Zed's POV
Before events of chapters 28-31
"Oh it's you again."
"Yeah it's me again."
A fireball was sent hurdling my way as I gleefully catch it by my hand and extinguished it by crumpling my fist.
Kiara sighed, closing her door gently opposite to her innermost feelings. "What are you doing in my room?"
"The better question to pose is when did I get in your room but okay," I jumped down from the ceiling. Being upside down for hours wasn't recommended, after all. "Your room's the only one that has this nice view of the moon. I quite like staring at things that have genuine substance. I get restless sometimes." Truthfully, I wanted to irk her more by teasing her but that would show how I really felt.
That wasn't me. She'd ask me why I was like that, tell me why I can't do it and leave her to recollect her thoughts for the next day.
Zed was the only name given to me without anyone. I wasn't raised by the best standards so I chose to live by my own.
Zed was more of a reflection than who I truly was. A once prudish and timid essence depraved of communication. There was only a concept of me that existed, an idea of a Zed. But that was nothing more than a word attached onto my head. I could never properly identify myself back then. My classmates could never.
I dreamed nothing and gained nothing as a result. I made friends and lost them. It was only through the torment and harshness of the Underworld I began to realize being alone wouldn't solve anything and that emptiness allowed me to see what I could be like on the other side. I had to move and give myself a pat on the back. A claim to power and stability to achieve what the past me could never hope to obtain.
"Even if you asked for permission, I wouldn't let you in my room now kindly buzz off before-"
"Hm? Hold that thought. Got a job to finish." I had to make a quick reaping session. Someone, I anticipated, had already died from a gunshot in a dimly lit passageway between two blocks of a local library and a water station. Blinking away from Kiara's room, I transported myself to the scene of the death.
This world was fragile. Limitlessly weak but plentiful of mystery. Reaping souls was something I'd grown accustomed to, even before I became a full-fledged reaper. Under Mori Calliope's instruction, my perspective on the world began to shift slightly. Despite its randomness, it was filled with successes and failures.
As I stood below the road lights turning on and off, flies swirling around the nearby dumpsters, I gazed at the dead body that was shot fresh. Reaper comprehension was more or less synonymous with intuition. We just automatically knew when a person's time is over by looking at their state. Though that didn't mean we were quacks or idiots. We picked up on subtle and discrete signs and entangle them with Underworld common sense.
Had I never studied how this worked, I wouldn't have thought or done anything throughout my time.
Death was assured when the person gave up.
I knelt down beside the body, slicing its soul away from its host body. It came out like a medium-sized blob ready to dissipate into the air like smoke from a cigar. I wasn't sentimental like Calli in the field of reaping nor was I patient. I preferred to be swift. There was no money involved. Guiding the dead to rest was my job. That was all there was to it. I should never affiliate myself with human affairs. My master can do that. That was her decision. I couldn't let my emotions interfere with work.
I'd rather things be like this.
Quick and short.
"You should've put up a fight. Now your daughter's got no one to celebrate Family Day with. But rest in peace, you can finally join your wife."
I finished the job quickly without listening to the soul's voice.
I got back to Kiara's room. She was only wearing a bra and panties this time as she was undressing and fitting into a new set of clothes. I couldn't see anything after because she immediately threw her sword at me without warning. I ducked and closed my eyes, laughing simultaneously.
"Scared I'll see a bit of your feathers, hot wings?"
"You! Get out of my room! Now!"
I respectfully closed the door of her room when I got outside but I heard her locking it furiously. Not like that was going to stop me but I had decency at the very least. I slid against her door, sitting down on the floor. I let out a breath, seeing Ninomae and Gawr Gura walk together in the hallway.
They both look at me and share their own laughs. I knew what these shorties were thinking.
"It's not nice to talk about someone else behind their backs. What's going on between you two?" I strike up a conversation. After eating with these girls, I did think they meant no harm. They were here to entertain the masses with their quirks. I had no problem with that.
"We should be asking you that question, Mr. Reaper boy."
"Call me that again and I'll call you baby shark."
"How goes your training sessions with Calli, Zed?" Ninomae was respectful to everyone. It was hard to get into an argument with her. No one seemed to have issues working with her.
"So far, she's only been testing me on the physical strength department. Next week, she wants me to focus on blinking from one continent to another without passing out so there's that."
"I could always summon a portal for you should you wish it."
"No thank you, I'd rather figure this one out myself. Thanks though, tentacle rings."
They both left shortly after with Gawr Gura masking her intent to chomp at my head.
I could feel Kiara on the other side of the door.
"You dressed, hot wings?"
"How was it? Reaping a person's life and coming back like nothing happened?" Kiara was dressed in her pajamas.
Nothing? Of course, I didn't do anything else afterward. That was simply my job. To leave and let the humans handle death in a natural way. Once a human was killed, we reapers can't just bring them back. We would cease to exist.
"What do you want me to do? Tell them a bedtime story as they gasp for their last breath?"
She opened her door, my back landing on a good half of the floor of her room from the unexpected action. "I'm asking you how it felt. You're new to the real experience compared to Calli so I thought I'd ask to keep you in check."
I laughed. "It's not like I'm murdering them. I'm guiding them back to rest. You worried I'll go insane?"
"Not really. Reapers receive conditioning in school so I doubt you'd lose your mind."
"Some do," I mentioned. "A lot of them failed as a result. You can't go out of control or you'll lose." I smiled to myself.
"I can't take this anymore! I don't want to be a reaper! I can't! I can't! I can't!"
I looked at him, delirious and stunned, battered and beaten, hopeless and afraid.
"Didn't we promise each other to be fellow reapers together? Why... Why are you getting scared now?!"
"Get away from me, Zed!"
"Reaping isn't easy. It takes courage to see the soul's array of emotions screaming about fairness. Screaming about how they should've lived longer." I held my hands together, placing them on my knees as I sat. "It's a job. You can't let feelings get in the way of the execution."
"Stop it, Dillon! Why are you trying to kill me?!"
"I said get away!"
"It's only a job."
"You know, you and Calli said the exact same thing many centuries ago."
I looked at Kiara this time. Whatever vexation she felt towards me earlier whited out. I don't know what she saw in me right now but she wasn't smiling or giving me an earful. She was just there telling me so many things through her expression.
"About what? That this is nothing more than just a job?"
"About feelings. Calli was considered the most legendary student of Death during her time as an active reaper. She'd consecutively pile up the deaths by number and send their souls to the afterlife without batting an eye. She'd later come to regret that."
"Why? She's just doing what she's supposed to do."
"It made her lose herself. You said it before, Zed. You can't go out of control or you'll lose." She sat down beside me. "You probably never talk with Calli a whole lot since you're only a new student but me and Calli actually fought more than a thousand times in the past, before this whole Hololive business even happened."
That got me to shut up and listen.
"I died multiple times but I kept coming back alive because I'm a celestial being. Though I can't fully remember my memories of those times, Calli's emotions and rage were the only things I couldn't forget."
"Her role was destroying her and while I kept dying over and over in our fights, I always held on to the memories of bringing her back to her senses," she said. "When she concluded she could never kill me, she gave up and received a mouthful from me. We remained friends throughout those times."
"You telling me I should treat my job a little nicer?"
She slapped the back of my head.
"Ow!"
"You should focus on being better. Gain more perspective before coming up with conclusions that can ruin a good chunk of your life as a reaper. Just because you are one doesn't mean you should be consumed by it. The world is vast and always new and so are you. Calli was viciously stubborn and I don't want her to have to fight you at some point to knock some sense into your head." She placed her arm around the back of my shoulder.
"Don't lose yourself, is all I'm saying."
"We look like idiots sitting on the floor."
"Tell me about the reaping you did earlier."
I didn't mind her touching my back at all.