he seemed a little extra brutalized compared to the others.

"Yeah, you should be careful about breaking character though. Dead Bob over there almost blew your cover." He rested his forehead against her, too uncomfortable to bring his mask down in front of the others. If she wasn't brimming with fresh poison, she would have pulled it down for a kiss. The moment was short lived when his eyes wandered. "How many times do I have to tell you guys," White Star groaned and pulled away, "cover the damn mirrors. That old voyeur is worse than J Edgar Hoover."