Death's Mantle

by Harmon Cooper

  “You are new at this?” she asked him.

  “I am,” Lucian admitted.

  Her facial expression remained unchanged. “And you have come here to find parasites?”

  “It’s a long story,” he told her as the kettle lifted into the air of its own accord, pouring him a fresh cup of tea.

  “Please, drink.”

  He carefully lifted the small cup and took a sip from it, a sense of warmth moving through him.

  “This is amazing,” he said.

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  Yoshimi reached for her tea as well and also took a sip. Lucian started to feel self-conscious, not knowing what the etiquette was for this type of scenario. He simply mirrored her, taking very small sips, trying to be as polite as possible.

  “Your home is beautiful,” he finally said.

  “I have been working on it for quite some time. Thank you.”

  “May I ask how long you have been Death?”

  “You may.”

  Lucian waited for her to answer, and when she didn’t he asked the question again.

  “I have been Death for about ninety years,” she said. “And you?”

  “A few days.”

  This brought a smile to her face. “And you are already here in Japan?”

  “I attended my own funeral yesterday, and someone mentioned that I had talked about wanting to go to Japan. I figured since I can travel anywhere I want, I would check the place out.”

  “And you chose Kyoto?”

  “It seemed like the touristy thing to do.”

  “Indeed.”

  “How long have you been watching me?” Lucian asked, remembering that he had sensed that someone was following him back in the Gion District.

  “Since you arrived in Kyoto. I noticed you floating through the streets and I decided to keep an eye on you. Did you enjoy your vacation?”

  “I guess,” Lucian said. “Do you ever come to America?”

  “I go wherever I want.”

  “You seem quite powerful,” he said, instantly feeling stupid for saying that to her.

  “It comes with the territory. As Death, a near limitless power is available to you, if you choose to take it. The possibilities are truly endless, but I have reached a level that I’m happy with, and I’ll stay around this level for the next century.”

  “What kind of system do you use to keep track of the parasites you kill?”

  Yoshimi looked around her home as marks bloomed on the paper walls. The marks were red, and once they were done forming, Lucian quickly realized that there were thousands upon thousands of them, more marks than Lucian could ever have possibly counted.

  “That’s beautiful.” He stood and moved to one of the walls, admiring the marks. Lucian turned back to Yoshimi. “How did you get these kinds of numbers?”

  “Two atomic bombs.”

  Lucian bit his lip. “Wow.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you use a little black book as well?”

  “For what?”

  “To find your next target, to check an area’s map.”

  “I have a journal that I use if I want to refer to a map,” Yoshimi explained. “Japan is densely populated, making it pretty easy to find my next parasite. I have slowed down my hunting now though, and only try to go out once or twice a week.”

  “Because of injuresouls?”

  Lucian noticed the woman’s throat quiver. “All Deaths should be worried about those creatures, among other things.”

  “Angels.”

  “The Progeny of Light will always be our enemy, but we are inevitable, while Life is temporary. There are beings that will never experience life, but all beings will experience us.”

  Lucian sat before her again. “And your predecessor? Are they still alive?”

  She offered him a curious look. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question.”

  “You took the mantle from a previous Death, correct?”

  “Ah, I see what you are asking,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “I was a young girl, sick and starving when he came. I tried to fight him off with a book, and when that didn’t work, I went for my house slippers.”

  “So you fought back as well?”

  “I did. What about you?”

  “I tried to shoot him with a gun,” he said as he sat back down, “and when injuresouls came, I started firing on them.”

  Yoshimi looked at Lucian with surprise. “You fought off injuresouls while you were still mortal?”

  “I did. Stupid, right?”

  “No, not stupid at all. It’s miraculous that you are even able to see them. And it worked?”

  “I saved him, which is why he gave me his mantle. He’s still alive, living in a big home on some alien world.”

  “An alien world?” Yoshimi shook her head.

  “I think that’s what it is. I don’t know. It doesn’t look like any place here on Earth.”

  She took a sip of her tea and slowly set it back down. “Have you thought about where you would like to make a home?”

  “There’s one place I can think of,” Lucian said, an image of the beach in Portland, Maine, coming to him. “But I have other things I would like to handle first, such as growing stronger, and I also have some questions I would like answered.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  “For one, something is happening to my brother. There’s a parasite attached to him, but it’s unlike the other parasites that I’ve seen so far. It’s clear with a mustard yellow color inside. I would like to know more about this, and how I can kill it.”

  Yoshimi paused, weighing her next words carefully. “And your Death didn’t tell you?”

  “He doesn’t know anything about it. But I saw it, and I’ve seen it several times. In fact, back in that pachinko place, I saw some other parasites I couldn’t attack, black ones.”

  After taking another sip from her tea, Yoshimi finally spoke. “It is hard for me to comprehend how someone who has only been Death for a few days is already able to see these things, but I suppose if you were able to see the injuresouls, it makes sense that you have also seen these parasites.”

  “So they are real?” Lucian asked, his heart fluttering in his chest.

  “They are indeed real, but you do not have enough power to do anything about them. Most Deaths never have the power to do anything about some of the more obscure parasites.”

  “Do you?”

  Rather than directly answer his question, Yoshimi took a look around the room and all the markings on the paper walls.

  “So you do…”

  “Some of us gain luck through tragedy. Some Deaths are born at a time where there is a huge influx of parasites. My birth into this role coincided with a time like that, the two nuclear attacks giving me thousands to prey upon. I had already been Death for around fifteen years at that point, so I was used to the role. But the two events allowed me to hunt and subsequently access power that most Deaths will never receive.”

  “And because you have that power, you can now kill these more obscure parasites?”

  She nodded. “The parasites that we commonly go after are leeches keeping a person alive by feeding on them. The other, more obscure parasites are of varying strength and tangibility. While you won’t be able to take down some of them, others, like mental health parasites, may be something you can eliminate.”

  “Do you feel any remorse for going after these leeches?”

  “Remorse?” Yoshimi said the word in a way that led Lucian to believe that she had never thought of it like that before. “Why would I feel remorse for killing something that was supposed to already die?”

  “But children…”

  “What you are experiencing will soften over the course of your time as Death. It isn’t our role to feel remorse. These parasites are leeches, and killing them will increase your power. That’s all they are, which is why I tend to focus on the more obscure parasites. Going after them will give yo
u power beyond your wildest dreams.”

  “This is already beyond my wildest dreams.”

  “A fair point, but this is just the start of a journey into the depths of the spiritual world, especially if you’re showing this much promise at such an early stage. Your predecessor has never witnessed these obscure parasites. In the future, when you meet more Death or you ever attend the Council, there will be some debate on if these parasites even exist or not.”

  Lucian shook his head. “Other Deaths seriously don’t think they exist?’

  “Correct, and if I were you, I wouldn’t go around volunteering this information to people you meet in the future. As you’ve likely come to understand by now, parasites come in a variety of forms. Killing them will remove the condition from their host, but it can also lead to other complications. I can’t emphasize that enough: just because you kill one, doesn’t mean that person is suddenly free.”

  “I understand,” Lucian said, instantly thinking of his brother. If he was able to remove the parasite afflicting him, what would happen to him next? Would there be another parasite to take its place?

  “There are a variety of types, but like the leeches, there are reoccurring features that make them identifiable.”

  “The ones in the pachinko place were black.”

  Yoshimi nodded. “Those are greed parasites. Killing them sometimes leads to other parasites taking the host and filling their void. I’ve seen people successfully move on from having one of those parasites attached to them, and I’ve also seen the reverse. Proceed with caution. That is, if you care about your hosts. If you do not care about them, then proceed however you would like.”

  “The parasite on my brother is clear with a yellow tinge to it. I tried everything…”

  “And you will continue to try everything until you are powerful enough to kill it,” Yoshimi said, “and that could take you years.”

  “I don’t have years. His date of death is in about seven months.”

  Yoshimi took a sip from her tea, staring down into the liquid for a moment. “Are you hungry?”

  “We don’t really get hungry,” Lucian said.

  “I suppose it is an arbitrary question, but sometimes it is nice to have food around, something I still can’t seem to get over from my life before all this.”

  “Sure, I’ll eat then.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  A full spread of sushi, sashimi, small side salads and dumplings in bamboo containers appeared on the table. A pair of chopsticks and a small plate shot out of one of the dressers pressed against a wall and arranged itself in front of Lucian.

  “Enjoy.” Yoshimi opened one of the bamboo containers, steam wafting into the air.

  Lucian ate one of the dumplings, noticing that it warmed him in the same way her tea had.

  “Thank you,” he told her. “This is excellent.”

  “My ability to recreate food has gotten better over the years. It is still not the same as actual food, but it is something that I have actively worked on.”

  “I can tell,” Lucian said, going for a piece of sushi with a fried bit of shrimp sticking out of it.

  It was crunchy and chewy, absolutely fantastic.

  “Regarding these obscure parasites: you will have to progress to a much higher level than you are right now to go after them. As your predecessor has shown you, most Deaths just stick to leeches, going around and thinking that they are doing good by removing them from a person’s body. But most times, they are just quickening that person’s death, which you’ve already pointed out.”

  Lucian went for another dumpling, suddenly feeling a sense of hunger he hadn’t noticed before.

  “If you truly want to grow in your new role, you will need to progress to the point that you can kill the stronger parasites. But I must warn you, no matter how benevolent you are, you are always Death. Life will see you that way, and you will create new enemies as well.”

  “Injuresouls?”

  Yoshimi shook her head. “That’s just one enemy you’ll have. Eventually, other Deaths will see how powerful you have become and try to kill you, and that’s not to mention fallen angels.”

  “Are you serious? Why would one Death go after another Death? Aren’t we all doing the same job?”

  “It’s all about power, and the ones at the top, the ones who are the most powerful, know that slaying Death allows them to absorb all the parasites that this Death has killed. Think about if that happened to me.” She glanced around the room again, the slash marks on the paper walls illuminating and fading away.

  Lucian got it.

  Going after a stronger Death was akin to doing something like becoming a PKer in an MMORPG.

  “Have they tried to kill you?” Lucian asked.

  “Multiple times,” she said with a calm look on her face.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “There’s nothing that can be done about it, and I’m sure it is something that may happen again. That’s why I’m so far out here, to be honest with you.”

  “You mean here in Japan?”

  “We aren’t in Japan,” she said.

  Lucian took a look around. “Then where are we?”

  The paper walls began to fall back, showing Lucian a starlit tundra of ice that stretched to a pair of jagged mountains in the distance.

  “Are we in Antarctica?”

  “Something like that,” she said as the paper walls reformed. “Not all parasites are created equal. If it is your goal to kill the one that has latched onto your brother, you will have to grow catastrophically powerful in the next seven months. That’s not to say that it is impossible, but you may have to get creative on how you take these creatures out. One thing that may help is understanding the other kinds of parasites, and knowing the ones that you can go after. The addiction parasite is one of the most powerful, but there are others that are easier to kill at your level. They will bring you more power than the leeches you would normally go after.”

  “Which one should I try to go after then?”

  She went for another sliver of sashimi. “Mental health parasites would be the next logical step for you. You may eventually move up to greed, or perhaps violence and anger parasites, and even hate parasites, but the mental health parasites have lots of options, and most of them should be readily accessible to you. You just need to open yourself to the possibility of finding them.”

  “And you think if I do this, if I try to level up this way, I will be able to save my brother?” Lucian asked, his chest tightening.

  “Perhaps. But you will also attract attention. This should be taken into consideration as well.”

  Lucian nodded. “I appreciate all you’ve told me. Would you allow me to return here to ask additional questions in the future?”

  Yoshimi considered this for a moment, taking a long, hard look at Lucian. “It would be nice to see someone, but I prefer to keep to myself. It is less lonely that way.”

  Chapter Fifteen: Nursing Homes in the Desert

  Lucian wished that Yoshimi wanted to keep in touch. To be able to be around a Death who was still active would have really helped improve his own power, yet he also understood her desire for solitude, for privacy.

  The woman had been at it for ninety years, a third of the time that Old Death had performed these duties, yet Lucian could tell just how much stronger she was. And if she was able to do something about these obscure parasites…

  Lucian cursed himself.

  He was now on the balcony at Old Death’s home, pacing back and forth, wishing he could go back to Yoshimi to ask more questions.

  She didn’t explicitly say that he couldn’t teleport there, but he had a feeling that doing so would be inappropriate. It was unfortunate that he hadn’t asked for her to see to his brother’s condition, knowing that he may not be powerful enough in time.

  And maybe if it came to it, maybe if his brother’s date of death grew closer, Lucian would go back to Yoshimi and beg f
or her to help.

  But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

  Lucian wanted to be the one that killed that damn parasite plaguing his older sibling.

  The tea and food that Yoshimi had given him restored Lucian to fourteen Soul Points. He could go anywhere in the world at the moment and hunt for more parasites, but he felt restless, a little manic too. With all the options before him, he couldn’t make a decision, which was comical in a way considering how easy it was for him to travel.

  And even if he was slightly distraught, Lucian smiled at the comedic nature of the situation. With the world at his fingertips he’d chosen to brood on some alien planet, on his predecessor’s balcony, pacing back and forth.

  Was this what his life would be from here on out, Lucian just waiting to go back out there, his job as Death really no different than a 9-to-5?

  Slay parasites, come home and play video games, do it all over again tomorrow.

  What a life.

  “You are up late,” Old Death said, now standing next to Lucian on the balcony.

  “How long have you been here?” Lucian was startled enough that his hand had instinctively shot out, his scythe starting to appear and fading away.

  “It is my home, you know. Sometimes I come out on the balcony to look out at the city.” His predecessor looked at him curiously for a moment. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And you are progressing?”

  Lucian sighed. “That part is debatable, but yes, I believe I am.”

  “Good to hear, my boy, then I believe it’s time we go hunting together,” Old Death said, bringing his hands together in front of him. “I’m not dead yet.”

  The two appeared in the desert, the lights of a city on the horizon, stars twinkling in the sky overhead.

  “I figured we could get a walk-in as well,” Old Death said as he turned toward the city.

  “Sure.”

  “I wouldn’t say that I have developed favorite places to hunt over the last three hundred years, but I do like the convenience of certain locations.”