FicWad

Shinigami Realm, 1527 CE (according to human world calendar)

“Justin? Are you awake?”
Justin grumbled and shifted closer to his side of the basket, away from Fedor’s kicks.
“Cut it out, Fedor!”
“You’re awake!”
Justin half-opened one eye and glared at the onyx-black, skeletal shinigami with metal detailing who was looming over him. “No, I’m not. Leave me alone.”
“Come on, Justin! Did you forget what we’re gonna do today? Dad got the day off work…”
Justin’s eyes snapped open, and he shot up out of the basket, with Fedor right behind him. They both shrieked when their feet hit the stone floor, and they dove back into the basket and under the blanket.
“Aack! It’s cold out there!”
“No kidding! We’re never gonna get down to breakfast alive! Unless…”
The two shinigami looked at the shenzu-fibre blanket they shared, then at each other. Their eyes narrowed as they clutched the ends of the blanket. Fedor tugged at it. Justin tugged back.
“Cut it out, Justin! It’s mine!”
“Only if you can take it from me!”
The twins pulled at their separate ends with all their might, back and forth, in a tug of war both were determined to win…but they stopped when they heard the tiniest of ripping sounds coming from the blanket…
“Oops…oh, no…I can’t see it…can you see it, Justin?”
“No, I don’t think it actually split anywhere…but this isn’t gonna work. We gotta think of a plan…”
“We could cut it in half.”
“Yeah…or we could just share it, I guess.”
“…I guess.”

The two padded down the stairs, holding the blanket around themselves as they came into dark, flickering light of the main room of the cave. Although she was wearing a cloak against the cold, they could still see that the shinigami under it was skeletal and golden, with tribal-looking designs etched on her skin. She was cracking open shenzu nuts and warming them over some burning logs; the chains on her head clinked softly as she moved, and the flames magnified her shadows onto the walls and ceiling.
“Hi, Mom,” said Fedor.
“Hello, you two,” she said. “Come on over here-it’s a bit warmer near the fire.”
“They almost ready, Mom?” Justin asked as they sat down next to her.
“Actually, I think these two are already defrosted. Here,” she said, handing them half a shenzu nut each. They scooped handfuls of the paste-like seeds out of the half-pods that they held like bowls.
“You can have one too if you want, Mom,” said Justin, licking his fingers after he finished his nut.
“That’s all right-I’m not hungry. But thanks for offering.”
“You’re never hungry, Mom! How come you haven’t starved to death yet if you never eat?” said Fedor.
“She doesn’t need to eat. She’s already grown up…oh, hey, Dad,” said Justin as another cloaked shinigami swooped in from the hole in the ceiling-a black one, skeletal like the rest of them. He slid a cover over the hole-it made the room a lot darker, but it stopped the cold and the ice flecks from coming in. The shadows cast by the flames made him appear to tower over Justin and Fedor-even more so than usual. The jewels on his skin twinkled as he approached the firelight, but the frozen crystals he was covered with evaporated as they warmed up. He dropped the pods he’d been carrying in the corner with the rest of the shenzu nuts, and sat down on the other side of his sons.
“The vents in the earth are still churning out ice…it’s getting colder out there still. You boys sure you’re up for it?”
“Yeah! We’re only going to be in the realm for a little while anyway. Some dumb weather isn’t gonna stop me!” said Fedor, bouncing up and down so Justin had to hold onto his side of the blanket to keep it from falling off.
“All right-but I want you two to bundle up well nonetheless. Temperatures like this aren’t a joke…shinigami are starting to get hurt if they’re not careful.”
“…Are you sure it wouldn’t be better to wait until it warms up, Xithl?”
“We have no idea when it’s going to warm up, and we can’t afford to wait any longer. We need to get them down to the human world, and soon…”
“Soon” turned out to be right after Justin and Fedor polished off a second pod each.
“You two behave and listen to your dad, all right?” Armonia said as she wrapped the cloaks around them and lifted them up onto Xithl’s shoulders.
“You bet, Mom.”
“All right, Mom.”
“Take care of them, and yourself, all right?” Armonia said, walking around Xithl to face him.
“Of course,” Xithl said. “Don’t worry about us.”
Armonia reached around Xithl to put a hand on each of her sons’ heads, and he hugged her in return. “Thank you for going with Daddy for a while,” she said to the twins over his shoulder. “And Xithl, thank you for taking them. I know you’re busy, too. I just can’t hold off on work any longer…we need more housing. Those poor shinigami living in the King’s emergency shelters, all cramped together like that…they’ve been good about it, and they understand the situation we’re in with having twins, but they’re still unhappy, and I can’t say I blame them…”
“Don’t worry about it. I was going to have to take them to the human world sooner or later. Might as well be now.”
With that, they broke apart, and Xithl opened the cover on the ceiling hole. Justin held tight to his father’s back when his wings came out and he took off with a jarring, swooping motion.
“Wheeee!” Fedor shouted as they shot up into the icy, frozen sky, the wind and ice flakes stinging their faces…it was a rare treat, getting to fly on Dad’s back.
They flew out over the white, frozen expanse of the realm, and then Xithl pulled into a dive as they approached the flashing, crackling hole to the human world. Justin was briefly disoriented by the sensation-or rather, lack of any sensation, as they flew through it. He felt nothing, no sense of sight, hearing, gravity or balance…it was as though he was nothing, in someplace between realities that didn’t exist…
Then they were through, and Justin breathed a sigh of relief. He could feel everything again…Xithl’s wing beating on his right, Fedor knocking against him on his left as they were pushed by the wind…and warmth. The human world was still a bit cold, but it was way warmer than the shinigami realm. Finally, after a few more minutes of descending, Xithl touched down. They were actually in it…not just above it, actually in it…the human world, which they’d only heard stories about until now. Xithl knelt down, and Justin and Fedor slid off his back onto the ground. They looked around in awe…it was surreal, and painfully bright. Justin didn’t even know how to describe it.
“This place is seriously weird,” he said. Mordra, the female shinigami who was always drawing or painting something, hadn’t exaggerated...although the ice crystals that covered the ground in the human world were white like the ones in the shinigami realm, there were at least a hundred other colors that Justin couldn’t even name. Towering stone and wood boxes rose up out of the ground all over the place, and at least five types of strange creatures were bustling back and forth, raising a racket as they went, moving all around the shinigami…and through them. Justin flinched when a small furry creature ran through his stomach, but it continued on without pausing, oblivious to Justin’s presence.
“What’s this, Dad?” Fedor said, touching the clear substance on the ground. He touched it again, tangible this time-it rippled under his fingertips.
“Water.”
“Where did it come from?”
“See the ice everywhere?” said Xithl, gesturing to the white crystals lying on the ground…the only thing that looked sort of familiar. “It’s different from the ice in the shinigami realm. We have dry ice that melts straight into a gas, but the human world doesn’t get cold enough for that. Instead, it has a wet kind of ice with hydrogen in it instead of carbon, and a middle stage between gas and solid called liquid.”
“Weird,” said Fedor. “So, what are all these things walking around?”
“The tall ones without a lot of fur have the letters and numbers over them that you taught us…they’re humans, aren’t they?” said Justin.
“Very good, Justin.” Xithl smiled…typical. Fedor, always curious, always alert, always asking questions, but sometimes forgetting the answers…Justin tended to be off in his own little world, but when he did pay attention, he remembered everything, and could put two and two together more easily than someone three times his age.
“Now, here’s what we’re going to do today,” he said, pulling out the boys’ death notes…one with metal detailing for Fedor, and one with a few jewels on it for Justin. They’d gotten a kick out if it when he’d first given them their death notes, decorated to match their owners. “You’ve been practicing the human symbols I taught you for a while, and now you’re going to use them. Here. We’re going to play a little game.”
He held out their death notes and pens, and they reached up to take them. “I’m going to let you two loose until the sun…that bright thing in the sky…” he clarified when they looked confused, “goes away and it starts to get dark. Write down the names of as many humans as you can, and keep their faces in mind as you do. The one who kills the most humans by nightfall wins.”
“Huh? I don’t know if I can think about the symbols and a face at the same time, Dad…” said Fedor.
“Me either…do you really think we can kill one?” said Justin.
“Yes, with practice, you’ll be able to think of symbols and faces at the same time, and kill one. Maybe this time, maybe not… if neither of you manage to knock down a human, then the winner is the one who has the most names written. Ready? Go!”
The twins sprinted off in opposite directions, and Xithl flapped up to the top of a building to watch.

“Dad? It’s dark now…where are you?” Fedor called from the streets below. “Dad…?”
He jumped as Xithl dropped down off the building beside him. Xithl’s heart sank as he looked over Fedor’s head…he hadn’t killed one. They had to start killing humans soon, or…no; he had to stay calm, for Fedor and Justin. He couldn’t let them pick up on his own fear, and he couldn’t panic…he had to keep them encouraged.
“I’m right here,” he said. “I’ve been flying back and forth between you all day. Let’s see…how many names did you get?” Fedor handed him his death note, and Xithl flipped through it. “One hundred and thirty-one! That’s my boy!”
“Did I kill any?” asked Fedor. “I wanted to get a lot of names, so I didn’t stop and watch to see if they died…”
“No…your lifespan is the same…and if I can still see your name and lifespan, it means that you aren’t one who takes lives yet. They’ll fade once you can kill humans reliably. Now, let’s go find your brother and see how he did,” Xithl said as he knelt down and Fedor clambered onto his back.
They flew around the walled city, but Justin wasn’t where Xithl had left him last, near the building with dead rats hanging from it…he couldn’t have gotten far in only a few minutes. Xithl flew a few more loops through the city, looking around for Justin, but he heard him before he saw him. His voice was coming from the thicket outside the city wall…oh, dear. It was a good thing his mother wasn’t there to hear him…he hadn’t learned that kind of language from his parents…
“GIVE IT BACK, YOU STUPID FEATHERY F….Dad! Help!” Justin shouted when Xithl reached him. Justin was jumping up and down at the base of a tree, flapping his wings with all his might; but he wasn’t getting anywhere, or course. Justin was only in his nineties; it would be decades until his wings developed enough to be functional. A flock of black birds were sitting in the tree, pecking away at the jewels on Justin’s death note.
“Justin? Why do a flock of crows…?”
“I dunno! They just took it!”
“What happened, Justin?”
“My death note fell out of my hands while I was moving, but these stupid feathery flying things took it before I could get back to it! I thought you said my death note was invisible in the human world, Dad! How come they see it?”
“You dropped it?”
“It was an accident! I didn’t mean to!”
“Calm down, Justin. I’m not angry. Sorry…I should’ve warned you. If a death note touches the ground of the human world, it becomes part of the human world, and the creatures of the human world are able to see it. It’s a good thing crows have a weakness for sparkly things, and that they got to your death note first. If a human had picked up your note, I would’ve had to stay behind and watch its new owner on your behalf until the human died or gave the notebook back.”
Justin fumed. “I still hate them. If I give the crows names, will they die if I write them in my death note?”
Xithl laughed. “No. It doesn’t work that way.”
The crows cawed in surprise and scattered, unable to see the shinigami holding the sparkly book that now appeared to have risen up and shooed them away on its own. “Let’s see…,” said Xithl as he flipped through Justin’s death note. “It was a very close race…Justin has one hundred and twenty-nine names written down to your one-thirty-one, Fedor…”
Fedor turned toward Justin and giggled.
“I would’ve gotten more if it weren’t for the crows…what is it, Dad?”
Xithl was staring enraptured at the space above Justin’s head. He swooped down and snatched Justin up, beaming. “Justin…I can’t believe I didn’t notice until now…your lifespan’s gone up!”
“…What? Really? It did?”
“Yes, it did! I’m proud of you, Justin! You killed a human!”
“Aww…,” Fedor grumbled as Justin climbed over Xithl’s shoulder and got a hold on his back. “…well, congratulations, I guess.”
“Thanks. You put up a good fight,” said Justin.
“Yes, you did, Fedor. I’m very proud of both of you. Ready to go home?”
“Yeah,” said Fedor. “This world is crazy. It’s like one of Mordra’s paintings after she eats too much strange fruit.”
“And it’s full of crows,” Justin grumbled.
“All right. We’ll head straight back to the shinigami realm…but before we go home, I have to stop in and see the King for a bit. Are you two all right with that?”
“What? You’re taking us with you to see the King?” said Fedor, perking up instantly.
“Just for a minute.”
Xithl took off, and as they headed up through the sky back to the shinigami realm, Fedor turned to Justin and whispered, “Wow! First the human world, now the King…what do we call him when we meet him?”
“I dunno, Fedor. Probably something like ‘great king’, or ‘your highness’…”
“Dad just calls him Shoboro.”
“Yeah, but that’s while he's at home…we should probably call him something different to his face…”
“What do you think he’s like?”
“Dad says he’s nice.”
“I hope so…”