Tales of Death´s Daughter

With an uncomfortably loud bang, I landed onto the roof of a vehicle, which had been racing underneath Aska´s home. I didn’t know what the final conclusion of his revelation was – if there was even any – but I knew for sure I needed time for myself. And I would distance myself from him, even if it was forceful. I just couldn’t spent the whole time with him, otherwise I would surely go crazy and wreck the whole place.

As such, I let myself be carried a little further away until I jumped down onto the next yellow vehicle.

“Well, whatever.” Aska had claimed my resurrection ability was different from the other gods and I honestly thought it was a great time to test it out. Well, but even it it wasn’t, it did proof that I was indeed capable of growth. In the beginning of my life it took me a whole day to resurrect, but these days it was a matter of seconds. As such, I simply jumped down from the vehicle without any real target in mind.

Turning over onto my back, I flailed my arms a little to stabilise myself while gazing at the beautiful sun and tasting my freedom … or whatever I had. Truly, without that filter of my glasses, it did look a lot brighter and a bit distorted, but that only increased its beauty, which was abruptly ended as my right arm hit one of these flying vehicles. I spun on controllably afterwards, hit several other vehicles until I suddenly found myself floating beside my own corpse without feeling the air pressure at all.

And then, my corpse hit a building, left a whole lot of blood behind and bounced off it, only to smash into it several hundreds metres down yet again. The whole process repeated itself several times until I – or whatever was left of me - smashed onto some kind of walkway further downwards and came to an abrupt halt.

A bit bummed out, I realised that this place was sadly completely deserted of any living being whatsoever. As such, I was resurrected quietly without causing any commotion whatsoever. Then, I slipped back into my own body and stood up from the cold metallic ground beneath me. Leaning over the railing, I noticed a multitude of these walkways which were secured to this building, with some more populated than others.

Raising my eyebrows, I swung myself over the railing and landed on the one right beneath me with several others noticing me in shock. But I paid them no heed, put my hands behind my back and jumped down from the railing elegantly. Then, I nodded towards the stunned humans and strolled away from them while their gazes followed me.

What I landed on was apparently a shopping mile as the windows to my left were littered with different objects I mostly didn’t recognize. Leaving my landing area behind myself quickly, I left behind the people who were still flabbergasted about my method of travel and whistled innocently while looking at the different items for sale. At some point though, I did realise that the others were still staring at me from time to time.

I wasn’t naked – which was good- so I wasn’t able to pick up what they found so weird about me. Sure, their attire was a little bit different than mine with even woman wearing men´s clothes for the most part, but I did see the occasional dress as well. So that wasn’t it …

Was it my eyes? Probably … but I also saw yellow irises, so I didn’t think that was it either. Scratching my cheek, I kept wondering a whole time while strolling along the more and more populated shopping mile. And then, I noticed the first advertisement, floating by the side of a metal pole. Floated in the air and even allowed me to see and wave my hand through it, which was just amazing. But other than that, it wasn´t out of the ordinary. It was just something new, something amazing.

Humming further along the street, I was quickly engulfed by the stream of humans spending their day in this floor of the building. The others did keep looking at me bewildered, even as I entered the building only to be met with even more shopping opportunities. And so it happened as I stood in front of a window, tapping against the glass to figure out what this black small brick was behind it as a young man tapped my shoulder.

“Excuse me?” He asked politely, which indicated I wasn’t standing out because I revealed myself as a bloodthirsty monster, but as something else.

“Yes?” I asked friendly.

“Have we met before?” Well, I certainly couldn’t remember him and I usually remembered everyone.

“I don’t think so? At least not that I´m aware of it.” I shook my head a little bit confused, especially as others started to stop by the shop I was just looking into as well. They were listening to our conversation, but what made it weird was that nearly every age group and gender was represented in that little group forming around us.

“Hmm … can you smile for me?” The blonde man asked and I happily obliged.

“Wow. You really do look like that girl.” That girl? Was I a celebrity here or what?

“What girl?” I asked and put up the friendliest smile I could possibly muster.

“The crazy chick … what was her name again? Lucinda?” Crazy … chick?! Did he want to die that badly? Nobody had dared to call me that yet which made me fume with anger. But for obvious reasons, I didn’t show that to anyone and rather kept my usual smile.

“Yeah … I get to hear that rather often lately. But my name is Isabelle. Its nice to meet you.” I curtsied a little until I noticed the others were staring at me even more. Maybe they didn’t have good manners … or greeting each other was out of fashion?

“Leo …” He extended his hand towards me a little confused but for obvious reasons I didn’t take it.

“Hey, Leo. You seem to be a nice guy. I´m kind of new around here, so do you mind showing me around a little?”

“Oh, for sure. As long as you don’t start biting me all of a sudden.” He laughed loudly while I chuckled a little, not understanding why that was so funny. If he continued down that path though, I would make sure he landed in the gutters which would make me laugh.

“I´ll give my best. So, who is your favourite?” I asked as he turned away from me and waved me to walk beside him.

“That’s obviously Ellie. I´m sure she will figure out Lucinda´s evil doings eventually, but only after they have defeated the demon king.” Ehm … that’s not exactly what happened at all? And why was he talking as if that didn’t happen yet.

“Oh, really? My favourite is Sofie.” I claimed while gazing into his eyes. He immediately recognized that name as well, which drove the nail into the coffin. We were talking about me and the idiots.

“Way too naïve. She isn´t doubting anyone at all. What are you looking for anyways?” He asked, looking around the alley to find anything interesting but I already had my mind set upon something.

“Hmm … the newest piece of information I can get about them.” I asked and smiled brightly, obviously without showing my teeth.

“Just watch the newest episode online?” Yeah … where is online? Or was it even a place? Wasn’t there a preposition missing in that case?

“Online? What´s that?” I asked a little confused, still my nice smile on my face.

“You know … on godnet?” He did a typical Albert move by explaining one thing I didn’t know with another.

“Oh yeah … godnet … right ...” I mumbled a little bit and avoided my gaze.

“You don’t know what that is? Are you from the lower levels or what?” Lower levels … wait, the gods lived above them and then on  the ground were these people. Did that mean the lower levels were akin to slums?

“Yeah … I just moved here.” I explained carefully, ready to stop whenever he showed any kind of suspicion which never came.

“Is it as bad as everyone is saying down there?” He asked instead, which was rather easy to answer.

“In comparison to this? Totally. But let´s not talk about that. Ellie, right? Where is she currently?” I asked with interest.

“The last episode was about the tournament … and that wicked saint threw Louis away, even though she should know it was his dream. How cruel of her.” Yeah, totally cruel to follow the rules I set out. Totally. And yet, I nodded as he said so and went along with his opinion right away.

“Really? She did that? I´m not really surprised though. She is a rather mean person.” I nodded along with him. We both apparently knew what we were talking about.

“She does look great though.” Yeah … I did look impossibly innocent for what I usually did.

“Aww … thank you! That’s so sweet!” I enthused giggled a little. “So, where are we going?”

“Well, you wanted to know something about ‘The reincarnators’, so I bought you…” He took three more steps until he gently guided me out of the masses into a shop full of weird books. “To a bookshop. The comics about the series as great as well. I always marvel at the amount of details they put into each and every panel.” A comic … wasn’t that for children so that they could learn to read? Even thought I was indeed a bit perplexed about his proposal, I still followed him into the right section, which seemed to be littered with all kinds of comics. There was one rather popular series though …

“That’s the last issue they have.” He said, grabbed one of them which had Sofie on its cover and presented it to me.

“Wow that’s …” I mumbled, took it out of his hands and opened it in the middle. In that scene, she was healing a wounded person I didn’t even recognise.

“I think that was when she went around the hospitals and healed others without asking anything in return. She really is a sweet girl, isn’t she?”

“Yeah …” I mumbled and flipped the pages further. There was a scene where I talked to Tom, one where my sweet Luna and I went shopping and so much more. My whole life laid bare in front of my eyes, neatly summarised into forty six comics which showed the lives of all the reincarnators, even thought they focused largely on me and the others I knew.

“Hey, if you want to read, you gotta buy it …” the shopkeeper came around after some time, but looked rather stunned in the end. “… do you want to cosplay?”

“Right? She could make thousands cosplaying!” Thousands … of what? Apples? Bananas? Don’t get me wrong, I liked bananas, but I’d rather have apples.

“What’s cosplaying?” I asked a little confused.

“Wait a second …” The rather thick shopkeeper left the vicinity, only to get back to us with a pitch black scythe and a rather revealing set of clothing. “Please wear this.”

“Hmm … can I have one of each comic book them?” I tilted my head to the side slightly which made the others grasp in joy. For some reason though, I started to think they viewed me more and more as if I was some kind of exotic animal.

“If you let me take a photo.” Oh, I knew what a photo was! And I had nothing against it.

“Okay.” Grabbing the attire, I looked around to find a closed off space and changed into it quickly. It was rather wide in some places but all in all the school uniform I wore during my time at the academy fitted rather nicely.

Already eyeing the books quietly, I presented myself to them and grabbed the suspiciously light scythe out of his hands. The edge wasn’t even sharp which would make murdering everyone here with it rather troublesome.

“You … you really do look like her.” The shopkeeper admitted while Leo just stared at me with a wide open mouth.

“These things do happen.” I explained, feigned to be completely new on how to hold the fake weapon and smiled for them.

“Just a second …” Both of them took out their strange bricks and flashed me with a rather bright light. “Can I have a foto with you? My friends are never going to believe this.” Well, I wasn’t that happy about it, but whatever. Waving him over, I directly fulfilled his pitiful dream by smiling brightly and doing the peace sign, but only because I saw myself doing it on one of the covers.

The shopkeeper wanted to have one as well and even asked me to make different poses for him which made me more and more nervous. I just wanted to read these goddamn books!

But at last, I changed back into my red dress and handed the costume back over to the shopkeeper.

“Hey, you are from the lower levels, right? Leo told me …” So what, Mr. shopkeeper?

“Yeah?” I asked, knowing full well he would try to exploit my status for his benefit.

“Do you want to work here?” That did surprised me a little though. Sure, he did have some rather immoral feelings as well, but he mostly just wanted me to improve the performance of his shop.

“Sorry, but my dad asked me to focus on my studies.” And I would murder in retail, which would put this shop out of business within seconds.

“What a shame.” He admitted and took the fake scythe out of my hand as well, before nodding towards Leo who collected my prize.

“Thank you so much!” I gave him one last smile before I grabbed my books and strolled outside with Leo. I just wanted to get rid of him as well, as I noticed a winged man flying over our heads, seemingly searching for someone. He was already further ahead, which meant he wouldn’t spot me right away, but others of his kind would surely follow.

“Hey, Leo? You live close by, don’t you?” I asked with puppy eyes.

“Ehm … yes?” He blinked a few times, his heart rate quickened and he scratched the back of his head.

“Can I read the book there? My father … he wouldn’t like it if I bought them home.” I told him and looked down onto the ground to make myself be seen as pitiful as possible.

“Sure!” Ahh … how nice it was to have someone who didn’t doubt every intention I had.