Chapter 157 - Life and Death

“The hell is her problem!” Morrigan shouted as she walked down the street, Noir padding along by her feet. “I would not take her too persona

“The hell is her problem!” Morrigan shouted as she walked down the street, Noir padding along by her feet.

“I would not take her too personally. She has always had a rather black and white view of the world.”

“She thinks I’m evil? Like, what the hell? That’s just insane.”

Though as she said that, Morrigan felt a tug of guilt in her stomach. She did walk away from Pepper that night. She didn’t want to. She wanted nothing more than to grab Pepper and yank her away from that intersection and prevent her from confronting Juniper, who Morrigan had at the time thought was going to kill her.

“I mean… You said I couldn’t beat Alice in a fight, and… I thought she would kill Pepper anyway, no matter what I did.”

Still, I didn’t even try. I really was going to leave Pepper to her fate. Pepper told me it is what she wanted as well… but… are those really acceptable excuses?

Fate can be changed. Morrigan was well aware of that. By reaping her clients, she is adhering to what fate had laid out for them. If they were already dead before she got there, that was one thing, but how many opportunities to save someone's life had come about over the summer? How many accidents could she have prevented but stood by and watched them die while she waited to perform her duty as “the clean-up crew.”

“No… no, wait. She’s a damn hypocrite! She’s been a reaper for four hundred years and she’s a damn arbiter. That means she’s been doing her reaping duties the entire time! It’s the same for her—she’s just as bad! How the hell can she call me evil!?”

“Precisely,” Noir said. “Alice has always been particularly unreasonable once her mind is made up, however.”

Morrigan frowned. Noir and Death always insisted she just do her duty. But… Death taught her to have compassion. She thought if she could at least do her duties while giving every soul a kind send-off, that would be enough. She wasn’t a murderer. She was just… doing a job.

Morrigan looked down to the black cat. She remembered Michael Roy. How Noir preferred to violently stab him through the heart rather than risk the list not being completed. Or in other words, risk not adhering to fate.

Then Morrigan thought of Alice’s supposed vision of the future. A demon war probably meant a lot of people would die… but if that is what the future was to hold, isn’t allowing it to happen technically what “fate” would want?

“You seem troubled,” Noir commented.

“Yeah. How can I not be?”

“I’m sure the situation with your mother is weighing heavily on your mind as well. Yet, I must compliment your growth. At the beginning of this summer, your personal issues would have interfered with your duties, and yet here you are—”

“Shut up…” Morrigan muttered.

“Pardon me?” Noir asked.

“Just shut up!” she yelled, stomping ahead.

Noir quickened his pace to come back to her side. “Is it… Something I said?”

“What do you think?”

“I was attempting to compliment you.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe you should learn to read the mood a little from time to time.”

Noir shook his head. “You truly are a puzzle.”

“Why do you care all of a sudden? It’s normally just list, list, list with you.”

“Master told me that if I wish to understand you better, then I should try asking questions. The way this is going so far… I fear Master may have been wrong.”

She stopped, looking down at him and narrowing her eyes.

He stared back.

His tail flicked.

“Should I try asking another?”

“No,” she said flatly, then turned and continued on her way.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Noir, surprisingly, tried again. “Master said in these types of silences, I ought to ask, ‘What’s on your mind?’”

Morrigan couldn’t help letting out a low chuckle. “Okay… well, right now I’m wondering; Did Death tell you all that because you wanted to know, or is this just something he ordered?”

“I was speaking with him about you, and it is what he suggested.”

“Hm. So what were you saying about me?”

His whiskers knitted slightly. “If I were to tell you that, I believe you might kick me.”

Morrigan couldn’t help smiling. “Aaaaah—Sounds like you are learning about humans after all.” She then let out a breath and asked, “I mean, I guess this whole end of the world thing. I mean, if that’s really what’s supposed to happen in the future… how do I say this?” She sighed, looking up to the sky as she continued to walk, her eyes focusing on a wispy cloud that was pulling apart. “So, since that’s what’s already fated to happen…”

“You are pondering over if Master and I would not wish to change this? Is that it?”

“I mean…”

“Reaper’s ultimate purpose is to protect Order, and your role in that is by adhering to your list, Morrigan. Now, a rift opening to allow beings from another realm, demons especially, would be the very definition of chaos.”

Morrigan sighed with relief. “So we are supposed to stop it. But if Alice knows that this is going to happen… I mean, didn’t she tell this death goddess Lorelai about it?”

“Now, that is where it becomes complicated…” Noir said, his tone becoming grave. “The truth of it is, Lorelai’s role in Order is at odds with her true desires.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the Goddess of Death, Morrigan. Her core desire is to see the elimination of life.”

“So… we’re screwed then?”

Noir chuckled softly. “Not necessarily. As you’ve been told before, Order took hold many millennia ago. Forcing the Goddess of Death to submit to Order was just one part of that, as it was with us voidlings. None know exactly how it happened other than Lorelai herself and whatever forces corralled her in, but her solution to adhering to her role was to create reapers. There are other gods and deities with their own purposes, the appropriate placement of souls only being a single part of it in the grand scheme of things.”

“Hmmm… okay…” Morrigan pondered it. “So there is something even more powerful than gods out there?”

“Well, collectively, I would assume. Just as the leader of a country is only as powerful as the framework that supports them, it is the case for Order. But now we are branching into realms that are beyond my knowledge.”

“Hmmm… okay, one more question. If there is a Goddess of Death, is there a Goddess of Life as well?”

“Yes, but she would have little to do with reapers and their role in Order.” Noir stopped at the next corner. “Now then, I believe we are close to your first client for the day.”

Morrigan pulled her list from her sleeve and unrolled it to read the first name.

Maria Cortez, 35, expected time of death 3:42PM, 224 Lancelot Ave

“Gunshot?” Morrigan groaned. “Damn it. I hate ones like this. Looks like we’re a little bit early, though.”

Morrigan walked down the street and then checked a nearby house for the address. It should be happening somewhere around here. Morrigan kept her perception blocking up and leaned against a light post. If it were to happen inside that house, she figured it would be better to wait until she heard the gunshot go off than to risk catching a stray bullet. If it happened out here on the street, she could duck behind one of those cars until it was over.

Then she heard shouting coming from a house. She checked her phone. Still ten more minutes.

Their voices were muffled from inside the house until the door burst open and someone yelled, “Get him!”

A man in a grey hood came running out, leaping down the front steps, and stumbling slightly as he looked over her shoulder and began to run. Two more men, one bald and wearing a white beater, the other wearing a beanie, ran out the door after him.

“Hey, hey, hey!” the grey hoodie man yelled over his shoulder as he began to run towards Morrigan. “It’s cool! It’s cool! I said I’ll pay you!” he yelled back at them.

“Too late for that punk!” the bald one said.

Morrigan plastered herself against the lightpost, as grey hoodie guy ran right past her, then the two others just shortly behind him.

Down the street, a car was slowly making a turn, it stopped mid-turn, then suddenly its engine roared as it shot out towards the grey hoodie guy.

“W-Woah! Shit!” his sneakers slid on the asphalt as he tried to change his direction. The car didn’t hit him, but it came up onto the curb, blocking his path, allowing the other two to catch him.

The bald one grabbed his shoulders and threw him to the ground, while the one with the beanie hat followed up by giving him a hard kick to the stomach that left him wheezing.

“Yeah! What now, bitch!” beanie guy laughed, winding up for another kick that hit him in the back as he tried to curl into a ball to protect himself.

The driver of the car stepped out and lit a cigarette, a man with a long goatee.

“Haha! Nice going!” the bald guy said, walking over to him with a fist out, which goatee guy bumped with his own fist.

“Guess he’s late again, huh?” goatee guy said, as they walked over and kneeled by the grounded man who was clutching his stomach and wheezing. “Come on, Kev. We tried to be nice with you but you just keep screwing us.”

“I-I’m sorry!” he wheezed. “I swear I’ll pay.”

Morrigan moved to another car to hide behind and peeked over the hood, as all three of them circled him. She felt her fists balling in anger. She didn’t know what this was about, but three against one wasn’t fair at all! But as her eyes flicked between each of the four men, she realized none of them were likely to be named Maria Cortez… So was this all unrelated to whoever her client was supposed to be?

“Stand him up.”

Beanie guy and the bald one grabbed Kev by an arm and yanked him to his feet. He stumbled into their hold as they held him.

Goatee guy reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of brass knuckles. He slipped them on slowly, deliberately, like it was some kind of ceremony.

“Come on! I-It wasn’t my fault! They screwed me over, I was gonna pay today— All of it! But—”

The brass knuckles sank into his gut, causing him to gasp and collapse in their arms.

“I’m seriously sick and tired of your excuses,” goatee guy muttered, taking a slow drag from his cigarette. “There’s only one thing you understand, so now I gotta teach you a lesson.”

Kev whimpered, but they didn’t give him a chance to beg again.

The next punch landed across the side of his face, splitting the corner of his lip. Then another went to his stomach again, and a third smashed into his temple.

Morrigan flinched, hands trembling as she stayed behind the car, heart pounding in her chest. She could hear Kev’s pained gasps breaking into choked gurgles. He was already barely conscious.

“This is insane…” she whispered angrily. “They’re going to kill him.”

Noir sat beside her, as stoic as always. “It is not your client.”

“I know,” she hissed. “But—does that matter right now?”

She clenched her teeth. He’s not on the list. None of them are. That should mean it’s not my business. But… technically I wouldn’t be violating anything by getting involved either… Right?

She remembered that day in the graveyard when everything started. She used to be the type of person who wouldn’t just stand by and do nothing if she saw something like this. Three months of reaping had largely broken her of that impulse. There were so many people who she knew were going to die over the summer, so many people she could have technically stepped in to save. But it was her job to allow events to unfold as they would and then just clean up afterwards.

Then she remembered Alice’s words. Her accusation. You could have fought me. You could have protected her. But you didn’t even try.

As they continued to beat the defenceless man into a pulp Morrigan closed her eyes, body tense.

I’m I really just going to stand here and watch this happen? He’s probably wishing someone would come by and save him, just the way I hoped on the day I died.

“S-Stop… somebody… uuuhuug,” another punch landed in his stomach. “H-Heelllp…” he wheezed.

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Chapter 158 - Witch and Moan