Dead Gorgeous (Mori Calliope x OC) A Hololive Fanfic *Completed*

31.5

Zed's POV

Before events of chapters 28-31

"Oh it's you again."

"Yeah it's me again."

A fireball was sent hurdling my way as I gleefully catch it by my hand and extinguished it by crumpling my fist.

Kiara sighed, closing her door gently opposite to her innermost feelings. "What are you doing in my room?"

"The better question to pose is when did I get in your room but okay," I jumped down from the ceiling. Being upside down for hours wasn't recommended, after all. "Your room's the only one that has this nice view of the moon. I quite like staring at things that have genuine substance. I get restless sometimes." Truthfully, I wanted to irk her more by teasing her but that would show how I really felt.

That wasn't me. She'd ask me why I was like that, tell me why I can't do it and leave her to recollect her thoughts for the next day.

Zed was the only name given to me without anyone. I wasn't raised by the best standards so I chose to live by my own.

Zed was more of a reflection than who I truly was. A once prudish and timid essence depraved of communication. There was only a concept of me that existed, an idea of a Zed. But that was nothing more than a word attached onto my head. I could never properly identify myself back then. My classmates could never.

I dreamed nothing and gained nothing as a result. I made friends and lost them. It was only through the torment and harshness of the Underworld I began to realize being alone wouldn't solve anything and that emptiness allowed me to see what I could be like on the other side. I had to move and give myself a pat on the back. A claim to power and stability to achieve what the past me could never hope to obtain.

"Even if you asked for permission, I wouldn't let you in my room now kindly buzz off before-"

"Hm? Hold that thought. Got a job to finish." I had to make a quick reaping session. Someone, I anticipated, had already died from a gunshot in a dimly lit passageway between two blocks of a local library and a water station. Blinking away from Kiara's room, I transported myself to the scene of the death.

This world was fragile. Limitlessly weak but plentiful of mystery. Reaping souls was something I'd grown accustomed to, even before I became a full-fledged reaper. Under Mori Calliope's instruction, my perspective on the world began to shift slightly. Despite its randomness, it was filled with successes and failures.

As I stood below the road lights turning on and off, flies swirling around the nearby dumpsters, I gazed at the dead body that was shot fresh. Reaper comprehension was more or less synonymous with intuition. We just automatically knew when a person's time is over by looking at their state. Though that didn't mean we were quacks or idiots. We picked up on subtle and discrete signs and entangle them with Underworld common sense.

Had I never studied how this worked, I wouldn't have thought or done anything throughout my time.

Death was assured when the person gave up.

I knelt down beside the body, slicing its soul away from its host body. It came out like a medium-sized blob ready to dissipate into the air like smoke from a cigar. I wasn't sentimental like Calli in the field of reaping nor was I patient. I preferred to be swift. There was no money involved. Guiding the dead to rest was my job. That was all there was to it. I should never affiliate myself with human affairs. My master can do that. That was her decision. I couldn't let my emotions interfere with work.

I'd rather things be like this.

Quick and short.

"You should've put up a fight. Now your daughter's got no one to celebrate Family Day with. But rest in peace, you can finally join your wife."