Chapter Text
Big spoilers for the end of Soul Eater and Fire Force, you have been warned.
He can feel it, Kid… his son is connecting the final Line of Sanzu. His time has come it seems. For him to pass on the mantel of Death… and from this world. There is to be only one True Reaper in this world after all.
… He accepts his own passing wholeheartedly. True he has many regrets but at the very least one of his biggest will be rectified soon… that being his other son, Asura. He cast aside his fears and gave them a physical form, that being a child. A mistake on his part, he admits. To purposely bring life into this world only to suffer and bring suffering to others… all this madness born from his desire to better himself. This is perhaps his greatest sin. The fact his other son has to rectify his mistakes is also a regret… but at least he has comrades that will follow him into the depths of madness itself.
His mask began to shatter as the final line is connected.
A brilliant light fills the sky.
A sign that a new God of Death is being born.
His power then leaves him accelerating the crumbling of his form, as it should. It means the position of Death has been successfully passed down. He no longer has a need for it anyway, his son does.
But he doubts he will be using it after all, “The ‘True Power’ of a Shinigami… Since Kid loves humans, he won't be needing it.”
He turns to his long-time friend, “I leave the rest to you, Excalibur. Watch over my son and the rest of them.”
With an unseen smile, he says his goodbye, “See~ Ya~”
Death closed his eyes for the last time as his form crumpled to ash…
… And then promptly opened them in surprise, “Oh~ This is unexpected!” All around him is a kaleidoscopic space made of nothingness that seemed to go on for eternity… for some reason that tickles an old memory.
He brought a hand to his mask and ‘rubbed his chin in thought’ as it were. When had he last seen such a place… Aha! It was when he was created some 800 years ago, back when he was known as God.
This must be the space between worlds then. He spied it back then but never felt the need to explore it as his responsibilities took precedence. He looked around and found a whole lot of nothing, maybe a few scattered rocks here and there.
Looks like he didn’t miss out on much.
He idly floated around the vast nothingness while in thought.
He was supposed to die when Kid became a True Reaper, or was he? There can only be one in the world… ah, is this perhaps a loophole? Did the world itself kick him out when Kid succeeded him? Well, no use in contemplating it. He might as well enjoy his new lease on life… though he will see if he can contact the Death Room at the very least, as his departure was rather abrupt.
He looks around at the nothingness once more.
Well, when he has secured a mirror that is.
He found himself a nice rock to sit on and took stock of himself. The first thing is that he is weakened significantly. The might and size of his Soul are diminished to about 1/10 of their original values. Even in his reduced state, he is still much stronger than those with a mighty soul. So he should be able to defend himself sufficiently. Though, he does note that his Soul’s power is slowly growing back to its former might.
Hmm… at this rate he might be back to full power in a decade at minimum.
Now for his other abilities. He looked inward and found he still has access to his ‘godly’ powers, but he feels he would exhaust himself quickly in their use.
Well, at least he should be able to make a new Death Room.
Though he did also brush up against the seven powers he confiscated long ago, how nostalgic.
He never had a need to use them before… or, in other words, he may have forgotten he had them in the first place.
Though he does wonder… he takes hold of Benimaru Shimon’s abilities and with a thought, a flame flickers to life gently on his palm… is what he would like to say. He is instead engulfed in a massive fireball roughly the size of a city block. He, of course, is perfectly fine given his innate durability…if a bit singed around the edges. He was trying for a candle flame and ended up with a firestorm. The sheer power Benimaru Shimon held was too dangerous to leave in the world after all. It seems he was right to take his powers along with the others.
Especially the Adolla Burst, the power of the Genesis Flame is as immense as it is dangerous.
Well, they seem like something to mess around with later.
The first thing to do is explore this void, and to make that easier he made use of Soul Perception. His senses stretched out across the void unfettered and happened upon several souls, some familiar, and a few not. For the familiar, it seems to be a decent collection of human(?) souls somewhere out there. They felt odd, almost like witch souls, but not quite the same.
How strange.
The others are brief flickers as they enter and exit this space. This is good news for him as that means there is a way out. But their souls felt… off. It was as if someone used a human soul as a blueprint but added a few features. If anything it reminded him of the Icons that the Book of Eibon creates, but more natural, if that is the right word.
Again how strange.
And for the last and greatest soul he sensed. It was gargantuan and perhaps one of the largest souls he’s ever seen, and nearly matches his own at the height of his power. But more importantly, it was divine.
A god then… which is now quickly approaching him.
A dragon of massive size quickly approached, and Death simply shrugged and continued to sit on his rock. The impression he got from the dragon’s soul is that it is a good being, so he should be able to talk this out.
It quickly arrived and gave him an appraising look. “Who are you?” the dragon said in a voice that reminded him of a delinquent.
This might be a fun conversation. He stood up and gave him a friendly wave, “Yo~ Yo~ I’m Death! Nice to meet you.”
The dragon blinked briefly in surprise and narrowed its gaze. With a snort, it replied, “You certainly feel like the gods of the dead I have seen.”
Oh? Other Death gods how interesting but in the meantime being courteous, “So may I know your name?”
“Great Red,” replied the dragon brimming with pride.
“What a wonderful name!” Death said as he clapped.
He then got a feeling of amusement from Great Red, “I know right!” the mood lightens, “So Death, what are you doing here? I’ve never seen you around before.”
A bit of menace in that word but that makes sense, this is the void between worlds, and dangerous things from other worlds can be found here. Which is why he never messed with it in the first place.
“Oh~ just got kicked out of my world, you know how it goes,” He said in his usual exaggerated manner.
A bit of pressure began to emanate from Great Red. Most likely in warning, “Yeah, not the first time I've seen outsiders.” he said that word with a certain irritation, “Though usually, they run away, or they fight me and I kick their ass.” the dragon gave him a side eye saying ‘are you going to make me kick your ass?’
He waved his hands franticly in a non-threatening manner, “Oh I’m not going to cause trouble. I didn’t get kicked out for doing anything bad, mind you.”
The pressure exuded by the dragon god let up slightly.
“Oh, Why don’t you tell me then?” said Great Red curiosity coloring his tone.
Death finding no problem with that shrugged, “Sure, why not.”
He took a seat on his rock, “So~ do you want the long version or the short version?”
Great Red shrugged or as much as a dragon can, “Long is fine, I got time.”
Death nodded in understanding. When one is immortal they have all the time in the world.
Great Red in an amusing display, grabs a very large floating rock and made himself comfortable by curling up like a cat. The dragon god then waves his arm in a ‘go-on’ motion.
With an unseen smile he recalls of the time before his creation, “Well then, it started roughly 1000 years ago when the Old World went up in flames…