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“Hehe, beat you again.”
The reaper stops in his tracks, lifting his gaze to meet the golden phoenix lounging in the tree, waving at him with a triumphant smile.
Xiao rolled his eyes, about to continue on his way when she speaks again:
“What, are you upset that I got to everyone before you?”
He stills. “Those people were due to die. You should not meddle in the natural process of death.”
“Since when did people have an expiration date?” She retorted. “And their ‘deaths,’ if I let it happen, would’ve been anything but natural.”
“It’s not an ‘expiration date,’” Xiao corrected, patience thinning, “but a natural phenomenon that happens. By saving their lives, you’re only postponing the inevitable.”
“So what? What’s wrong with saving people so they live a longer life?”
The reaper only sighs. “Because my job has suddenly become ten times more complicated.”
“Because of a few-write ups? That’s hardly an issue,” she scoffed. “In fact, you should thank me, because you have less people to report now.”
“And more to reschedule and come back for,” he muttered bitterly. “In which case, you should be expecting a few calls from Rex L-”
The phoenix stiffens. “Wait, what-”
A flash of an innocent smile is all he allows her before turning to leave, finding a slight enjoyment in the panicked calls of the phoenix yelling after him.
—
The next time they meet, it’s in a much different setting.
Where the land meets the sea, the bitter cold waves crashed and receded. A thin veil of morning mist and fog seemed to linger, minimizing visibility, while a thick blanket of storm clouds prevented even the brightest rays of the morning sun from penetrating through, seeming to mirror the current state of events.
Dim, bleak, and utterly hopeless.
…Where did it all go wrong?
Xiao had arrived at the shoreline four minutes before the first designated time of death, when he began to see a few discrepancies already present in his book of records.
The predetermined number of victims was four hundred and one, with a hundred names listed on each page. But at a glance, Xiao noticed that there were a few names missing — before entire names began to vanish from the page in real time before his eyes, one after another.
Vexed, he lifted his narrowed gaze upward to the ferry in the distance. Someone was deliberately messing with the count, and he knew exactly who it was.
Without wasting a moment, Xiao swiftly makes his way over to the scene.
As he descends weightlessly onto the tilted deck of the already half submerged ship, he sees that all hell has broken loose. Adults, presumed to be the chaperones of the journey, along with the few remaining crew members were stumbling through the hallways, tearing off and flinging their own life jackets at the children who didn’t already have one, and, despite the intercom repeatedly blaring not to move, were shouting at the top of their lungs:
“Jump! Don’t wait, jump into the water and swim!”
Jump, because no help would arrive even if they wait; swim, because the authority tasked to protect these vulnerable lives had long turned their backs to save their own.
Xiao now sees for himself the reason for these discrepancies. But the cause?
To find her, he walked briskly into the passenger cabins, moving like a shadow as he slipped past clambering children and people. The reapers were invisible to the living, much like fairies were — and only through possessing another human to act as a vessel, could they communicate with the world.
And it doesn’t take him long to track her down. Because currently, there is only one other person that can hear him, and only one entity on board with the name —
“Lumine.”
The remaining crew member, now wading chest deep to attempt to get into the next room of passengers still trapped inside, visibly freezes at the sound of her name.
It’s only a brief moment of hesitation before she deliberately ignores him to focus on the task at hand, but it gives Xiao all the information he needed to confirm her true identity.
“You have already caused enough havoc. Stop at once.”
But still, she is unshaken.
“Let go of the door—“
As soon as Lumine turns the doorknob, the door bursts open under the pressure of water pushing from the other side. Caught off guard, she’s knocked off balance by the sudden surge, and her head goes under. Thankfully, Xiao is faster, having already anticipated what would happen, manages to grab onto her — the physical spirit of Lumine, and not the crew member she possessed — and successfully pull her to safety.
In his arms, she thrashes and flails in an attempt to break free from his grasp, but all Xiao needed to do was to sweep his hand once over her tearful eyes, and Lumine falls unconscious.
He spares a solemn glance at the now floating, lifeless body of the noble crew member left behind, whom he knew would’ve done the same thing to save the passengers’ lives, with or without divine intervention.
Bowing three times, before departing from the sinking ship.
—
They don’t utter a word to each other.
A day has already passed, and while the souls of the dead were being ushered, group by group from the boat to the afterlife, silence hangs heavy between the righteous reaper and the golden-haired phoenix.
In her hands, she clutched tightly onto a tattered sash, presumably belonging to one of the many victims that were trapped inside the sinking vessel. It was the only piece of memoir he allowed her to keep, mainly out of pity for her current state of mind. But still, she continued to cry, her anguished sobs shaking even the heart of the most desensitized reaper standing on the beach beside her.
However, Xiao made no attempt to comfort her, knowing that nothing could alleviate her of the guilt that plagued her, or of the anger she felt towards him.
Towards the world.
Everything always ends up being futile.
No matter how many tears she cried, she could not bring back the dead. No matter how many lives she saves, death will always return to take them away from her, sooner or later.
Why she still persists in fighting this losing battle, Xiao will never understand. Like the seeds of a dandelion being carried off on the breeze, each and every life would depart similarly, guided by the winds of time.
But in this moment, it doesn’t take a fool to recognize the fatigue weighing on her frame, the weariness on her face. Any semblance of hope and vitality seemed to have vanished; the light forever gone from her eyes. Devoid of any emotion, they gaze blankly into the endless expanse of the ocean, the exhaustion of fighting against a world of injustices all alone, of shouldering multiple eons’ worth of regrets for everyone that she naturally failed to protect, slowly setting in.
Everything ultimately culminates into nothing, and not even the strongest god or adeptus could change the outcome.
That is just the truth, the natural process of life and death.
Seeming to have realized it, Lumine finally speaks:
“Let’s go home, Xiao.”
—
There are those that will fight endlessly for all that is beautiful in the world, and those who have long given up, knowing the complex hypocrisy that shadows every ray of hope and beauty.
And on the battlefield, that hypocrisy runs rampant.
Everywhere he looks, there are people, both dead and alive, crying out for their beloved friends and family. There are people praising and honoring those who have fought and died gallantly for their cause, but simultaneously, there also exist people who curse the war for killing those dearest to them — and especially those who were caught in the crossfire.
Because to fight for a noble cause, but sacrifice the lives of so many innocent civilians to achieve it — could that really be called “noble” at all? If beauty could only be found and measured in the gruesome death of millions, is it even worth fighting for?
Stupid, is all he thinks as he hurries through the aftermath of a missile blast.
I told you so , are the words that ring in his head when he finally finds her in the rubble, hidden beneath two collapsed slabs of concrete — exactly where he thought she’d be.
“Why?” is all he asks, voice barely above a whisper as he kneeled down to the phoenix, her body reduced to a vulnerable pile of ashes, barely alight with the weak flicker of embers.
A sign that she was still stubbornly fighting death, though this time for her own life.
“Because you understand me,” her voice echoes. “And because…
“I trust no other reaper more than I trust you.”
Xiao exhales, his chest feeling tighter, heavier upon realizing the bleakness of the situation.
The bleak meaning behind the words of a person who knows that they’ve met their end, and accepted it.
Don’t say that.
“You’re not afraid I’ll scatter you to the seas?”
“A-Ah?” Lumine stutters, the surprise in her voice undeniable. “Well, if that’s how you truly feel about me, then…”
Xiao shakes his head with a disbelieving smile. To be entrusted with a phoenix's traces, their only remaining ties to the world, as their tired soul escapes to slumber and rest…
Of course not.
Of course, I…
“…I’ll look after you.”
“Hehe, I thought you’d say that,” Lumine replies, and in that moment, Xiao can imagine the sheepish smile adorning her face. “Even though I always gave you trouble, up until the last moment…
“Really, thank you, Xiao.”
The reaper opens his mouth to reply, a thousand things he wanted to say to her, all on the tip of his tongue.
That, after all this time, he finally understands the urge, the want to protect something beautiful, even despite its fleeting nature.
That, in essence, the brevity of life is what makes it so beautiful. The fact that it can slip so easily from one’s grasp, at the blink of an eye, is what makes life all the more valuable.
And that, in this moment, he’d become as desperate as her, willing to give anything if it meant he could reverse her inevitable fate.
Death was absolute. He knows that better than anyone else.
But, even so…
There are still people who don’t deserve to die.
“There’s… no need,” Xiao finally spoke, choking out the few words he could, all caught in his throat. “Just…
Come home quickly, alright?”
Lumine hums, though he could hear her voice gradually waning with her strength. “Until then, you’ll wait for me, right?”
Xiao nodded solemnly. “I promise.”
“Good. Then…. I shall leave myself in your care.”
With that, her voice becomes nothing more than a distant whisper in the wind, carried off to the corners of the world and beyond. But not her ashes; Xiao doesn’t let it. Per his oath, he immediately seals her, all of her, into the glimmering wings of his crystal fly pin that he wears over his heart.
A symbol of purity, beauty, and transience.
A gift he wished to give her one day, thinking it’d suit her quite well.
And it did. There is nothing more befitting of her.
This time, he will surely give it to her when she returns.
But for now, he will continue to wait as he promised, eyes raised and fixated on the stars above, where her soul will rest —
heart already longing for the day they will meet again.