Work Text:
The spirit known as Shouta groaned as his co-workers (his friends though he'd never admit that to their face) cackled and played around him. It had been two cycles since any of them got a job and they were all getting restless. Shouta just wanted to sleep. If he never got another call he'd be happy. Or he would be if his co-workers would stop their incescent chattering. He rolled over to yell at them when a familiar, loud noisy bell sounded around the room accompanied by a flashing light that instantly gave Shouta a headache.
“Incoming Call!” Hizashi chirped excitedly in his too loud voice as he danced excitedly around the room. “I was starting to think they'd forgotten about us!”
“Well we are The Dregs,” Tensei said from his desk surrounded by books. He hovered forward on his chair his skeleton torso and legs glinting in the flashing light as he made his way towards the tube that would deliver the work order to them.
The Dregs is what the Core called the very lowest tier of Reapers. Split into two teams every single one of them had washed out or gotten into so much trouble that they'd been forced repeatedly down the very bottom of the barrel. Wash out of the Dregs and you'd find yourself in the mail room or worse working janitorial until you could earn enough points to try again. After that it was the End of the Line you would wash out completely and never earn your right to be sorted into a better place in the afterlife.
The mail tube activated and a burning ball made of bones shot itself down from floors above. The flames disappeared as Tensei reached for it.
“Who's it for, who's it for?” Hizashi exclaimed excitedly.
Shouta rolled his eyes. More then likely it would be for either him or Hizashi. Nemuri had caused so much trouble last time she'd gone before the Council for a review that she was now permanantely assigned to Gate duty and Tensei's lower body confined him to his hover chair and limited the sorts of missions he could go on so he usually acted as their researcher.
“It's for Shouta!”
Both he and Hizashi groaned at the same time. He knew the other man was feeling cooped up and bored but honestly it was his own fault that he was still down here with the rest of them Dregs. Shouta knew for the fact that his friend had more then enough points saved up that he could move up two or three levels if he wanted to. He stuck around for the same reason he'd gotten himself thrown down to begin with he didn't want to be separated from the rest of them.
Shouta held out his hand and prepared for the worst. He always got the worst missions. The higher ups did it on purpose to make sure he knew they remembered who who he was and what he had tried to do. Breaking into the Vault was punishable by becoming Voided yourself. The only reason he was here instead of in the Vault was that he hadn't succeeded and Nedzu owed him several favors he'd never cashed in on. Now he held on to one less, though his former Boss had never personally shown up to remind him of that fact.
He opened the ball and stared at the work order with a growing sense of dread in his stomach. It was for a child's soul and by suicide at that. He growled softly and crumpled the paper up in his hand it turned to dust and the unit on his hip pinged as the work order was added to his empty queue. The Council knew the best way to hurt him was to send him all the child cases. Each and every one affected him the way no other reaping could. And suicide hit far too close for comfort.
Hizashi who had read the work order over his shoulder placed a hand on his arm and squeezed. “I can see if I can get it transferred over to me?”
“No,” Shouta said with a groan. “That's giving them exactly what they want.”
“But...”
“I can handle it,” Shouta snapped. “That was two centuries ago, I should be over it by now.”
Hizashi pinned him with a disbelieving look but Shouta was already moving. The sooner he got this over with the sooner he could be back here on the couch hating everything and everyone who was not directly in his immediate little bubble. He turned away from his friend and crossed over to where Nemuri was waiting. He had his unit out and had the work order up so she could scan it with her Gate Key. She frowned as she read over the order pausing before she waved her key over it.
“Are you sure you wouldn't rather Hizashi take this one?” she asked in a worried tone.
“Open the damn Gate,” he growled in frustration.
“Fine but don't come crying to me later when you can't drink this away,” she retorted with a glare of her own.
Then she waved her key over the unit and a Gate opened up in the room behind her. Shouta never got used to the size of the warp gates. They were huge taking up the entire space and at the same time taking up no real space at all. This gate was a purple and black swirl like all the others but Shouta thought he saw wisps of other colors (yellow and pale blue) mixed in as well. Swallowing hard he took a step forward, turning for a moment to stare at each of his friends before stepping through.
If he had known what was waiting for him on the other side he might have taken the time to actually hug them. It would be a long time before he would see this room again.
Going through a warp gate was a bit like being a cork in a shaken up bottle. It wasn't a straight smooth shot to your destination you swirled, twisted and waved and didn't really move so much as you were forced along and then when you connected with your destination you were released forward through it. As soon as he reached the other side and stepped out the Gate closed up behind him. He frowned at that. Normally the gates stayed open and sometimes Nemuri would accompany him as far as the exit. He wasn't sure what it meant that it had closed up so quickly but it made him feel a bit uncomfortable.
He glanced around his surroundings. It was late afternoon from the look of the sun and he was standing on what appeared to be the roof of a building. He drifted forward in his spirit state until he reached the edge and glanced over. They were five stories up. Not high enough to be an automatic death unless you got unlucky. Which if he was required to be here then the soul he was here to collect was among the unlucky.
He drifted back to the middle of the roof and frowned. He was alone. Every warning bell in his head was beginning to go off. He'd been here far too long already without the soul in question being around. Reapers didn't get to linger in the Overworld world for long. They went in got their souls and got out.
Something was wrong.
A noise to his right caught his attention. It was a shifting whirling noise almost like a warp gate and he glanced over thinking maybe Nemuri had come back to tell him what was going on. What he saw was not a Gate but another shadow hovering over a building not far away. It was the same color as a Gate but definitely was not a Gate. It caused him to shudder and to unconsciously move further away from where it was.
Then the door to the roof slammed open and a child hurried out. He was disheveled, crying, a bruise blossoming on his cheek and he's clutching a dripping notebook to his chest. Shouta knows instantly who this child is even without the thin shimmering line of connection between them. This is the Child, the Soul, he forcibly reminds himself to put distance between himself and the situation, his the one he's here to collect.
The child can't see him since he's still in his spirit form and he passes right through Shouta in his flight across the roof. As he does Shouta catches fragments of the child's thoughts. There a whirl of desperation, despair, anger and desolation. “Do yourself a favor, Duke. Take a swan dive off the roof and maybe in the next life you'll get lucky and come back as someone useful.” The words echo through Shouta's mind. Someone, another child Shouta gets a glimpse of someone young with blonde hair and red eyes, had told this child...HIS soul...to kill themselves. For a moment he's so awash in rage and anger he doesn't know what to do with it all and then he forces himself back into reality and pushes all his emotions away.
What happened to this child is not his concern. He has only one thing to concentrate on while he's here. Only has one job to do. To collect this child's soul and to return it to the Underworld to be sorted.
The kid stops at the edge of the roof. He drops the notebook and the backpack he's wearing and climbs up on the ledge. For half a second Shouta has the insane impossible hope that there's someone down below who would look up and see him. Look up and stop him. But he knows that won't happen. If that happened he wouldn't be here. The kid stills for a second and takes a deep breath and then takes a step.
“Shouta...”
A voice calls his name out of nowhere. Time seems to slow down to a snail's pace. Only Shouta isn't trapped in the time dilation. Instead he's seeing everything crystal clear. The life this child has lead is spread out in front of him. Years of pain and heartbreak. A father who left him behind, a mother forced to work two jobs to keep them afloat, visions and nightmares that when he tried to share them with others got him diagnosed with numerous mental illnesses. Friends driven off by their parents who were scared of the diagnosis. His best friend turning his back on him completely and then turning to anger and pain to try and drive him off when words alone hadn't seemed to be enough. All of it blooming into this one final moment as he takes his friends advice and tries to end all the pain and suffering in one moment.
Images of another child, with astonishingly similar problems, echoed through his mind and nearly broke him with their intensity.
“Shouta...”
That voice again. Shouta turns his head and jerks in surprise. The shadow from the other building is now almost right next to him. It's a swirling mass of twisting shadows tinged with yellow and blue. He looked around at the slowed down time and wondered if this was all it's doing.
“Shouta you have to help him, he is the key...”
The in a blink of an eye time speeds back up to normal and the kid is tipping over and heading towards the ground a cry of terror on his lips. Shouta is moving forward before he even has a chance to register what he's doing. He pushes himself into Being and a circle of bindings appear in his hands in the same instant that he does. He shoots them forward with practiced ease though he hasn't used them in over a century now. They wrap themselves around the boy's small frame easily and with a flick of his wrist the boy is flying backwards. Shouta moves to catch him, the impact sending them both down to the ground, the waves his hands and the bindings unravel themselves and fade away.
The boy has ended up on top of Shouta his chest heaving in sheer terror as he clutches to the the front of Shouta's shirt. Shouta can feel it shifting as the boy clings and hopes the shadows and twisted bits of reality that created its illusion of existing can hold together under the strength of a crying child. He'd never tested anything like this before. He'd never had a reason to.
Reality hits him like a ton of bricks. He'd broken the 2nd Rule. He'd interfered in the death of the soul he'd been assigned to collect. Not only that but he'd physically saved the soul himself. He felt sick to his stomach and strangely elated at the same time. The boy shifted and pulled back enough to stare down at him. Tears, fear and something almost...knowing...filled his eyes. Shouta pushed his own problems away for a moment and concentrated on the boy above him.
“What were you thinking,” he said and it's the first time his voice has been heard in the Overworld in over two centuries.
“I...” the kid spoke and his voice broke and he was crying even harder. It was thick, horrible ugly crying with tears and snot and all of it dripping down onto Shouta's face.
“Shah...” he said realizing perhaps that admonishments were probably not the best way to start off this conversation. He said up and gathered the boy a bit closer holding him as tightly as his arms could manage. “I shouldn't have...that wasn't how I meant to say that.”
“No...” the boy said with a gulp. “I...I deserve it...I tried...I almost...oh my god...my mom...I almost left her alone...”
The kid gasped for breath as realization and panic settled down on his shoulders. Shouta could sense the panic attack gathering in the air around them. His hands moved and he grasped the kid by the cheeks and forced him to look into his eyes. The kid's eyes widened with wonder and a little terror and Shouta wondered what his eyes must look like to the living.
“It's okay...you're okay now...” he said as gently as possible. “You're still here and she's not going to be alone.”
“But...but...oh gods...”
The boy was panicking full out now and Shouta had to remember how to force actual air in and out of his fake lungs to guide the boy through deep breathing to calm him down. Finally the boy calmed enough that he could breath freely on his own. As he did the tears calmed and he slid off of Shouta's lap to collapse on the ground instead. He clutched at his chest his hand unknowingly going through the the shimmering strand connecting them together as he did. Shouta caught fragments of thoughts as he did so. “OMG OMG I can't believe I almost did that. I almost died. Why did I do that. I can't remember coming up here. I can't remember what happened. This guy is strange. Where did the stuff go that he pulled me back with. His eyes are super creepy. He's shimmering. Here but not here. Here but not here... Here...”
Shouta blinked in confusion at the train of thought and was relieved when the boy finally removed his hand from his chest. Well he was relieved for a moment before the kid then used his sleeve to wipe away the tears and snot from his face. Shouta grimaced and had to stop himself from creating a box of tissues out of thin air and throwing it at his face. Eventually the boy looked up at him with wide green eyes.
“You saved me,” he whispered softly.
“Yes,” Shouta said pulling himself up to a sitting position and draping his hands over his knees. “I did.”
“I...I don't...” the boy stuttered over his words for a while and then shifted himself so that his head pressed against the roof. “Thank you.”
“Stop that,” Shouta muttered feeling incredibly uncomfortable. “There's no need for that...I did what anyone would have done.”
For some reason that just made the boy start sobbing again as he sat up. He shook his head. “No...no...they would have just...let me...”
“Hey...” Shouta said anger and rage jumping up to the front of his mind again with an intensity of a blazing fire at the people in this kid's life who so easily tossed him away and pushed him to this. To stop the thoughts, the feelings, from overwhelming him he shifted so he could pull the kid to settle next to him on the ground in a strange sort of side hug. It was awkward but had the desired effect as the kid melted into his side. “Do you want to talk about it?”
The kid frowned and then with a sigh shook his head. “There's nothing to talk about...”
“Kid, you just tried to throw yourself off a roof,” Shouta pointedly out. It was a bit harsh but he wasn't willing to beat around the bush when he didn't have a lot of time to make a point.
“You wouldn't understand...” the kid said with a frown.
“Try me,” Shouta said squeezing him a little bit closer. “Maybe an outside perspective is just what you need.”
“People are scared of me,” the boy said after a long moment. “They have been since I was little and...and...”
“And...” Shouta prompted him gently as the boy trailed off and stared to the side for a very long moment, with wide scared eyes. Shouta could see the swirling shadow reflected in his eyes. But when he turned his head to look in that direction the shadow slipped away out of sight. When he glanced back the boy was blinking as if waking from a deep trance.
“Never mind,” he said after another long moment of silence. “It's not...important...”
Shouta could hear the lie in the boy's voice and he turned and pinned him with a hard stare. “Obviously it is important or you wouldn't have tried to kill yourself over it.”
The boy flinched away from him and Shouta immediately regretted his harsh words as he gripped at his wild green hair and began to tug. “Of course it's important I just...I don't know how to explain it in a way that would make sense and wouldn't make you think I'm crazy.”
“I don't think you're crazy,” Shouta said.
“You don't even know me,” the boy said desperately. “And you just saw me step off the roof of a five story building. Seems pretty crazy to me...”
“Seems more like someone who is feeling lost and scared,” Shouta said gently reaching out to grasp both of the boy's wrists so he would stop hurting himself. “People do a lot of stupid things when they're scared and emotional...”
“That's just it,” the boy said bouncing suddenly to his feet. “I wasn't emotional. I wasn't! This isn't the first time that...that I've been told...”
Do yourself a favor...take a swan dive off the roof....The words that Shouta had heard in the boy's memories echoed through his head now.
“It's been ten years,” the boy insisted quietly though if it was to himself or to Shouta he didn't know. He began to pace wildly. “I'm used to all of this now. I felt...nothing...I just felt...normal when they left me behind. I wasn't thinking about doing anything to myself. I was thinking about going home and getting food and then I passed through the stairwell and...and...then I don't remember...I don't remember anything...how I got up here...how you got here...I don't remember any of it!”
“Hey,” Shouta said standing up to stop the boy's pacing a little fearful he might still make a break for it off the edge of the roof. “It's alright. You just...sometimes it's like a switch...sometimes it gets turned on and you can't turn it off again. But you're alright now. You're safe and don't need to turn it back on ever again, I promise it'll be alright.”
The boy stared at him. Shouta shifted uncomfortably and wondered if they boy could hear he weight of own personal experiences in his voice.
“Who are you?” he asked suddenly. “Where did you come from?”
“I was just passing by,” Shouta lies easily. “I saw you and when I realized what you were doing...”
The boy pins him with an unreadable look. Shouta senses that the boy thinks he's lying or at least not telling the whole truth. But whatever he was going to say was lost as a clock tower chimed in the distance. The boy's head whips around and stares at it then he hurries towards the edge of the building again. Shouta's non-existent heart leaps into his throat and he has the bindings out again before realizing that the boy was just gathering his stuff back up.
“I'm so late,” the boy muttered. “Mom is going to freak out when she gets home and I'm not there...she's going to kill me...”
The he stopped what he did and let out a broken snort of laughter. He turned to look at Shouta with a slight frown.
“I've got to go,” he said. “I don't know how it got so late but...if I'm not there when my mom gets home she freaks. I guess...I guess that kind of makes sense...now that...this...”
“Hey,” Shouta said interrupting his train of thought, reaching out and squeezing his arm. “Will you be okay? Do you need me to walk with you?”
Shouta has no idea what he's saying. He doesn't even know if it would be possible for him to leave this building. It's his only physical connection in the Overworld right now. Thankfully the boy seemed to sense his reluctance.
“I'll be alright,” he said. “I honestly have never even thought about doing anything like this before I...I really, honestly don't know where it came from.”
“You should talk to someone,” Shouta said.
“I already do,” the boy said with a shrug. “I'll call and set up an appointment for tomorrow though. I...thank you okay...just thank you.”
He hastily bowed in Shouta's direction and then turned and raced towards the door disappearing inside it. Shouta walked to the edge of the building and looked down moments later the boy exited the building into the courtyard. He paused for a moment and looked upwards towards the top of the building his hand raised in what seemed to be wave and then he hurried out of sight. Shouta let out a shaky laugh and let himself pop back out of Being and relief washed over him. He'd never held that form for so long before.
He lifted his unit from his waist and stared down at it. Covering the work order was now was a bright red message blinking angrily up at him. Collection Failed. He grimaced and knew that this was bad. What he was done was very bad. There were only two really important rules to being a reaper. Collect the Souls assigned to you and bring them back to be sorted. Don't Get Attached and Don't Interfere in the Death. Shouta had just failed both of them.
He sighed and pushed the home button on the bottom of the unit. Moments later the portal opened up and he let out a noise of relief. Between the weird way the portal had acted when he'd arrived and the way he'd just spectacularly failed in his mission he was half afraid that it wouldn't arrive at all. Nemuri appeared in the entrance her eyes wide and worried.
“Shouta what did you do!” she exclaimed real fear on her face. “There are alarms going off all over the place back and HQ and Vlad from Team B stuck his head in and said he'd heard from a higher up that you SAVED the kid?”
“I...I did...” he admitted there was no reason to hide it since everyone already seemed to know or would no soon. “I don't know what came over me I just...I just acted without thinking.”
“Obviously,” Nemuri said with a frown. “Oh Thou you've caused such a mess...”
“I'm sure I have,” he said with a sigh. “Let's go I can try to do some damage control once I'm back at Headquarters.”
“Shouta you can't...”
He heard Nemuri's words just as he was stepping into the portal. Then he passed right through it and found himself still standing on the roof with the portal behind him now. Blinking he turned around and stepped through again only to find himself right back where he started from. Nemuri watching him with a sad expression.
“You can't come through,” she said softly.
“What do you mean I can't come through...” his voice pitched up as fear began bubbling up inside him.
“We're Reapers, Shouta We don't save souls we collect them and take them to the Underground to be sorted. To do otherwise it makes us...”
“Void?” he asked in horror. Real, true terror sweeping through us for the first time since he'd woken up to discover he'd died. “Like...”
“No...no...not that,” she reassured him hastily. “It's not that bad...or maybe it's worse...I don't know how you'll take it...”
“Just spit it out already,” he said with a shaky voice.
“You're stuck,” she said after a moment.
“Stuck?”
“To the kid...well the kid's soul,” she said. “You were supposed to take it but you saved it instead...so now you're...stuck...to it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know...none of us do,” Nemuri said. “We haven't had a lot of time to do research but there doesn't seem to be much information on in the system it apparently doesn't happen very often because most people don't break the rules! Tensei is searching his books to see if he can't find something from an older source. Hizashi is trying to get through to Nedzu but he's apparently off on some sort of mission and the Council...they're going to be so pissed Shouta.”
“I'm sorry,” he said and he actually was. Since he couldn't they'd be forced to deal with the Council's anger. “Please don't do anything to get yourselves into trouble this is...I did this to myself...”
“Why did you do?” she asked him. “Shou I don't understand why did you save him?”
“I...I don't know...” he said honestly he's still and a complete loss as to why he'd done it. “It's like my feet were moving before my brain...like I was compelled by something to do it...I don't regret it though. That kid...there's something about him...something important I think...I can't explain it...”
“Okay well...we'll figure this out...we'll figure out how to fix this,” she said softly. “We have to, we need you here. We will literally fall apart without you here to keep us on track.”
“I really can't go back? Not even to talk to the Council myself?” he asked.
“Your record is locked, Shou, it just says suspended on it,” she explained. “People who are suspended are locked out of the system completely. And if you're locked out of the system...”
“You can't get clearance to use the Gates...” he finished tightly. For someone in the Underworld this wouldn't be a big deal there were lots of ways to get to places but for someone on the Overworld it was a nightmare. It meant he couldn't get home until his suspension was lifted or until someone granted him clearance to Gate home. “So does this stuck thing just mean I'm stuck on this side until this is cleared up?
“I've shared everything we know so far. It specifically says your stuck to the soul of the one you saved, the one you were supposed to collect. I think that probably means way more then just being stuck on in the Overworld...
“It does...” Tensei's head popped into view on the other side of the gate. Since he didn't really have passage through it he was distorted and wavering quite a bit and probably would be kicked back into the Underground quickly. He was holding a book and he held it up so that they could see the page though it was almost too blurry to read. “Here it say: If a Reaper Shall Fail in Their Duty by Accident or by Choice then they Shall Guide the Soul They Failed to Reap Until the Soul Finally Meets its End or Until a Moment of Great Importance in met.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Shouta said.
“Finally meets its end is fairly self explanatory you're there until he finally dies,” Nemuri said as Tensei handed the book over to her.
“Better get comfy!” Hizashi's voice crowed from the other side of the gate. “That could be decades from now...”
Shouta frowned. There was no way he was going to stay in the Overworld attached to the kid until he died. There had to be another way to end this.
“Not that,” he said after a moment shaking off the thought. “The other...a Moment of Great Importance. Does that mean for the kid or for me?”
“No clarification in this text,” Tensei said after a moment. “I'll keep digging and talk to some people. There's got to be more information somewhere. Even if it is something that hasn't happened in a while it's obviously happened before or there wouldn't be a precedent set up for it at all.”
“When I was that age I know what I thought was a moment of great importance...” Hizashi said his blurry head replacing Tensei's a wicked grin on his face.
“He's a child!”
“Oh well...yeah maybe not that then,” Hizashi said with a frown. “But still at that age pretty much everything is a Moment of Great Importance and the kid tried to off himself so... Maybe you just need to make him smile again or some Hallmark Movie bullshit like that.”
He looked up at Nemuri and she frowned down at the book that Tensei had given her and shrugged. “I have no answers for you but...I mean given how you found him it's probably not a bad idea to try and do some good while you're here and get him straightened out until we can figure it out. Unless you want him to try again...”
“No!” Shouta snapped, the very thought of the kid dying filled him with a strange mix of rage and dread. “I didn't save him and get myself stuck here in the process only to loose him when he tries again.”
“That's the spirit!” she said with a tight grin that didn't meet her eyes. “I've sent you some of the protocols for dealing with this to your unit but there's not a lot in the bylaws about so I think you'll mostly be left on your own for this one.”
A wild, toothy grin stretched across his face. The first good news since this whole mess of a call had began. He hadn't been left alone to do his own thing in at least 40 Overworld years. Not since he'd gotten himself booted down to the Dregs.
“It says you should be able to follow the call of your soul to it just like a normal call,” she supplied. “Can you feel it?”
He made himself go still. For a moment he felt nothing and then he found it he connection between him and the boy's soul. It was different then the normal connection, the line that connected them together felt more solid now, but as he wrapped his hand around it he still felt the pull towards the soul it was connected to. He released it, looked over at Nemuri and nodded.
“Good at least that's going right,” she said with a frown.
“I'll check in as often as I can and will let you know when we find out more about getting you unstuck but...I don't know how often that'll be.”
“I'll be fine,” he said. “It'll almost be like a vacation.”
“Just...be careful...” she said worriedly. “You know what they say about staying in the Overworld for too long. That you start to feel things...see things...that the shadows start to move and...
“Voided things crawl in the dark...” he finished with a murmur. To eat you whole and make you one of them... he finished the last part internally.
It was the old warning that everyone heard on their first day as reapers. Usually by some creepy old crone hidden in the shadows. He thought of the strange shadow he'd already seen that day. He contemplated telling Nemuri about it but shook the idea off almost immediately. She was already worried about him in the Overworld enough as it was.
“That's just a tall tale,” he reassured her quickly though he didn't quite feel it himself. “Voids get put in The Vault. They don't wander around the Overworld looking for meals. That's just something they tell the new recruits to scare them into following the rules.”
“Maybe...” she said with a frown. “But sometimes when I'm in the Overworld..I swear I see things...shadowy things...”
“You're seeing them because you're expecting too,” Shouta said, glad he'd decided to not say anything about the shadow figure. “I'll be fine.”
“Just don't get lost,” she said seriously. “I mean it if you get Voided I'm going to be so angry at you. I don't think I can go through that again. And I know Hizashi can't...he'd probably go into the Vault after you and then I'd loose both of you...”
“I'm not going to get Voided,” he promised her though inside he wasn't quiet so sure of himself. “I'll figure it out and then I'll go to the Council and beg for my job back and when that doesn't work I'll go to Nedzu and play the favor card.”
“You better be quick about it” she said and it almost seemed like she was close to tears though she almost never cried about anything. A loud bell sounded in the world on the other side of the Gate. “We're getting another call I have to go. I'll be back to check on you as soon as I can.”
The Gate closed shut and Shouta found himself standing alone on the roof top. He allowed himself the briefest moment of self doubt and anger at his situation then he felt something stirring along his connection to the boy's soul. It felt like discomfort and confusion and worry. Curious he cleared his mind and pushed a testing feeling of happiness down the line he felt a confused echo of that come floating back to him.
“Interesting...” he mused softly.
He'd have to investigate the connection a bit more in the future. For now he needed to get his barrings. He pulled out his unit and was relieved to see it still worked. He was going to switch over to the information on being stuck when he caught site of the original work order still visible on the screen under the angry read letters.
Soul: Midoriya Izuku
Age: 14
Location: Japan
Type of Death: Suicide
Work Order: Aldera Junior High, 4:30 PM, Courtyard. Collect the Soul and Bring it Before The Council for Sorting.
He stilled as he caught site of the time on his unit now, 5:30 PM. There was no way he'd arrived here at 4:30, time moved differently for him even in the Overworld but the amount of time he'd felt flowing around him since he'd gotten here didn't match up. Also he had arrived on the rooftop before Midoriya and had had ample time to interact with him instead of in the courtyard mere moments before the kid jumped to collect his soul. And the kid was to have been taken directly to the Council for sorting? That never happened unless the soul was one of great importance like a world leader or something who had done something extremely great with their lives. Suicides were generally treated no differently then any other soul, They went to the general sorting area and were sorted into their Underworld positions according to many different factors. You could never tell where a soul would end up based on how they died. Unless they went directly to the Council. Souls that went to the Council either had very Good things in store for them or very Bad.
Who was this kid and why had his work order gotten so messed up? If Shouta had arrived when and where he was supposed to he wouldn't have had time to do anything. The kid would have jumped, he would have died, Shouta would have taken his soul and been none the wiser that anything at all was special or strange about it until it came time to deliver his soul to the Council. He felt a trill of real fear travel down his spine. Something was off about this whole thing. He'd known that from the start and the things that Midoriya said to to explain what happened to him came swarming back. More red flags flying every where he turned. Something was up. Something Shouta was now directly in the center of whether he liked it or not.
He was startled from his thoughts by something cold brushing up against his arm. Her glanced up and jerked backwards. The swirling dark shadow was now right on top of him swirling around him. He heard laughter dark and dangerous echoing around him. Terror shot through him as the shadows swirled even closer and tightened around him in an icy cold grasp.
“Shouta!”
The voice from earlier echoed through his head again. For a split second in the swirl of shadows in front of him he thought he saw a face tinged pale blue strangely familiar. Desperately he reached for it but it disappeared as his hand went through it meeting only the icy cloudiness of the shadows. That ice started to crawl up his arm.
“Shouta!” the voice again. Louder and more insistent. “You need to run...use your connection...run...”
He blinked and shook his arm the dangerous icy feeling was racing up it in a way that could not be good. The voice in his head forced him to remember Midoriya's soul and his connection to it. He wrapped his non icing hand around the lifeline that connected him to the other soul and tugged. It responded instantly and he shot forward through and away from the shadows. He turned his head and for a brief moment saw a blue outline in the raging shadows. Then the dark shadows seemed to swallow the light one and Shouta was left facing a pair of angry yellow, wispy eyes. A mouth that was somehow a Gate opened up and gaped towards him like it was trying to catch him. Shouta grasped desperately at his soul connection as he felt the icy grasp of the shadow Gate nipping at his heels. He had no idea where he might end up if he was caught by the Gate but he knew without a doubt that he didn't want to find out. Just as the shadow creature almost caught up to him there was a strong jerky tug on his connection and he found himself hurtling forward at even greater speeds away from the creature. He grasped at the connection with both hands and closed his eyes.
Then with a forceful pop everything stilled. He opened his eyes and found himself inside a dark bedroom. Midoriya was sitting up in bed, his covers tangled around his feet and he was breathing raggedly and clutching at his chest though the noise through their connection was only white noise in Shouta's head. Wide terror filled eyes swept around the bedroom and for a split second their eyes met. Shouta stilled. The living shouldn't be able to see them in their spirit form. Shouta glanced down for a moment just to make sure he hadn't forced himself into Being accidentally while escaping from the shadow creature. His body still shimmered lightly in the dark, wispy and non-corporal. Midoriya's eyes slid away from him as he sat on his bed and continued to gasp for breath.
There was the sound of hurried footsteps on the other side of the closed bedroom door and Shouta tensed until a light came on and a knock sounded on the door. Things that lurked in the shadows would avoid the light and not turn it on and they wouldn't announce their presence. Midoriya had mentioned a mother while they were talking earlier. This must be her.
“Izuku is everything alright?” the voice was soft and feminine and filled with worry.
“Yeah,” Midoriya said still clutching at his chest. “I'm alright, just a...nightmare...” He shuddered and his eyes searched the dark and seemed to land on Shouta again briefly before skittering away again. “Just a nightmare.”
“Would you like some warm milk?”
“You don't have to do that, mom” the boy said trying to untangle legs. “Go back to bed I didn't mean to wake you.”
“I...I was having trouble sleeping myself,” his mother said and Shouta could hear the lie in her voice. “I wouldn't mind something to help soothe me...let me help you...”
The boy sat silently for a moment. His breath had evened out and he stared forlornly around himself. Shouta wondered what had happened in the hours they were apart. If the boy had told her what had almost happened or if she just sensed that something was very wrong. Either way he clearly felt guilty for what he had almost done to her.
“Izuku?”
“Okay...yeah...that sounds nice,” he finally said.
He slipped out of bed and walked towards the door. Shouta didn't think he imagined the way the boy glanced at the corner he was huddled in with trepidation as he hurried quickly past it. Then he was out of the door and Shouta was left alone.
He lay there in the dark listening to the sounds of the two of them making their warm milk and talking softly. It grounded him to this reality and almost chased away his own very real fear and despair at everything that had happened since he left the office. He was trapped here, connected to a boy with a death wish and there was an actual very real shadow monster trying to...to do what what exactly? Eat him, transport him somewhere else, make him Void?
He shook and gasped for air he didn't need as the terror welled up inside him again. He felt something tug at his chest. He took a calming breath. He needed to stay calm. His emotions were clearly not just his own any longer. That needed to be the first order of business figure out what this connection meant. The second was to figure out how to sever the connection so that he could get back to the other side and away from things that might want to eat him.
A goal in mind he forced himself to sit up and slipped further back into the shadows. Then he pulled out his unit and after a quick check was relieved to see that he could still connect in to the information hub even from the Overworld and being locked out of Headquarters. He opened up a communication to Tensei's private account and typed up a quick missive about looking into the shared soul connection in his books. Then he switched over to the information hub and began looking up anything he could find about the subject on there. Between his friend's ancient collection of dusty old books and the information super highway of the Underground surely they could get this figured out in a matter of days
As he slipped down the research rabbit hole he pushed all thoughts of blue tinged shadows with familiar voices out of his head.
~ ~ ~
The End