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Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan	By : OokamiKasumi Category: -Misc Anime > Het - Male/Female Views: 1281 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: 'Zombie-Loan' characters, terms, and locations are property of Peach-Pit. This story was written for Personal enjoyment. No money was made from this work.

Chapter List
- 1-Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan
- 2-One
- 3-Two
- 4-Three
- 5-Four
- 6-Five
- 7-Six
- 8-Seven
- 9-Eight
- 10-Nine
- 11-Ten
- 12-Eleven
- 13-Twelve
- 14-Thirteen
- 15-Fourteen
- 16-Fifteen
- 17-Sixteen
- 18-Seventeen
- 19-Eighteen
- 20-Nineteen - END
- 19
- 20
Death and the Maiden
A Zombie-Loan Fan-fiction By Ookami Kasumi
~ Nineteen ~
An annoying sound entered Michiru's blissful sleep. It continued, tearing apart her mildly troubling dream of floating in front of monstrous door that was sitting on clouds.
Michiru opened her eyes to a bedroom full of gray shadows, and the sound of her cell phone jangling out the theme music to a horror-comedy movie. Frowning in sleepy annoyance, she reached over to take the phone off her dresser and squinted blearily at the cover to see who was calling her.
In that moment the music stopped. However, blinking in red on the cover of her phone was the name; Shiba.
Suddenly, Michiru was wide awake. Shiba...?! It actually took her several heartbeats to recall that she'd given him her number. "What is Shiba calling me for?"
The phone abruptly began playing the same horror movie tune.
Surprised, her hands jerked hard. The phone flipped right out of her grasp to land on the comforter. She grabbed for it and pressed the green button to accept the call. With trembling fingers she pressed it to her ear. "H-hello?"
"Michiru-chan!" The voice was cheerful, and definitely Shiba's.
Michiru frowned. Shiba was acting like he hadn't tried to cut her in half last night. She folded her knees up, and pulled her blanket up to her chin. "Uh... H-hi, Shiba. W-what's up?" She simply couldn't think of any other way to respond.
"Yeah, hi. I was wondering... You know that reaper we ran into last night?" Shiba's voice remained cheerful, but a slender thread of tension stiffened his words. "You wouldn't happen to know who that guy was, would you?"
Michiru blinked. Reaper...? "You mean, Mr. Inu?"
Shiba sighed as though coming to some sort of conclusion. "Oh... Is that his name? So, do you happen to know why he's after me?"
Michiru tilted her head. Shiba didn't know...? "Ah... He's your partner."
There was a moment of silence, then Shiba spoke without a trace of humor in his tone. "My...what?"
"Your partner. Reapers are supposed to work in pairs." She eyed the fire still cheerfully blazing away in her fireplace. She'd need to add another log in a few hours.
Shiba abruptly laughed. "No, no, no! Michiru-chan, I'm a zombie, remember? Reapers hunt our kind. They don't work with them."
Michiru frowned. "But you're not a zombie anymore. At least, not on the inside. I don't know if it changed you on the outside too..."
"Wait! Wait! Wait a minute here." Shiba's voice went dead cold. "What do you mean I'm not a zombie anymore?"
Michiru tilted her head the other way. "You manifested into a reaper last night. Didn't you notice?"
Silence.
More silence.
"Michiru-chan, if this is supposed to be some sort of joke, it's not funny."
Michiru heaved a sigh. "I guess they didn't tell you."
"Michiru..." Shiba sucked in an audible breath and sighed it back out. "Michiru-chan, who are they, and what were they supposed to tell me?"
"Well..." Michiru nibbled on her bottom lip. "I don't really know who they are, but someone was supposed to tell you... You know that reaper core you stole?"
"The one that lets me use a scythe, right?" Shiba chuckled briefly. "Yeah, I know it very well."
Michiru plucked at her comforter. "Well, it seems that you kept it too long and it became your core."
"Michiru-chan..." He spoke with exaggerated patience. "It became my core the moment I took it."
Michiru winced. Shiba was so difficult to talk to! "No, no, no... You don't understand. The core merged with your soul, or rather, it took over your soul, and now you don't have a soul, you have a core - that core. That's why you became a reaper, and why it changed colors."
"Wait... My core had a color?"
Michiru nodded then abruptly realized that Shiba couldn't see it. "Yes, it used to be violet; Mr. Kurou's color, but now it's your color; yellow."
"Who's Mr. Kurou?"
Michiru sighed. "You probably know him as Zarame-san, Mr. Sugar Candy. That's just a nick-name, not his real name."
"So, that reaper's real name is Kurou?"
Michiru winced and tugged on her left forelock. "Actually, no, but its close."
"You know... Never mind! Anyway! Are you serious about me being a reaper?"
Michiru released a sigh of relief. Finally, he gets it! "Yes. You're fully a reaper."
"And this other reaper... This Mr. Inu, he's supposed to be my partner, and that's why he's after me?"
"Yes. I'm pretty sure he just wants to take you to his territory which is where you'll be working, and train you on how to collect zombies."
Shiba snorted. "I don't think I'll need much training for killing zombies."
Michiru frowned. "Actually, I'm pretty sure there's more to it than just killing them, Shiba, such as finding the ones about to rise. As far as I know, they don't work from the Akashic Record database like Z-Loan does."
Shiba abruptly laughed. "Pity I don't have your eyes, right Michiru-chan? Finding zombies to kill would be so much easier, ya know?"
Michiru shrugged. "That's just because you weren't born a reaper, you were made one. Normal reapers have eye like mine."
Silence...
"Michiru, that kind of sounds like you're telling me that you are a reaper."
Oh crap...! Michiru waved her free hand at her empty bedroom. "Oh no, I'm not one yet! I won't be a reaper until I die."
Silence.
"Michiru-chan, are you telling me that you were born a reaper?"
"Um..." Michiru chuckled weakly. "Yeah, that's why I can see zombies, and people-" She swallowed hard. "-About to die."
"But you're not one yet?"
Michiru shook her head hard. "I won't be a full reaper until after I die. That's when my soul will manifest into a reaper's core."
"Then how come you had a scythe last night?"
Michiru winced. "Er... Well? I'm kind of close to manifesting, so I can get to it, but I'm really not supposed to use it because I don't actually have a core yet."
"Kind of close...? Didn't you just say it won't happen until you die?"
"Well, being around released zombies gave me a little too much dark matter, so... Yeah. I'm a bit closer to manifesting than I should be. But I've got that under control now! So... So don't worry! I won't become a reaper until I actually die!"
"Dark matter, is it...?" Shiba sighed heavily. "This conversation is going further and further off the deep end... Anyway...! Michiru-chan?"
"Uh... Yes?"
"Did you ever find out who made those shikigami -the paper zombies- and why they're after me?"
"Oh! Yes! Mr. Inu had those made. They're used for reaper training, but Mr. Inu was using them to bring your core up to manifestation, which it did last night."
"And I honestly thought this conversation couldn't possibly get any weirder... Okay! So, Michiru, just how did those paper things bring my..." He cleared his throat briefly. "My core up to... What did you call it? Manifestation?"
Michiru switched the phone to her right ear. Her left was going numb. "The paper zombies were full of dark matter. Once your core got enough dark matter it manifested, making you a reaper."
"Dark matter again, huh... Hmm..." Shiba chuckled, but it was a chilling sound. "And this, Mr. Inu... He's the one behind all this?" Shiba's voice abruptly dropped to a low growl. "Sounds to me like I ought to have a little chat with this Inu guy."
"Well, he is supposed to be your partner, so..."
"One last question."
"Yes?"
Shiba's voice abruptly turned cheerful. "Who knew I was going to become a reaper?"
Michiru frowned, thinking. "Well, nobody knew until I asked Mr. Kurou about the paper zombies, right after I saw you, so..."
"And he told you that I was being set up to go reaper, then you told everybody else, I assume?"
"Well... Yeah."
"Michiru-chan, you're saying everybody knew that I was going to be a reaper? Chika-chan, Shito, you, that ferryman...?" His voice climbed until he was shouting from her phone. "And nobody said anything to me?!"
Michiru hunched down against her headboard. Shiba was clearly getting upset. "Well, it's not as if they could have told you...?" Or would have told him.
"You could have. You had my cell number."
Michiru shrunk further down and pulled her covers up to her nose. "I didn't think it was going to happen the next day- err, night!" Well, Kurou suspected that it might, but that wasn't something she wanted to admit to Shiba.
Shiba sighed out a huge breath. "Okay, fine. I understand. You didn't have enough time to tell me."
Michiru lunged up from under her covers. "I didn't! I really, really didn't!"
"Yes, yes, fine. I forgive you."
Michiru breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."
"Anyway! I am definitely going to have a little talk with this so-called partner of mine." His tone suddenly turned cheery. "Oh, speak of the devil...! Well, got'ta go, Michiru-chan! Talk to you real soon!"
The phone beeped, signaling that the connection had ended.
Michiru looked at her phone and bit down on her bottom lip. Somehow, Shiba's last words sounded vaguely...threatening. She rolled her eyes. What was she thinking? Shiba always sounded threatening.
She looked at the time on her phone; two-twenty-seven PM. She had nearly two and a half hours more of blissful peace and quiet until five. That's when the school let out and people would come back to the dorm. That was, if they didn't go straight to the Z-Loan office. If they went straight there, the dorm would be empty until after seven.
She slid down under her covers and closed her eyes. She sincerely hoped she'd actually be able to sleep until seven, but she seriously doubted she'd get so lucky.
~ ZL ~
A soft voice whispered near Michiru's ear. "Michiru-chan. Michiru-chan, wakey-wakey!"
Michiru opened her bleary eyes. "Huh...?" The sun had gone down, filling the room with deep shadows. The only light came from the embers in her fireplace. However, that was more than enough to see that someone was sitting in the chair by her bedside. "Who...?"
That someone leaned closer and Shiba smiled down at her. "Hello, Michiru chan."
Michiru was suddenly very wide awake. "Sh-Shiba?" What was he doing in her bedroom?
Shiba set both elbows on her bed and pushed back the overlong bangs of his hair. "So... Is it true that you're a reaper?" His smile remained the same, but his gaze narrowed.
Her heart racing in her chest, Michiru pushed to sit up against her headboard, clutching her blankets to her chin. "Y-yes, b-but n-not until I die."
Shiba leaned closer. "But if you die, you'll definitely be a reaper. You're sure?"
Michiru frowned in confusion. "Um... Yes?"
Shiba abruptly sat up to flop back in the chair, his arms dropping to his sides. He sighed heavily and stared up at the cracked ceiling. "Well, you were right. That reaper bastard told me that I really am a reaper, and that he is supposed to be my partner."
Michiru sat up little straighter, and tried not to stare. Without her glasses on, the black ring around Shiba's throat marking him as a walking corpse was plainly visible. "O-okay...?"
Shiba lunged forward to stare hard at her. "I don't need a partner."
Michiru leaned away from him. It was pretty obvious to anyone that knew Shiba that the only person he even remotely liked being with was Chika. Though calling that 'liking' was a bit of a stretch.
Shiba looked away, his lips curled back in open disgust. "I don't need anyone giving me orders."
Michiru plucked at the blankets. "Um... I don't think reapers get much say in who their partners are."
Shiba abruptly stood and smiled. "Actually! That bastard told me that if I could find another reaper willing to be my partner, he'd give up on me."
Michiru tilted her head and frowned. "But the only other reaper I know of is Mr. Kurou, and he already has a partner." Me.
Shiba lifted a finger and grinned broadly. "You're forgetting one more."
Michiru looked to the side, thinking. "No, I don't think so..." But then, she simply didn't know any other reapers.
Shiba abruptly leaned over the bed, his face close enough for a kiss. "You."
"Huh?" Michiru's eyes widened drastically. "Me?! B-but I'm not a reaper! Not yet!"
Shiba smiled and nodded "That's right - not yet." He winked. "But we can fix that, right?"
Michiru's blood turned to ice. "What?"
"Well, come on then...!" Shiba grabbed Michiru by the right wrist and stood up to drag her out from under the covers then off the bed.
"Shiba...!?" Dressed in only a ruffled flannel nightgown, the room was rather chilly, and the floor icy cold under her bare feet. She winced, lifting one foot, then the other. "Shiba, wait...!" She turned to reach for her bathrobe lying across the foot of her bed.
Shiba's grip on her right wrist stopped her. "Don't bother. It's not like you're going to need it."
Michiru turned to look at Shiba. "What...?"
Black smoke formed in Shiba's other hand which quickly materialized into Shiba's scythe. "Let's take a quick trip to the roof, shall we?" He tipped the scythe to slash a tear in thin air, revealing the gray mist of the spirit world.
Suddenly terrified, Michiru grabbed onto Shiba's hand in an attempt to pry his fingers off of her wrist. "Shiba, I don't know what you're planning, but...!"
Shiba ignored her and strode for the tear, dragging Michiru behind him.
Two steps later, Michiru was walking in the gray mist of the spirit plane. Two more steps and Shiba hauled her through yet another tear and out into the freezing night. To her horror, Michiru realized that she was standing on the narrow spine of the steeply slanted, roof of the dorm. One step to either the left or the right, and she'd slide right down the antique slate shingles and off the edge to the far too distant ground.
Michiru opened her mouth to scream, but not a sound came out of her. She was literally too scared to scream.
Shiba pushed her to the very edge of the roof. From there, it was a straight drop to the stone-littered graveyard eight stories below. He gave her a broad grin. "Now then, all you have to do is fall and die. Once you're a reaper, you can be my partner. Simple, right?"
Her nightgown fluttering in the chilly wind, Michiru clutched her hands together and shook her head. "Wrong!"
Shiba frowned. "I thought you said you'll be a reaper once you die?"
Michiru shivered. "I will, but I can't be your partner!"
"Michiru!" The voice came from below - far below.
Michiru turned to look down.
Chika stared up at her wide-eyed. "What the hell are you doing up there?!"
Shito stepped out of the shadows and looked up just as wide-eyed as Chika. "Michiru?"
Shiba stepped close behind Michiru and looked over her shoulder. "Oh hi, Chika-chan! I'll be with you in just a minute!" He turned to smile at Michiru. "I just need Michiru-chan to die first."
Michiru turned to face Shiba. "Shiba, I can't be your partner because I already have a partner!"
Shiba's smile evaporated. "What? Who?"
The sound of flapping cloth and massive wings was suddenly loud. Black feathers floated on the wind. "Me." On the roof's spine, ten steps behind Shiba, a swirl of darkness and wind formed into Kurou, his crooked scythe the color of clotted blood in hand, and his pitch-black wings upraised. "I am Michiru's partner, you stupid brat."
Shiba turned to Michiru. "What did he say?"
Michiru sighed. "He's my partner."
Shiba frowned at Kurou. "That guy?" He turned to frown at Michiru. "No way!"
Michiru nodded and smiled just a little.
Shiba set his hands on his narrow hips. "How in hell did that happen?"
Michiru shrugged. "I think it was decided before I was born."
Shiba smiled. "Well, in that case..." He nodded at the reaper on the roof. "Since I already took your core, I might as well take your partner too." Without looking back, he slammed his hand hard into Michiru's chest.
Michiru tipped backward and fell.
Kurou dove off the roof, arms outstretched, his black wings blotting out the night sky.
Even so, Michiru knew that he wouldn't reach her in time. The fall just wasn't far enough. Far enough to kill her, yes, but not nearly far enough to give him time to get to her before she broke on the grave stones below.
But she was not ready to die!
Suddenly a memory screamed across her mind. "Just as you were born with a scythe, you were also born with wings."
Michiru didn't have the time to figure out how to bring out her wings, so she reached into her heart for her scythe and hoped for a miracle. The purple-violet scythe swept out of her body, gracefully curved and beautiful, her deadly dance partner.
Suddenly her balance became centered and her body light. She twisted to face the swiftly approaching ground. There was a sound of wind among flapping cloth. A cloud of deep violet-black feather spilled around her. She stopped falling, and instead floated gently downward in a slow drifting glide.
But it was tiring, so, so tiring.
On the ground below her, both boys ran to meet her, their eyes wide.
She reached out to catch hold of the boys' hands and her bare toes touched the frosted grass. Her scythe abruptly evaporated in her grasp and a cloud of deep violet feathers burst around her. However, she just didn't have the strength to stand. Her knees buckled under her.
Shito and Chika caught her by the arms before she could fall.
She smiled at them in gratitude, but all too quickly, darkness crashed over her, and she knew nothing more.
~ ZL ~
Michiru abruptly sat up in her bed. Morning sunlight spilled through her aged red curtains. She frowned. "A dream...?"
Kurou, in his doll-sized form dug his way out from under her comforter. "Not a dream."
Michiru frowned down at the tiny reaper. "Then Shiba really did...?"
"Push you off the roof?" The tiny reaper nodded. "Yes."
"Then I really did...?"
"Call forth your wings?" The reaper climbed up onto her knee. "Yes."
Michiru frowned, a little disappointed. "I never saw them. I saw feathers, but not the wings themselves."
Kurou scowled. "Good! Those you are not to call on ever again!"
Michiru's eyes widened. "Why not?"
The tiny reaper stood up to shout at her. "Because in the few seconds they existed, they damned near drained your mortal life dry!"
Michiru shrank back. "But... But I feel fine!"
"And so you should!" The reaper folded his hypothetical arms across his barely existent chest. "You've been out cold for the past six days."
Michiru's mouth fell open. "Six days...?!" Her bladder took that moment to suddenly insist that it needed attention - immediately. Michiru threw the covers off and dashed out of her room to run to the toilet.
She passed Koyomi in the hallway.
The full-figured woman turned sharply to look after her. "Michiru...?"
Michiru shouted back to her without pausing in her mad dash. "Toilet!"
~ ZL ~
When Michiru went down to breakfast in the dining room an hour later, it seemed that everyone who had anything at all to do with Z-Loan was also there for breakfast. In addition to all the residents of the dorm; Chika, Shito, Aso, and Koyomi, Shuuji, Zen and Toko were also present. Seated on the other side of the crowded trestle table was Bekko, Yuuta, Otsu Sawatari the police forensics officer, and Sougiya the Buddhist undertaker. Even Miss Shimotsuki, the Z-Loan chairman and Lyca the werewolf were there.
Michiru was too busy eating to care. She was so, so hungry! However that didn't stop her from listening as they filled her in as to what happened after.
Apparently, shortly after she'd passed out in the boys' arms, the other reaper, Shiba's partner appeared. A fight then broke out between the three reapers, but no one had any idea what it was about because no one could understand them.
Well, Shiba they could have understood, but being up on the roof, he was too far away to really make out anything beyond the fact that he was royally pissed off that Michiru hadn't died.
Anyway, the fight had ended with Shiba getting punched out cold by the other reaper then carried off into the night.
Kurou had then disappeared back into his tiny form, and that had pretty much been that.
Well, except for the fact that no one had been able to wake Michiru up. It had been debated as to whether or not she should be sent to the hospital, but Miss Shimotsuki, the tiny Z-Loan chairman had decided against it.
So the main question floating around was; where had Shiba and that reaper gone?
Michiru turned to the tiny reaper sitting next to her tea cup.
The reaper shrugged. "The brat was taken back to Inu's territory."
Michiru swallowed what was in her mouth. "Oh, so Shiba's in Hokkaido, now?"
The tiny reaper nodded.
There was a collective release of held breaths.
Chika leaned forward on the table. His yellow gaze troubled. "Then, Shiba's gone for good?"
Shito snorted. "One can hope."
A delicate tea cup held aloft in her tiny hand, Miss Shimotsuki, tilted her head, her long silver hair sweeping across her shoulders. "Even by travelling through the spirit world, it would still take a great deal of time to reach here from Hokkaido."
Koyomi nodded, her eyes bright blue with Yomi's presence. "At least two weeks."
Kurou nodded. "And that's if the brat escapes his partner's leash."
Michiru tilted her head at the tiny reaper. "Leash...?"
Kurou nodded. "Inu swore he'd put a soul-chain on the brat to keep control of him."
Michiru frowned. "What's a soul-chain?"
Bekko abruptly rose to his feet, the chair legs screeching on the wooden floor. "Well then, I guess this story has a happy ending after all."
Aso stood up to tower over everyone in the room. He grinned broadly. "At least for the next two weeks!"
Light laughter, and a few comments on the time wove in and out of the sound of chairs scraping against the floor. People began to shuffle out of the dining room to go to work, to school, or wherever.
In the meantime, Michiru finally finished her third bowl of oatmeal.
Bekko abruptly leaned over her shoulder. "I'm glad you're still with us, Miss Kita."
Michiru looked up at him and smiled. "I am too."
Bekko nodded. "Good. Let's keep it that way, shall we?"
Michiru nodded as well. "I'll do my best."
Bekko patted her shoulder and stepped away. At the doorway he stopped. "I'm counting on you to be around for quite some time." He looked at her, his watery blue eyes surprisingly sharp behind his glasses. "Do we have a deal?"
Michiru's smile disappeared, but she nodded firmly. "We do."
Bekko smiled and his gaze disappeared behind the glare of light on his glasses. "Good." He stepped out of the room.
Koyomi abruptly rushed to Michiru's side with a cloth-wrapped box. "You better hurry of you want to get to school on time!"
"Yes!" Michiru lunged out of her chair and struggled into her coat. "Thank you!" She grabbed the box and her book bag then raced down the hall and out for the dorm for the school.
At the wrought iron gates of the school, the boys were waiting. A zombie hunt was scheduled for immediately after school.
Michiru agreed to meet with them in the graveyard after school to do her part to assist them. After all, they still had a loan to pay off - a Zombie-Loan.
~ End ~
- 19
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Death and the Maiden - Zombie-Loan