‘Till Death…

Characters:

Shikyo: Shinigami; age unknown, appears 16. His name means literally “Death.”

Ketsuki: Vampire, age 123, appears 17. His name means the latter half of the Japanese word for “Vampire” or “Bloodsucker.”

Yaezaki Hitomi: Human, age 16. Our main character. Her name means “Double blossoming person.” Hitomi is a kind girl.

CHAPTER 1 – Quota

Shikyo giggled as he looked up from his notebook. Another human fell over, this one just two streets away. He smiled to himself. “Only four more and I can call it a day,” he snickered. He quickly wrote that man’s name down. He was the sixteenth human he had seen die today, just four short of his quota. He had contented himself in sitting at the same bench in the park for over fifteen hours, but it was beginning to get boring just waiting for people in the area to pass away. He quickly gazed around the park and gauged the life expectancy of each person.

“Darn eating healthy,” he muttered to himself. No one was close to their expiration. “I suppose I can go somewhere else…” he sighed and flew off the bench and down the street. It was now three o’clock which meant two things for Shikyo. One of which was that the streets would be filled with children getting out of school for the day. The other was that the streets would be filled with possible names for his notebook.

“Surely at least four of all of the high schoolers in Tokyo must do drugs or something,” he giggled to himself and floated passed a teenage girl, flipping her skirt up in the process.

“Pervert!” she turned around, but no one was there.

“What’s wrong?” her friend asked and the girl just turned around, muttering something about the wind.

“Silly humans,” Shikyo chuckled to himself. It was good not to be seen, especially when you’re a harbinger of death. “People die so much easier when they can’t see their killer,” he smiled. Unfortunately, today was not a killing day for Shikyo. He had to just wait for twenty people to die and he was given twenty-four hours to wait. He suddenly stopped and hovered as he wrote down another name in his book.

“Three more to go, I knew there’d be a druggy or two,” he laughed again. “Humans are so predictable, you’d be hard set to find one who wouldn’t do exactly as you think they would.” Shikyo continued talking to himself as he rounded another corner. “Take this one for example,” he smirked as a large boy pushed a much smaller boy against the brick wall of an alley.

“Hand over your money,” Shikyo said in unison with the bully. “I need to buy that new video game,” he said. Of course, he couldn’t fill in the exact name of the video game, it had been a long time since he had spent time with the humans long enough to understand trends, but other than that, he was right on. Of course, the bully got his money and the poor nerdy kid was left crying.

“Typical, typical and extremely boring!” he sighed and floated into the next alley where two teens were busy shooting up. “Ah, at least I can add them, this looks like an overdose.” Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Shikyo was writing two more names into his notebook. “Nineteen down and one to go,” he smiled to himself and floated closer to a high school. This one was almost empty, but the last few students were filing out. “Clubs,” he hummed and floated over the steps in the front of the school, waiting for an easy target.

“Hitomi-chan,” he heard a high pitched voice and turned toward its direction. There was a short girl with bright red hair pulled back into pigtails talking to a girl with long blonde hair. The annoying redhead kept chattering about this and that, but Shikyo couldn’t help, but stare at the blonde girl.

“Well, Yumiko, I don’t know, we’d have to ask our president,” Hitomi answered the annoying girl with practiced patience. Shikyo ruffled his short white hair in annoyance at the girl’s high-pitched wail.

“But Hitomi-chaaaaan!” the redhead whined. “I’m sure we could take the trip to Osaka!” Then the short girl smirked, “I bet it would be fun to ride the rollercoaster with Kento-sempai.” The blonde blushed.

“Y-yumiko!” Hitomi flushed even more, “I don’t feel that way about Kento-sempai, alright?” The redhead rolled her eyes and giggled.

“Yuck, this is starting to turn into some fluffy, shoujo story,” Shikyo pushed his soft, white bangs out of his face and started to float away, when he noticed something. He had been too enamored by the blonde’s good looks earlier to notice her life span. “She only has three more hours,” he gave himself an inner high-five. “I’ll just follow her around until she dies and I’ll be done with plenty of time to spare.”

“Hitomi, are you coming to the mall or not?” Shikyo faced the direction of the redhead girl’s annoying voice only to come face to face with the blonde girl. She was staring right at him. “Hitomi-chan?” The blonde suddenly snapped out of her trance.

“Sorry, Yumiko, I thought I heard something,” with that, she turned and followed her friend in the direction of the outdoor mall. Shikyo let out of a sigh of relief.

“For a second I thought that maybe she could see me,” he put his hand over where his heart would be, if he had one of course. “Well, I better follow her, maybe she’ll be allergic to something they eat, that’s always a fun one to watch, or maybe…” he continued filling his mind with sick fantasies as he followed Hitomi to her death.

Hours had passed and Hitomi was still kicking. Shikyo stared at her again, so he could focus and read her remaining time. She had only a few minutes, but they were still in the mall. At least it was getting dark.

“Ooh! Maybe it’ll be a mugging,” Shikyo couldn’t contain his excitement. Most of his recorded deaths today were old age, heart attacks or overdoses. He wanted to see something exciting. Suddenly he turned and the girls were nowhere in sight. He flew up higher so he could get a better view of the area. He saw Hitomi, alone. “Hmph, her stupid little friend must have stayed out past curfew.”

Hitomi walked down an alley, a short cut, back to her house. “Yup, definitely a mugging,” Shikyo smiled to himself and floated after her. His completely white outfit would have stood out in the dark if he could be seen. He pushed his white bangs out of his eyes and followed her down the alley. “Any second now…”

“Ah, Hitomi-chan,” Shikyo and Hitomi both snapped their heads towards the voice.

“Ooh, it’s someone she knows, how dramatic!” Shikyo giggled and got his notebook ready.

“W-who’s there?” Hitomi clutched her pink bag closer to her chest and unconsciously pulled on a strand of her long blonde hair.

“Hm, I’m surprised you don’t remember me,” the dark man’s voice replied.

“I bet it’s an ex-boyfriend,” Shikyo hummed to himself as he took some pocky out of his pocket and began to chow down, thoroughly enjoying the show.

A dark shadow appeared and Hitomi gasped. “What do you want? My father is an important business man here in the city, you could be a very rich man,” she lied as she backed away. Shikyo chuckled to himself.

“Girls will say anything when they’re in trouble,” he narrowed his eyes, time was up, “Good bye, it was nice to meet you, Hitomi.” But she remained. The shadow did not attack and her time was up.

“I’m not going to do it with you floating there,” the man said, stepping out of the shadows. He was actually no more than a boy, about seventeen maybe, with jet black hair slightly shorter than Shikyo’s. He flashed his white teeth at the shinigami. “Surprised? We can see you, you know.”

“We?” Shikyo was suddenly hit with realization, “Vampire!”

“Very good, Shinigami,” he chuckled. “Now, get out of here so I can have the life of this girl.” By this time, Hitomi was terrified. Her attacker had yet to attack, but now he was talking to himself. She took her chance and ran down the alley, but suddenly the dark boy was in front of her, smiling.

“Not so fast, pet,” he smirked and pushed her against the alley wall. “I’m not done with you just yet,” he purred as he slowly kissed his way down to her neck. “Ah,” he breathed as he reached her pulse point, “I just love that sound.”

“Please, if you let me go, I will do everything in my power to-,” but the dark-haired boy cut her off.

“Power?” he laughed, “what power does a human have?” Shikyo had finally snapped out of his stupor and flew towards the vampire. He pushed him off of Hitomi and stood in front of her.

“Damn it, Shinigami,” the vampire complained as he got up off the floor. “This is my kill and besides,” he smirked, “weren’t you just waiting for her to die?”

“Rule number three-hundred and fifty-two,” Shikyo began, “any human being pursued by a shinigami is off-limits to any other supernatural being including, but not limited to, vampires, werewolves-”

“Enough!” the dark-haired one screamed. “What are you, new or something?” by Shikyo’s blush, he could tell that he was. “You’re just mad because if I take her life, then you can’t have her soul, right?” Shikyo nodded.

“That’s right, and I saw her first,” he glared at the fanged boy. “What’s your name, Vampire, so I can tell the authorities that you were about to break a rule?”

“The name is Ketsuki and don’t bother, I was just leaving anyway,” he turned around and began walking down the alley. “Of course, you realize that her life has been extended since I didn’t kill her. I was the reason she was supposed to die…looks like you’ll have to find another soul tonight,” Ketsuki chuckled as he disappeared down the alley. “Oh,” his voice returned, “I’ll come back for little Miss Hitomi later.”

“What’s going on?” Hitomi all but screamed. She had tears streaming from her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked feeling awkwardly out in front of her. “Who are you, the one the saved me?”

“My name is Shikyo and it doesn’t matter, I have a job to do and you can’t even hear me,” he laughed a bit, getting his bouncy mood back and started to float away.

“Shikyo wait!” Hitomi called out. Shikyo froze, his eyes wide. She could hear him?

“Um, Hitomi-san, you’re dreaming. Why don’t you just head on home and get back into bed?” Shikyo started to hover backwards and away from her.

“But you saved me,” Hitomi wasn’t sure where to look, so she looked everywhere at once in the alley. “Please, Shikyo, I want to thank you…” she looked down, more tears falling from her eyes. “And what if,” she sniffed, “what if that monster, that vampire comes back?”

“I won’t let him get you,” Shikyo heard himself say. “I will protect you, Hitomi, I swear.”

“Well, well,” a voice whispered from the shadows, not heard by Hitomi or the shinigami. “Looks like perfect little Shikyo has gotten himself into trouble. I suppose I should tell the boss.”

What has Shikyo done? Isn’t it forbidden for a shinigami to protect a human? And what about Ketsuki, will he keep his promise the return for Hitomi’s life? And who was that person in the shadows (if they are a person?) Find out in the next installment of “’Till Death…”