Chapter Text
04 watched as her fellow remaining reapers cowered. The desolation of the Underworld was undeniable as a massive crater in the middle of the capital was engulfed in smoke and debris as a burned corpse of an angel lies there, having fallen from the celestial realm and burned into the atmosphere of the Underworld.
The great inter plane war between the Devildom and Heaven always had either the human realm or the Underworld as collateral. Both considered as neutral entities between the skirmishes of the Celestial's light and Hell's brimstone. It was not the first war between the two, nor would it be the last.
But for the Underworld, to them it practically was.
This time, the war took out more than half the population of reapers. Cities in the Underworld were either levelled or totaled in the midst of the war that they themselves took no participation in. There were contingencies placed to mitigate the damages, but even then, no one imagined this amount of destruction under the siege willed by Heaven and Hell.
Then everything collapsed.
…
The radiating heat of the burnt corpses was unbearable. 04 could only trudge through the rubble which had once been the remains of her home. The already tattered cloak singed by the ends often got snagged by the debris surrounding it.
The young reaper frowned, immediately trying to pry off the shattered remains of her home, desperate to find her younger sister. 04 began digging with her hands, tearing off stone, glass, and wood, hoping to find any semblance of pink in the midst of the destruction.
04's eyes bloodshot red as futility began to sleep into her bones, clouding her mind in fear that the only family left she had would be…
No, she'd rather not ferry off her sister's soul back into the river of nothingness, just like she did with their guardians.
She'll have to try harder.
For 13.
Her fingertips bled as she fervently pried everything off piece by piece.
There in the bottom as a small space, soft sniffles muffled by broken shrapnel and stone, she could hear the pained cries of her sister. 04 began digging harder.
It took hours but it felt like days to remove enough rubble out of the way to see her sister. There laid the youngest born reaper of this generation, her sister, 13, short fiery pink hair in a mess and her green eyes filled with tears as her left leg was bent in a wrong way.
“Candy!” The girl managed a strangled sob, arms weakly reaching out to 04. 'Candy' let out her own sobs as she began pulling away the large stone that pinned 13's leg.
The younger one cried as ‘Candy’ cooed, whispering assurances that everything will be fine in the end as she lifted her sister into her arms.
They both trudged out of the remains, as the war raged on.
The announced death toll was filled with bitter irony as the estimates say that the reaper population was 20% of what it used to be.
04 read the news, her eyes carefully reading each word as dread filled her face.
Then she turned to sweep her gaze over the refuge camp, the remaining reapers also lost in their own reveries as the reality of this sunk in.
The Underworld already had trouble keeping its population steady as the human world grew and grew to the point that it was hard to ferry off souls with how little man power they had but added with the current inter realm war, meant more power had to be allocated to ferry off both demons and angels.
04 herself is considered an adult by reaper standards, one of the first children born of the previous generation.
She had already begun her job collecting souls of the departed, but the foreboding weight of the future leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.
'What now?'
She turns to leave, there's nothing left to keep her there but first she should check up on her sister, she had work to do after all.
And work she did, as one of the reaper stations that were left unscathed from the war was bustling with several older reapers.
The halls were dreary and dead, as people pushed by each other. The backlog of souls threatened to overflow, and no one knew how to deal with the aftermath.
17 and 24, two of her colleagues were talking in hushed tones at the back of the break room. 17 had short white hair that ended in a light ombre of purple, the same colour of his eyes that accentuated his golden brown skin that was now marred fresh scars after the war. While 24, had a face filled with smile lines that now held a perpetual frown these past few decades, her blue hair tied in a bun but a few baby strands fell to her sharp green eyes, her own skin showed burn marks, most likely from the proximity of the heat blasted from one of the dead angels.
17 looked up, meeting 04's green eyes with his own. 04 knitted her brows as 17 ushered her with a harrowed look on his face.
24's own face looked tired, but before 04 could ask what was going on, 24 looked straight into her own, eyes boring deep into her senior. “The higher ups are calling all of us, batch by batch for an announcement.” 24 spits out. The news must've reached them first because 17's hands tremble as he fists his cloak, crumpling the sleeves.
“You missed it,” he says, conflict building deep into his voice, “They're looking for volunteers to collect human souls.”
04 tilts her head, this would be the usual but knowing the look of her fellow reapers, there's something that keeps their tongues tied.
Before the conversation could go anywhere, another reaper stuck their head through the door causing 17 and 24 to fall silent. It was a senior, whose frown deepened as they stared at the two. Then their gaze lands on 04.
“04. You're being called for by the station's head. Head there immediately.” They state in a militaristic tone, then leaving a few seconds later after making the three squirm.
It was only until later, as 04 walked out of the station leader's office did she scoff, in her hands was her scythe, immediately manifested as she flew off to the human world to collect human souls as instructed by the manager.
A new era of reapers would be born under that command. A new era of hope built off blood and the loss of their people.
The first thing they had to do was to fill in the population gap as soon as possible.