2Should I bite my tongue?
Until blood soaks my shirt
We'll never fall apart
Tell me why this hurts so much
-Until the Day I Die (Story of the Year)
Her heart pounded against the back of her ribs as her breathing constricted, as if a chain was wrapper many time around her chest and being wrenched tighter and tigher until the bones threatened to shatter. Air rushed in and out of her spasming lungs in short rasps, but it didn't even feel like she was breathing. The pain... no, that wasn't the right word. The horrible agony searing her entire being, her very soul could not be described by that word. It was all-encompasing, shattering her mind into so many fragments she could never hope to piece it back together. At that moment, so only wished for the sweet stopping of her heart, for nothing but agony awaited anymore. The moment the skeletal apparition apeared before her, she had known. It was not him, and she had known. She did not even need see the white bound book held in the creature's claw to know.
He was gone. Just... . "It's yours, now." She raised her head and gazed into the shinigami's cat-like yellow eyes. It peered down at her, its expression somewhat indifferent, but there was the slightest flicker of concern in them, somewhere.
Gone.
She felt the soft hide-like texture of its cover as the shinigami slid it into her hands. She stared at it, eyes unfocused, unaware of the hot tears sliding down her face until she felt a claw gently wipe one away. She stared up at the bringer of death, uncomprehending. "He wouldn't have wanted to see you cry."
It was then that she dropped to her knees in the dirt, clutching the Death Note to her chest and unleashed what the shinigami would always remember as the most horrible noise he had ever heard. The shinigami felt his own heart tighten in his chest as the gut-wrenching, feral sound fell upon his ears. It was the most agonized, sorrowful howl he had heard from any creature, human or beast. It felt as if a burning cold claw had reached inside of him and attempted to pull his entire skeleton out through where his heart was. The anguished sound tore at his very soul and he felt... terrified. But still, he watched the girl sob on the ground in front of him until her throat could no longer make that horrible sound.
"Why."
He took a sharp inhale. "He used his Death Note to extend your life by taking that of your killer's. A Shinigami's only purpose is to take life, not give it. You have inherited his Death Note and his remaining life. I am sorry."
The girl just stared ahead of her, eyes showing less life in them than the corpses lying not far from where she knelt, hands clutched futiley at their chests. The shinigami was impressed, he didn't think the prince could write quite that fast... though it was difficult to tell, the girl had fell many of the soldiers herself. It was little wonder the townspeople had thought she was a demon. He was interrupted from his thoughts by the dry, humorless laugh that escaped her lips. "You, who relish death, what do you have to be sorry for?"
"You will live a long time." The prince had been very, very diligent with his Note. If he wanted, he could lounge on his ass for centuries and not have to worry about his life expentency dwindling. "And no note will claim you." No shinigami would be stupid enough to write this human's name down. They need not know her name, but only glance at the cruel numbers above her head. He was not envious of the agonizing lonliness and guilt the prince's infatuation would be plagued with for far longer than she would want to live.
"When you are about to die, I will write your name in my Death Note." It was the Shinigami who quirked a bony eyebrow when the girl spoke up, her voice barely audible above the wind. "That is what he promised me."
So... Shinigami truly could love, then.
"What happens... when a Shinigami dies?" She watched as the shinigami glanced over the landscape, the cool autumn weaving through the dried grass of the fields. Saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest before he spoke again.
"I do not know, little one."
But he had a feeling she did anyway.
"Where will you go," he asked as he watched her somehow pull up the strength to stand. She looked up at him, the notebook still clutched close to her heart, which should have ceased beating, but by the foolishness of his friend, still pounded in her ribs.
A sad smile tugged at her lips. His heart wrenched in chest at the sight of it. "To wait."
The god of death watched as she began to walk down the road, her brown, blood-spattered cloak hanging from her shoulders as she stared ahead at a point far beyond the horizon. He let out a sigh, shaking his head before following after her. Who knew what trouble this human would get into, and the prince would have killed him if he just left her alone. He would follow her... Repth had better things to do than to haunt some pathetic human the prince was stupid enough to die for.