Life After Death: Reincarnation

~Death~

I hate Soul Hunters. Not only because they kill and eat what we're supposed to reap and guide through the underworld, but because they gave me traumatic memory that I do not want to ever remember.

Soul Hunters. Ruthless, soul-less, fearless beings. They are the bane of all that exist in Purgatory. They pester the Council and the Pillars with their soul raids and eat the souls on-board carrier sh.i.p.s.

I hate them so much.

Back then, I used to think highly of them. I read books upon books about their adventures and their exploits when I became Death. They were warriors in the battle of ancients, running the front-line defenses of the army that was commanded by General Lucio, the first Grimm Reaper of Death. They were tough as nails, aggressive and can put up a mean fight. After the war, They became wayfarers of souls, revered by angels and demons, respected by soul of new and old. They were called, or rather still called, the Soul Guardians.

Some thousands of years ago, a part of the army rebelled. They left their stronghold and sailed the 13 seas of Purgatory. They were said to be led by Lazarus, the soul revived from Tartarus. Along side him were great and treacherous warriors who's names were not mentioned. They scorned the seas and islands of Purgatory raiding ghost sh.i.p.s, leaving a trail of chaos and destruction.

These were mere legends told by the ancient books in the great library of Kroy Wen. Legends that no one thought to be true until 290 years ago when I first encountered them.

It's not a memory to remember. It's a nightmare that will always haunt me.

"Death." Aeris whispered. "You look like something died. Well, OK . You're probably already used to seeing that. Point is you look terrified."

"I just remembered something." I listened carefully to the noise above. "Keep quiet. I'm trying to listen to what they're saying."

A heavy thump hit the deck. Either something heavy was thrown on deck or someone really heavy just boarded the ship.

"What do you want, Xerxes?" That voice sounded like Charon's. She's sounds shocked, nervous, and rattled.

"Did she say 'Xerxes'?"The tremors brought by his boots was enough to send chills down my spine. I can't imagine what Aeris is going through right now. "As in 'the god-king' Xerxes?"

"Yes." Xerxes. The god-king of men, ruler of the ocean of pasifia, and one of the generals of Soul Hunters.

"I want the soul that's on-board." Xerxes was directly above us. His voice was very deep and loud that I can see dust falling from the deck above us as he spoke. The entire ship literally shook as he walked.

"There's no soul on-board, Xerxes." This time is sounds like Maya. She's a bit shaky, but I can sense she's trying to hide it in her voice. "You already raided our sh.i.p.s. You ate all those poor souls. You killed all our people. There's nothing else that we can possibly give you." "True, but I smell a soul, a different kind of soul. It's somewhere on this ship. Give it to me or I will sink this ship."

"That sounds like a very enticing offer, but we'll decline for now." Loki seems to have dropped from somewhere high and landed behind Xerxes. "There's no soul here. Simply an illusion I conjured up to annoy you."

"Loki." Xerxes's sounds annoyed. That's the Grimm Reaper of Illusions and malice for you. "Surprised to see you here, Crimson Lion."

"I guess I could say the same for you." He walked to Xerxes's side, or at least it sounds like it. "You brought five ghost sh.i.p.s with you to bring down the Flying Dutchman, only to find out there's no soul here. I mean, come on, Xerxes. Are you really that stupid?"

"Shut your trap, Loki." He thumped in Loki's direction. Yep, Xerxes is annoyed. "I can smell that maggot here. I WILL find it. And when I do-" He stopped. I can hear someone squealing, like they're being strangled. A mere moment later something dropped by Xerxes's side. "I will kill everyone on-board this ship, just like how I killed him."

The floorboards above us dripped with glowing white liquid. Aura, the blood of the undead.

I looked to my left to see Aeris terrified of what he's hearing.

"You have a special place in Tartarus, Xerxes." Michael decided to show himself with a glow of light. "You didn't have to kill that soul, yet you did."

Xerxes grunts. "This isn't a place for angels."

"Yes, I agree. This is a place for souls to rest." Flapping wings, Thanatos is here. What the hell happened while we were hiding? It's like everyone disappeared to do something and now just returned. "Not for hungry restless, demons like you."

"This is amazing. Two wayfarer, an angel, and two grim reapers." He turns looks around, I think (he's shuffling his feet in every direction), and seeing he's surrounded. "What a coincidence. As if you're all protecting someone."

There was nothing but silence for a few seconds, nothing but the beat of Thanatos's wings. Then out of nowhere, Xerxes laughed ever so slowly.

"You think me stupid, Grimm Reaper of illusions? It's below deck, isn't it?!" Still laughing, he stomped hard on the floorboards above us. A flurry of cracks appeared overhead, growing wider every passing second. He stomped again, but this time his foot broke through.

I thought he was going to find and kill us right there and then. It's a good thing that Thanatos blew Xerxes away, sort of. He lifted him up a bit and he landed flat on his back on the floorboard above us. His body outlined on the wood above us. We scampered to the other end of the ship, near the door going to the deck in case of an emergency escape.

"HA! It is here! I can smell it!" Xerxes punched the floorboards next to Aeris. He managed to get away from Xerxes's hand just in time for him not to get captured.

He reared his head through the hole and saw us. "Come to me, treats." Then he got hit in the head by a beam of light, and another of shadow.

"You will not lay a hand on that soul, Xerxes!" It looks like Charon mustered enough courage to attack.

"Aeris, I'm gonna need you to stay here and hide. I need to help them." I held his hand. It was shaking, he was scared, but so was I. I need to go up there and help them.

He stopped shaking, he looked at me with a straight face and said. "Go get him."

And with that, I did. I ran up the stairs and into battle.

The deck was littered with holes from Xerxes's punches, and Xerxes himself was at the bow standing with a burnt face. His armor was thick, so was his tan hide. He was bald, and had yellow cat eyes which looked like it was glowing because of the burnt face. He had golden piercings from all over his head. He had white fangs for teeth and smiled like a murderer. He was Large with a stern physique, muscles bulging at every corner. His armor looked a bit small for his body. It looked like it was going to pop off of him any second. His armor was a simple black b.r.e.a.s.tplate that looks like it was made of daemon diamond, which means it's tough as hell.

"Hmmm, three Grimm reapers. This is not just any soul." He bared his fangs at me. That malicious, mischievous smile really sends a tingle down my spine. "This is going to be fun."

He goes for the kill. He ran at me at full speed and I stood there like a street lamp. Luckily, Loki appeared in front of me.

"Whoa there, Tiger. What's the rush?" Knowing Loki, he's having fun right now, smiling like a maniac and taunting Xerxes even more. He looks small and scrawny but he can be as strong as he wants to be. "That's one big, strong arm you have there. Not strong enough to punch me, though."

His jacket has now turned into violet, tattered robes. He's facing away from me but I know that he's wearing his famous black and silver lion armor underneath that robe. His hands was held out with one ring on each hand. On his left hand is his lion ring, Leo. It can suck the aura's of the fallen and reanimate them into a crimson, lion-shaped spirit. On his right hand is a bronze ring lined with gold and topped with an emerald gem, his reaper ring. With it, he can amplify his conjuring and illusion skill tenfold, he can make your worst nightmares come to life. Under the right circ.u.mstances, he can activate his ring to increase his power a hundredfold. I hope that this is one of those circ.u.mstances.

"You like that, Reaper?" His maniacal smile grew even wider. He then turned to his left where the other sh.i.p.s were. "What are you doing, you halfwits?! ATTACK!"

And with that, they attacked. Their sh.i.p.s advanced hastily and boarded the ship. Luckily we had more than enough capable souls to fight them off.

As the soul hunters started to board the ship, the crew pulled out - rather summoned - their weapons to retaliate. Michael and the others helped of course. He called forth his angelic Halberd and started to chop and disintegrate one soul after the other. Charon and Maya were back to back defending the helm.

Charon now had a staff in hand and was firing beams of shadow towards unfortunate souls. Maya looks like she had what looks like a wand in one hand and a magically imbued dagger in the other, simultaneously zapping and stabbing any poor bastards that came into view. Thanatos was picking them off one by one, literally. He picked on of them up with one hand and flew upwards. He punched a hole in the c.h.e.s.t of that soul, aura gashing through the wound, set it on fire with a spell, descended at high-speed, and slammed it to one of the sh.i.p.s, burning that ship and killing everyone in it in the process.

And there I was, standing like a useless pole. What are you doing, Death? Get in there an help! But I can't. Xerxes looked over Loki's shoulder, meeting my eyes. "You're still weak, Death. Just like before, when you let me kill them."

Those words stung like a bee's sting. A memory that incessantly rings through my brain like tinnitus, replaying in my mind like a movie that I didn't want to see. Remembering that day made me feel weaker than any day after that. Weak enough to be vulnerable for Xerxes to mark me as an easy target.

Within seconds, Xerxes threw Loki aside and went straight for me. As the moment passes, I looked into Xerxes' eyes and remembered every minute detail of that day. I heard their cries and screams for help, their voices whisper in my ears telling me that I let them die, I let them suffer. I can still see their dripping, white auras on my hand, their bodies littered the floor of the hospital. I remembered how I failed as a Grimm Reaper in protecting the dead.

Then just like that, something in me snapped. It broke itself in half and knocked me out. I blacked out.

Next thing I knew, I woke up in a dimly lit room, with beads for a door, on a queen sized bed. The aroma of lavender incense filled the air, which was kind of calming.

"Good to see that you're better now." A woman's voice spoke. She was sitting next to me, tending to wounds that I didn't think I had. "Rest, Death. you have gone through so much."

"So much? What happened?" I asked the woman.

"A lot happened." Aeris came through the door way. He looked very different, not just the way he looked but the way he moved and spoke. He's wearing a tucked polo underneath a black suit jacket with matching slacks and leather shoes. His now had streaks of white that mixed well with the black color of his hair. He had a stern look on his face, like something he loved died and he's out to kill who ever killed them. His eyes was no longer the color of hazelnut, it came in two colors now; vanta black (left) and prismatic white (right). The color of the eyes of Agartha, the shaman of life and death. "A lot that we really need to talk about with the Pillars and the Council."