The Master of Shadows and the Soulreaper

Narrator A.

Yamamoto and his three remaining men were left perplexed by the sudden disappearance of Mallory and Shepard, left alone to face Yuzan and the mysterious killer in the shadows. Suddenly, pools of black sludge appeared under the feet of everyone but Yamamoto, and his men were sucked into a void of pitch-black darkness. Slowly, they were dragged through the dark void, their senses nullified by the overwhelming dark before them. Eventually, each man was transported into a different room of an abandoned castle, with nothing but the sounds of a raging blizzard outside the windows to accompany them. They had found themselves in Everdark Castle, the headquarters for Yuzan and his commanders. In the dreadful dark of the castle, one of the men, his name Crow, set out to find this mysterious foe that lurked in the darkness.

Crow used his powers to unleash a murder of crows from his jacket to survey the castle, each relaying whatever information they could to him. By looking through the eyes of the crows, he could see how strange the layout of the castle was: hallways that stretched on forever, windows that showed a blizzard while others showed nothing but pitch darkness, doors that led to nothing, and chandeliers that were displayed everywhere with no rhyme or reason, some even being placed on the ground. Crow's intelligence gathering was interrupted by the sound of lightning, a typical feature of Ulyshian nights. The lightning came in a loud "CRACK" before a flash illuminated the window, and from the flash of light, Crow could see that a man in a cloak and a Halloween skeleton mask was watching him, standing on nothing from the eighth-floor window. The skeleton man stood there for a few seconds, watching Crow as fear gradually overtook his senses; in his eyes, this man could only be described as the manifestation of the Grim Reaper himself. He could only mutter out a shocked "What the fuck," before the masked man crashed through the window, the cold snow pouring out from the window with him. With his arrival, Crow could see that the man was carrying in one hand a black scythe, and in another, he was carrying a giant hourglass with what appeared to be a fetus lying among the sands of time.

Crow was rapidly losing his cool, facing the impending death before him. He yelled out empty threats to the man to appear more threatening. "Don't fuck with me, you hear?" But his threats were left on deaf ears as the Soulreaper before him just stood there. Crow tried to punch the man, but he ate his hits like they were nothing, looking at him through his mask like he was dealing with an annoying child. With his energy spent, the man just looked up at him and asked, "What are you?"

Through his skeleton mask, the reaper's eyes glowed a dark blue, "My name is Thanatos Reinkaos, sixth commander under Lord Yuzan."

At this point, Crow was desperate to save himself, getting on his hands and knees and begging, "Please, don't kill me, man. I'll leave and act like nothing ever happened." Thanatos answered his pleas with laughter.

"Kill you? Why, I already killed you ten years ago." Not even having any time to question the strange response, he felt a sharp pain in his heart. The next thing he noticed was that he was suddenly inside a closed coffin, his coffin. Looking down, he could see that his clothes and skin had utterly eroded, leaving nothing but a rotting skeleton for his body. Among the dirt that lay on his skeletal remains, grubs and worms were slowly chewing down on his bones, trying to gnaw at any bits of flesh that might remain on his bones. A giant, fat worm crawled out of his eye and began to chew on the forehead of his skull. Crow could only sit back, unable to move, as the worms chewed on his corpse.

"What was going on? How could this be possible?" These were the last thoughts that went through Crow's head before his heart stopped and he truly died. Above the coffin where he lay was a gravestone displaying his name, and on it was a date that stated he had died ten years prior. The power of Thanatos Reinkaos was so great that Crow's body did not even realize he had been killed until ten years after he had encountered the face of the horrifying soul reaper.

Ten years prior, Thanatos stood over the fresh corpse of Crow. Despite being dead, his eyes were still alight with life, the sign of a corpse that didn't even realize it was a corpse yet. Thanatos felt a sharp pain in his chest; he had used up too much of his power, disrupting his balance. Still, as he fell to his knees, he made absolutely sure that the hourglass did not break and kill the fetus inside. He poured more of his power into that hourglass to ensure that the unborn baby would remain frozen in time, never aging or dying. No matter what would happen to him, he knew that he must always keep the baby safe in the hourglass no matter what. If the child were to be let out of the hourglass, or if Thanatos had stopped pouring his power into it to keep it frozen in time, the fetus would quickly die, its organs too underdeveloped to survive a few minutes outside of a mother's womb. Thanatos remained where he was, caring for the unborn child.

Everdark Castle, Basement

The basement of Everdark Castle was the home of a man who only referred to himself as "The Necromancer," the third of Yuzan's seven commanders. He was a truly mysterious man, even amongst the other commanders. Nobody knew what his actual name was; nobody knew his nationality or race; nobody even knew how his powers worked, only having some vague idea of how it worked. As opposed to the skeletal appearance of Thanatos, Necromancer was more zombie in his looks. His skin looked as if it was rotting, with a sharp shade of green covering most of it and a cold look on his face that matched his anti-social personality. He hated people and rarely even left his basement; the commanders would simply dump off whatever dead bodies they had and allow him to use his techniques to bring them back to life, never taking any time to interact with him. He was rather picky, though, about what types of corpses he allowed to be dumped off to his workshop; he had explained that weaker Phoenixes could easily be turned into puppets for him to control, but stronger Phoenixes would almost always maintain their personalities from life, meaning they could only be controlled if they agreed to work with Necromancer.

The basement of his workshop glowed in a bright green light, fitting the green skin and green cloak the man wore. Across the entire workshop, one could see smoking cauldrons, chemistry equipment to create potions, pools of green ooze for him to dump corpses into, and bookshelves filled with research notes from his years of work. He was hard at work attempting to reanimate the corpse of a recently killed gangster when his concentration was broken by the ringing of the phone on the wall of the basement. Annoyed at the intrusion of his work, he stomped over to the phone and answered to the call of the one man more mysterious than him: Yuzan's first commander, SIN. "This better be important. You are interrupting very important work."

SIN's voice was cheerful and laid-back, in contrast to the angry and annoyed voice of Necromancer, "Don't worry about it, man. I'm certain you can get it done later. Anyway, I'm calling to warn you that X has just released some poor fools into the castle. And while I'm certain that the other commanders can deal with them, you don't have a combat Phoenix, so I suggest you lock your door and wait for them to be dealt with."

This only further enraged him, yelling out at SIN's disrespect, "DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I AM INCAPABLE OF HANDLING SOME SMALL FRY X DRAGGED IN HERE?! First, you interrupt my work, and then you have the gall to insult me in my workshop. I will have no more of this. Good day to you." Hanging up the phone, he returned to work in his workshop but was interrupted by the sword of one of Yamamoto's men at his neck.

"Don't make any sudden movements. Call for help, and I'll slit your throat, you hear me?"

Paying no attention to the intruder, Necromancer went back to work, preparing the corpses in his storage for revival. The man continued to make empty threats before Necromancer finally had enough of him. "Could you kindly fuck off? I have important business to conduct, and you are getting in my way."

"I don't give a damn about your 'business.' I'm getting out of this place, one way or another." Looking around, the mobster realized that the corpses lying all over the workshop were beginning to stir to life. Looking back at Necromancer, he could see his eyes glowing green in rage.

"I won't ask again. LEAVE.NOW!!!!" The man ran away in fear at the sight of the corpses coming back to life. Before he made his way through the basement door, Necromancer used a flash of his magic to change the door's properties so that it would instead lead him to the room of Yuzan's most prideful and hotheaded commander.

Bursting through the door, the man could see that he had found himself inside yet another pitch-black void, with the only thing in sight being a throne illuminated through the darkness. On the throne sat a middle-aged-looking man with sharp facial hair and glowing yellow eyes, his hair a brilliant shade of black. He was wearing a red cloak with a popped collar that extended past his ears; underneath his cloak was a classy tuxedo. The tuxedo in question had come from the Italian clothing company Canali and was an antique from the 1940s that would cost $10,000 today at least. He was sipping a fine glass of red wine while reading an old book, looking like the very definition of a classy gentleman; as he took sips from his glass, one could catch a glimpse of the fangs under his teeth. Upon noticing the intruder in his room, the man sat his glass down and rose from his throne, staring at the man in pure disgust. His voice was so loud and demanding that it sent shockwaves through anyone who heard it, "WHO DARES INTRUDE UPON MY HOME!!!!"

The intruder snapped out of the trance from his voice and pulled out a whip, his signature weapon. "Listen, gramps, I'm not here to sit and talk. I'm just here to find a way out of this castle."

His words were met only by laughter, "YOU FOOL!! There is no escape from this place. Once Commander X has allowed you to enter this cursed realm, you can only leave with his permission. Only Yuzan and his commanders can escape from this place. The rest are just prey for us."

The mobster was steadfast and strong in the face of this creature of the night. "I am the bodyguard to Sir Yamamoto. I have faced demons far greater than you."

Before he could speak again, the classy man suddenly appeared behind him, "You know nothing of a true demon. The demons you faced were mere Halloween decorations in comparison to me. I have seen true hell and inflicted it on others. I have seen warzones that stretched along entire continents and left everything dead in its wake. I have seen churches full of dead children massacred by the uncaring monster of warfare. You know not the first thing of warfare or combat. I can smell your past; you're just a filthy mercenary who fights for money and his own gain. You have never known the pain of losing someone close to you, the passion of fighting for something dear to you, the despair of realizing that you are fighting a losing battle. NO! You are simply a coward who kills for his benefit. My name is Count Dracula, fifth commander under Lord Yuzan."

The man tried to swing at the monster with his whip, but the body of Count Dracula merely vanished into mist at his attack. The Count reappeared again, and the man swung at nothing time and time again. As his attacks became more and more desperate, he could see that the monster before him was getting closer and closer to him at an unprecedented rate. The horrifying monster extended his hand towards the cowering intruder, attempting to grab hold of his neck, but the man jumped forward and dodged the attack. Using both hands, he fired off a burst of fire that was as hot as the sun itself. He was sure that this would burn the beast to ash. However, as soon as the dust had settled, the looming figure of Dracula remained there, unphased by the flames.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! You call THAT a fire spell? No, no, no. THIS... is a fire spell." Pointing only a single finger at the man, he effortlessly fired out an overwhelming surge of flames that dwarfed the previous attack and made it seem like child's play. The blast had left the man barely clinging to life, inches from death. Dracula looked upon the pathetic sight of the weakling and scoffed at his audacity to even attempt to fight back. He looked down at the man, saying, "This game is concluded," before an invisible blade cut the man thousands of times over, leaving only thousands of tiny cubes in place of the man. Burning the remaining pieces to dust, Dracula angrily walked back to the open door leading to the workshop. Entering the basement, Necromancer could feel Dracula's rage.

"Was it honestly necessary for you to lead him to me like that? You could have just dealt with him yourself and not interrupt my reading."

Necromancer scoffed at the thought, "I could have dealt with him, but it would have taken time that would be better spent on my work. Besides, I knew you would have made him suffer for interrupting both of us."

"I will let this disrespect slide once, but only because of your value to me and the other commanders. Do not let this happen again." As Dracula vanished back into his domain, Necromancer went back to his work like nothing had ever happened.

Castle Courtyard

The last of Yamamoto's men had spent the previous thirty minutes searching through the maze-like corridors of the castle. He had found himself in the castle courtyard, populated only by a frozen fountain, countless weeping angel statues, and the cold chill of the snow lying everywhere. On one of the benches surrounding the fountain stood X.

X was lying down on the bench in a relaxed position. He did not show any care for the man before him. Even as he put on his brass knuckles that enhanced his strength, X put no mind to him as he lay there. Before his punch could connect with X, he had vanished into the shadows. Reappearing from one of the weeping angel statues, he spoke to the man, "I sure hope you've enjoyed your stay at my humble abode. I try to make this place as... inviting... as I can for my esteemed guests." Dodging punch after punch, X continued on his rant. "I went through your file, and there's some nasty work there. During the Arman-Ulyshian war, you fired off multiple rounds of toxic gas on civilian centers. It said you were getting paid for each round, so you fired off as many rounds as they gave you and took your paycheck as if you were working a janitor's shift at a hospital. It is estimated that at least fifty thousand civilians were killed in your chemical attack. And that's just the start; you've been responsible for war crimes across the globe. So I thought that it would only be fair if I gave you my thanks as a proud Ulyshian." From his sleeve, the hidden blade extended out, and he used it to lay a thick cut over the man's chest before vanishing again. Crying out in pain, he limped over to the door leading out of the courtyard.

The door led him to a dark, cold church. The place was decorated with rows of church benches, an organ near the front, and a large stained glass painting of the angel Michael looking down upon the whole place. Limping his way through the church, the man was met with the peculiar sound of a phone ringing. Looking around, he saw a vintage rotary phone lying on one of the benches and picked up the phone. He was met with the cheery voice of commander SIN.

"HELLLLLLOOOOOOO there, my friend!!!! How are you doing on this fine eternal evening? I'm doing great. Now, I'm calling to see how you're feeling. I know that being trapped in an inescapable prison of darkness can be a little infuriating for some, but it's nothing a bandaid and a kiss from mom can't fix."

"Who the fuck is this?"

"Oh, don't worry about it. I'm just a voice in your head, nothing to worry about. Anyway, I was just wondering how much you care about that wife of yours."

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!!"

"Oh, it's nothing too serious. I just tied her up and started cutting off a couple of her fingers. But don't worry, she's doing well. Here, let me put here on the phone. Say hi to your husband, Ma'am." Through the phone, he could hear the muffled sounds of his wife screaming over the tape gag on her mouth.

"Why are you doing this? She's done nothing!"

"And that's exactly why I'm doing this, my friend. She did nothing. She willingly chose to marry a mercenary and had no problem with her husband being a mass murderer. She could have easily stepped up to you and said, 'No, this is wrong. What you're doing is wrong,' but she chose to do nothing about it. She's guilty through inaction."

"Please, just let her go. Take me instead."

"Oh, but that's not for me to decide; it's up to you!! All you have to do is sit in that confession box and let X do what he does, and I can assure you that she will be in a safe state. We're all guilty of some sin; now it's time for you to face yours."

Carrying the phone with him, he walked over to the confessional and entered, leaving him in complete darkness. Eventually, he could hear someone entering from the other side, from God's side. But it was not God who was meeting with the man to judge him. It was X. Both men took their seats at their sides of the booth.

"For years, you've spent your limited time causing others suffering. You've killed for your financial gain. You brought untold suffering to the people of Ulyshia, working for the Arman Empire in their war of aggression against the Ulyshians. You cared not for the suffering you caused these people; your prejudices made you see them as subhumans that must be exterminated. But today, you will see the might of Ulyshia." A shadow clone of X appeared behind the man and began to choke him out. "I was only a child when the war started. My first memories are of toxic gas raining down on me, only surviving because I was one of the few to have a gas mask on me. As I lay there, helpless, I saw the life slowly drain from the people I held dearest to me, watching them die a slow, painful death as the poison took their lives. And it was at that moment that I knew that I was put on this planet to lay waste to the enemies of Ulyshia.

No matter how hard one tries, they can never escape from their shadow, the shadow that their misdeeds place upon them. You are no different. Today, you will pay for killing my family on that day." The shadow clone then let out their blade and stabbed the man in his neck.

Limping over and still carrying the phone, the man fell out of the confessional and hit the ground. On the phone, he could hear SIN's voice again. "Looks like you won the game, CONGRATULATIONS!! I guess I gotta fulfill my end of the bargain now. Here you go!! Your wife all safe and sound." A magic light erupted before the man, and from it came a safe that fell to the ground with a loud "THUD." The sounds of gears turning could be heard as the safe was unlocked and opened. He could only stare in disbelief at what was inside the safe. The last thing he ever laid eyes upon was the sight of his wife, dead, her body horrifically mangled as she was stuffed inside the tiny safe. He could only look into the lifeless eyes of her corpse before he, too, fell over dead.