The grim reapers here to earn their rank aligned. Smug folks that assume the normal examination was going to happen. There always the show off that is all talk about the kit they have. The bragging about how many souls they successfully managed under a masters watch. There a the quiet once who aren't even meant to be here, backed away and sharpening their partner blades for the task. There lingered damp cold in everything as a paper doorway made itself. The tome pages removed from leather binding and stuck themselves on a surface they couldn't see. The ink of the pages seeps and dripped. The thin veil wall of paper began to take colour. A door is drawn. The painting of ink came real as the door flies.open and clattered on Old hinges. Squeaking and wobbled, jitters the metal locking mechanism on the doors. The force of it being throw open had company. A mass of black slumped into realm. The surface tension of this bubble mass releases, leaving no traces around. Just strange round things in thin black skins. Floating about the air as of suspended to it. Everyone one looks at each other and back to the door of tome pages. A little lady steps through, held her body in being proud of some strange accomplished task. She snaps her fingers and directed the bubble black to hover in a row. She give them a thumb up and the masses are placed down. She carries a small mass under arm, steps that have a ringing echo to them. She stops and given death a bow, the Lord of this land while the true title is away in business.
"What are they?" Death asked.
"Something that contains souls." She posed the one in hand forwards, "A talented death god or grim can unshell these and not harm the souls trapped inside. This is like eye surgery. You remove only the surface layer, peel back and the souls become easy to scoop from there. Unless you have a talent of locating souls inside the mass, than attempting to scoop without peel is possible. But you risk multiple souls in such a way. Each thing has a tome worth of languages."
"Miss, this is ridiculous of an exam." Someone complains. She light tossed hers up and with a slayer claw dagger. She perfectly removed the shell then the souls within. She released these souls around her and they stick around hovering in waiting. They all seen she didn't use a death god blade but accomplished the exam. She throw her left hand in saying they should try and everyone that is here for the exam turns to each bubble. The ones of sloppiness get what they deserve as the bubbles do fight back.
"This still doesn't explain what they are." The Lord crossed his arms in concern.
"All these souls are to a true title god. Just one guy. The idiot that it be amazing to fight a mythical nightmare. I was issued the request to fetch the souls out the monsters guts. You so happen to request the need of some practice. It's takes no talent and a lot of talent. depending methods." She nods impressed with three folks who accomplished this task, "Good. So I have a extra credit task. It does mean more popping these bubbles. But I will show you a tricky way." She walked through as scythes are still swinging. She is unscaved as she approached and brings more bubbles to them. These are smaller this time. Her mask carved a thin smile, "The smaller, the harder the shell. This tends to not matter for living realm beings. But you aren't always going to have to scoop souls from corpses in a living realm. There have been accidents. Humans ate by things of the curtain. Living creatures stuck into pocket realms. That sort if thing." She holds one for herself, "You have to break this somewhat carefully to remove the souls. But your blades can't help you at the start. That's unless you trust your partner to do it." She makes her own claw and knocked the surface just hard enough to open it but not smash the membrane inside. She stuck her hand into the thing and her fingers clasp the soul. She lets the soul float and the hard thing sealed itself. She pockets the empty thing.
"There was more soul in that thing." One them pointed out.
"You don't want to remove the soul of the creature that ate the souls. Your lord death would be most displeased of me. I can't let my old friend have a problem because of me. I am already a thorn in the side. Let's not add more." They look at the task at hand within expressions, "I had the only soul of the creature. The rest of these are just the targets." She walked back though the those who struggling the first task. Back to standing beside death in watching who was what degree of skill. She smiles creepy of watching it all and death posed perplexed of what this task really was.
"One god?" He asked again.
"Mmm... did they tell you?" She snickers a little.
"You have allowed existence of a thing we can't defend against." She sighed at this.
"No death. I don't get a choose in the matter of what passes between my boundary. I can't convince those to not leave. We need souls, so letting some occasional souls from there will have to do. This is a health universe and there needs variety in soul recycling. At best, I am just the monster holding back the things we don't need." She tilts as someone that heard her freeze up, "Your apprentice is a good soul." She directed about the few that heard her speaking to death. She also can tell that there is another true title death, but his not of this universe. Here pretended as one low rank. He seems to be struggling with the soul voices. She snaps fingers and the mass of cores come to her. She claws up all of them and has all the souls released. She wipes off the goop and away the bubbles faded behind her.
"The ability to hear souls is both a blessing and curse. You hear the most private of secrets from those that begging for mercy. They have no filters. The soul has no good or bad. But put into an operational body, we can label them good or bad by their actions. Even the most innocent of soul wants to see the world break and burn. This is a turth we of soul crafters must respect and heartless ignore. You can't allow yourself to be swallowed by the demands of lesser souls." She folds arms, "This may not apply to all of you. But the souls that have travelled the abyss are far worse. And those wounded critically by a misuse of a death god blade. They will beg, cry and even scream. Souls aren't a joke. Those whom aren't able to hear them. The moment you do will be when you know you screwed up. If you can suddenly hear the soul of the thing you are taking, you have allowed it to attach to your blade. Damaging both your blade and the soul. You must scoop them without a surface scratch to prevent this." She looked at how they were reacting to such thing. She frowns displeased.
'The sound of a broken soul is the most painful. Because the shattered ones have many voices as one mass. You have a mess at your hand of such things. Shattered souls can't be repaired. There is no reverse way of undoing the damage.' They all shivered hearing her used her voice of souls. She smiles in settling.
"This is how you know about the sound of souls even if you're human." A candidate up in trying to guess. They all whispers to each other and glances of downward glares.
"No. I had a terrible fate. I am cursed and broken. I maybe a human soul with a human living body. But I am an outsider who travelled the multiverse and I spend many existences doing many lifetimes." She shurgs at this, "You would normally hear this from my soul voice. But I drive many to fear. The screams and cries of my soul echoes a lot of boundaries. I make god eater fear me."
The grim reapers look at each other confused, and the Lord issues his orders from the end of this examination. They all passed, even if they failed to remove the souls. As this test was depth of learning to understanding souls. First hand experience with difficult cases. They are already fully qualified, able handed sycthe holders and a steady tome writer. This test was more if they were qualified for more challenging roles or be faced with challenges that wouldn't normally happen. It doesn't always mean on reaper for five souls. Sometimes souls of the dead don't want to leave or become stuck in realms that death can't reach. Get stuck in objects that don't belong. Souls can be inside anything, but there isn't enough energy and law to empower objects. This is why a death blade which would be considered a soul blade object, needs someone to hold and move them. They don't have the energy alone to do things for themselves. The mask of a damned is another example, they constantly seek negative energy to be able to control their own actions. Without the supply of negatively, they would be trapped as sentient mask objects. An unpleasant predicament to be starved and mistake as some stage prop.
This little game had played out in death's wish. The trainees feel better equipped in this strange knowledge that couldn't be told by mouth or read in a book. She packed away all these bits but allowed the souls free here in this realm. Leave the souls as they wish. She posed in having a large yon. Expelling so much energy to even come here in visit of death's domain. She can feel the back of her mind doing homework back in the dorm. Something dull such as mathematics, but the consuming of learning basic knowledge was important. She keeps herself engaged and is ready to the paper doorway back. Toss these bits through, as there isn't a need for the broken black bubbles.
"As the human saying goes..." She striaghtes up her clothing and clean up a little her appearance, "I will likely be seeing you again. There is only so far time has played for this soul in this universe. I seem stuck as some child always in school." She posed causal hand to hip and fluttering her left hand into a bowed courtesy.
"This doesn't make us even." He crossed arms at her. She stands softly with a smirk. She studies the young death god. She finds herself lost in the waves of power death bathes in, her eyes constantly flickered in watching the life-force of the god. She had a sting of envy, but she wasn't rude to linger. She can sense her own tevers to her life back home and the fabric weave of her souls natural shape. She takes only a look backwards as she going through the pages, smirk of the creatures that cause fate and fortune. Those who are attached to the death gods, ribbons of blinding them from seeing these creatures she does. It makes the Lord overseeing this have second thoughts for only a moment. But he has more important things to get on. She is just a convenient timing for minor duties. He doesn't need to bother any unwanted doubts or unfounded concerns.
She puts down her pen from her homework, leans back watching the wall plastered of paper fall. She smirks of how her shadow side returned unharmed from such simple request. The strange mass bits are being thrown into a black torn hold through space. Watching the vast monster of some pocket abyss taking pleasure with fresh meat. The last one turned into some sort of egg. That clearly faded among the curtains veils of realms. Her shadow claws sew the tear through space closed. A tight seal. Watching the layers knit naturally back as it should be. A soft stretch and she turned back forwards. Pen picked up and proper focus on the harder questions and the show of working out.
"And this kingdom of the wolves is at war with the Lynx too. The spiders have had a change of alliance. The Bears have reappeared from the curtains." Mad man at her door talking nonsense to another undertaker. The two weren't paired and were sent to be her guardians. There is two for her and there is two for her brother. Provided by the crest of the unicorn, the same sorts who been dabble in god affairs. They had lost touch with undertaker kingdoms that were its neighbours. The general public of the unicorns has been more afraid of human crossings then interwar among their own type. Which was part in why they dabbled with gods. The current monarch is under pressure to have some Mircales over the living world fixed. There have been a few discrepancies of the gods of nature causing human deaths. Namely that the recent storms that been disruption across the southern States of North America, those have been an accidental miss calculation of the weather goes of different territory tectonic plates but maybe not accidents. There is always gods fighting other gods. Even the minor of gods have been dragged under by the drive of public image changes. Its been a real mess and humanity hasn't a clue to make sense of why.
She struggled focus with how monotone the argument between the two undertaker was not matching to their convey of thoughts in the word chooses they make. She has to accept that undertakers aren't human and do not use the pitch or tone of voice to make points clear. She makes notes of their frustrations since it was distracting her. She finally finds herself back to focus with the homework, now she was hearing it as background sound.
"Eliza!" She throw her pen into the stationary organiser, she barely scrapped past that last question. She tucked her chair back and leans in flexing from being seated to long.
"Just leave her. Clearly a little sister like that doesn't need her big brother on her back." Eliza stops short of the door, taking in that she could be holding him back. She listened as he was whispering back talk among his posy. His not alone and his not here out of the good of his heart.
"Hey Eliza, you wouldn't happen to have some black salt?" She frowns offended that he play with something so dangerous.
"If you going to summon some freak from beyond. You will suffer." She barely opens the door and some spray of this black sand is all over her. They all laughed at her. The but of jokes and a target in her back. Her own brother doesn't even know what his caused. Or maybe he does, but to not the extent he ready for. She holds the door from being pushed by them, keeping them from entry into the room. But she can't hold it forever. So once her shadow put away all the valued important things and placed some fake ones.
Her dork brother crashed into the room, laughing. He has more dirt or whatever to tip over her. She sighed in just letting him get this over excitement and ganging out of his system. If he doesn't let this energy pass, it will only build to worse or more stupid things. She was used to this, the downside of things. But she wouldn't change how he is for a world or realm. Even in bad days, he will make up for them in good times. His crowd of friends comes going through her stuff. She suspected so, stealing whatever. He doesn't seem aware of his bad crowd. Although who knows, maybe he does and part takes in this sort of thing with them. She knows him, he wants to be a part of the crowd and look cool to his new mates.
"Hey what's this for?" She has a random bronze platter from some god realm. It lost value when she brought it to the living realm. It's just ordinary bronze platter. Not even pretty looking. The friend don't care for what it is really, just if was valued. Scrap metal values neat. But it's not going to break her heart if they took it or stole it. This is the clear intention as it being put into a backpack. Talk among themselves of what to do with it.
"The closet full nothing. Not even the realm gear is worth it." She wearing her personal stuff.
"How do you feel being covered in that?" He snickered in not getting any reaction he wanted from her. Looking his frown, "Oh come on. It's a practical joke. You have to be mad about it or something."
"Yes. I am very upset. I don't like your friends. I don't want you in my room. But here you all are. Stealing my stuff. Tracking dirt and bad things all over the place. You had no one else weak enough to pick on." She is crying and white knuckles tight holding her shirt, "Your just being stupid." She stands there taking it, "You don't want me angry, brother. I am not a nice person if you break my patience. You should leave now. Your joke is done. It was a great laugh. Leave my stuff where you found it. If I find one item missing, I will have it returned to me in a methods you don't want."
"The demons aren't going to help you." One them talked back.
"Who said I needed demons?" She used her other voice and they all weren't laughing. But they started muttering it was some trick. She just good at little tricks. They watched her fight, she full of tricks.
"Hey!" A teacher coming around to see the fuss. Several coming around and everyone was in equal measure told off. The black sand everywhere was stolen from a teachers stock. They blame everyone even her. Since her room is covered in it the most. Although, the demon were perplexed of the humans choose to implicate her in being the head of this. If she was the head of this prank group, they would definitely been using that sand differently. She knows how to use it correctly unlike these kids. They all sent off, her stuff taken with. Which now she has every bit to take them back in her method.
"As for you two." Now the gang was separated, "Which one of you thought to do this? What were you going to use it for?"
"It was someone else's idea to take it. I thought it was just dirt."
"He doesn't have a clue." She huffed disappointed in him, "Enough to summon a god and wasted to ruin my clothes. Moron." She crossed her arms displeased, "If I was part of this little joke, I would used my own stock. Why would I be so stupid to steal from the headmaster? The man has a realm of hell to be controlled under. Why do I need to take something I can get for myself?"
So now the teacher slides back to her brother.
"Dirt is dirt." He shrugs, "It's was just a joke."
"I see. So you know how dangerous this is but he doesn't." She cast a spell which meant using the black sand up. She might as well make use of it if it was going to be wasted. The items that been stolen are strangely appearing back where they were, as rips of the walls open. Hands of many things poking about making the room neat. The horror of her brother fallen to the floor and the teacher backed to the door. As the last item was polished all clean, the rifts closed in a loud cracking sound. She kicked her brother to stand up and a rift closes there.
"Just leave me alone, brother. Go live your life with your new friends. Don't make me stop you. If you want to be in the bad side of the headmaster, then don't drag me with you." She pushed him put her room, "I have redo my homework now. Since they stole that too and there's no replacement for it. I will gladly do some work in punishment for my suspected actions. Just keep him away from my room. His trouble."
"Taddle tale." He stick tongue at her as the teacher takes him away from her. She watched the door closed. She sensed this wasn't over yet, she turned back around to find the god of Death over looking her homework. Returned it to her with a nod.
"You could stop him taking a bad path." This death gods a real chatty guy and suited the American gangster mob film look.
"His had an imp on his shoulder since the day he was born. He isn't going to listen to me now. He will just take the hard path and look back with hindsight." She crossed her arms, "I already spent a life trying to do exactly that. Tell people about things I seen and didn't understand. I have ended up the bottom of the barrel. Not even worth scrapping for." She twisted around to the death god, "What did you need my service for anything?"
"Just oversee a up coming death here on the grounds. You will not be part of it and you wouldn't even be taking the soul. But having an abyss type to keep the creatures back while we are prying the soul out would be appreciated. A small favour." He flicked his fedora, "My boss sent me a note saying his approved of you siding with me."
"Sure. I shall be the girl that seen the murder. Whatever." She shurgs at this, "They have me as some blame in human court for sure." She turned back to staring at her door again. Death posed a hand at his lips.
"You sure do actually care about your cousin brother." She rolled eyes since she knows her soul sold her out on that. Most death gods can hear souls. She does carry weigh of some regret of not handling things differently or that maybe she should have took a in human action to prevent the sand from spraying all over. But its done and over with. She now has to move on from spilt ashes. She puts her homework where it should be. Brought out the jar of voodoo and spy dolls. She gave them a disturbing shake and then handed the jar over to her shadow self. It smirks and carries it in pride to someplace else. She posed her hand of counting down from five. Points to the door being thrown open. Death claps impressed of her way of things. tilts his hat and walked past the demon, brushed shoulder and off some place.
"Good to meet you, headmaster. Black sand doesn't come cheap these days, depending on its source." She sits down at her bed end and posed offering her desk to him. He seems to had second thoughts in even dealing with her. He backed to the door, closes it softly and seems stuck there. She huffed in such a poor respect. He pulls it open slightly in double checking. Closed it again with some sort of growl on his part. He throw the door open again for sure this time. He freeze up in staring back the mask that clings down from the ceiling. It frowns deeply holding the jar of charm craft spies. He shivered accepting to take the jar now, and leaving the door open. Leaves in loud stomps. Passing teachers look about confused. Her clothy nature softly is closing the door again. It peers in all smiles the whole time.
The headmaster in being returned to his demon realm, main office desk. He sat down with pale skin and shiver. He about slammed the glass jar in pieces as he freaked out with the death god posed at his guest seat.
"You must have a long history with the lady Marionette. She didn't leave you with a wound that never heals. She replaced your sand and took the money from directly out if you vault. She knows you vault access a little to well."
"The last time I hired her for a contract to remove a soul eater bug from my school and realm. She left an unrepairable sliced whole through my wall. It wouldn't have been back if it was a normal hole. But it is crawled god eaters constantly now and causing a time displacement rift between the two sides of the corridor." Death nods impressed of a hole like that. This death god is a honest yet chatty mam. Now he has the starved and stressed demon of the realm surface layer of hell in attention. The is plenty to be talking in terms of who was dying and the greater scheme of things that many gods had coordinating. This Death was one for gambling, so maybe slipping the vague word here and there will spoil some other gods plan. As, death dislikes souls being released to soon. That he needed to buy time to rebalance the after realms without the next mass soul migration from the living world happening.