Chapter 21:

Shinigami

High School Raindrops


   Shortly after he told the students to leave and pack, Jim made his way through the halls of the school. Lots of memories here for him. Finding a place for it was probably the biggest headache. Hiding a large structure like this was basically out of the question, so it needed to be out of the way, but he also hoped it could be close to the already established Shadow Town. It was tricky, but one day he stumbled on a large, basically abandoned structure in the woods. A little research told him it was privately owned, but for how old and dusty it was, he figured it wouldn’t be hard to take on squatter’s rights.

First, he had moved in a bunch of furniture him and some friends helped him collect. Desks, chairs, a chalkboard, and other things. Pens, pencils, and paper were easy enough to buy, but he had a heck of a time trying to find books that weren’t going to immediately break the bank. Second was bringing in people. Originally he was just going to have the people from Shadow Town come over. Many of them were old, but he figured they might try some of the classes out of boredom. That plan was changed when he got official orders from his actual job to bring a whole class of students across to Shigo. Over his undead body was he going to follow that order.

Teachers had been a thought a long time ago too, but he ended up having to get creative on that front. Same thing with the staff. The pixies from the other side were perfect in that they agreed to clean and cook for free as long as they got to live here too. And technically he wasn’t supposed to tell Abigail about it, but… that cat was out of the bag. Their area was in the back room of the cafeteria. Little hammocks were set up with dish clothes tied to old shelving he had in his house.

He came by it and saw them. Always there. They weren’t always the smartest, but they were the most reliable company he’d ever had. This was going to be really tough to do. If he could see any other way, he wouldn’t do it.

“Hey everyone. Can I get your attention please?”

All of them looked up from their current tasks. Minus a few that were running around the room fast with no apparent goal in sight, but they were stopped by the others. Eventually they were all looking at him with their cute work clothes and bright smiles.

“I really hate to do this to all of you, but… the thing is, my mother found out about this place. She’s like the head of Grim Reapers. Well, not all reapers, but a lot of them. Anyway, she’s coming to tear this place down, so you need to get out of here before the building comes down over your heads.”

They stared at him with those bright smiles still. They must not have understood him. He explained, “You need to leave. A reaper, like me, but a whole lot meaner, is on the way. She won’t be happy with this place, and she will have no qualms about taking that out on you.” Still, they stared with that smile. He released the blade from his stick and pointed the poking end towards them, “This. Will come. For you.” He said and pointed at them, but still they just flew in place. Completely unaware of the danger.

He sighed, put the blade away, and explained, “And also, might as well tell you since you’re not quite catching my meaning anyway; Abigail knows you’re all here. She wants you back before the season ends, but you really need to start going—” He was going to say now, but with the mention of Abigail they all sighed and frowned angrily at him. Most of them turned back to go pack in an angry huff, but a couple threw dust at his nose, causing him to sneeze.

He wiped his nose on a napkin in his pocket (the very same one with the student names.) “I’m sorry,” he said, but not a single one was there to hear it anyway.

He left the cafeteria and made his way to a room. His office, sort of. Mostly he just needed a room to store stuff, and then Emily saw him in it and asked him if it was his office, and he said yes because… well, it sounded right, didn’t it? It was where he was storing stuff. He locked it up so that people couldn’t just walk in, and it was where he was a lot, so it made sense for people to look for him here. Eventually he got a chair just so that people would stop asking why he didn’t have one.

He came to the desk. Pulling a lighter from the drawer, he then lit the desk on fire. All his papers would be gone, all the proof of his crimes destroyed to ash. Every piece of correspondence he’s ever had on this project was decimated with it. He might go down today, but he wasn’t sending every person that dared to help him with the high-risk endeavor.

The files of the humans he was ordered to send to Shigo were there too. Shinigami probably had a copy of them anyway, but why make her job easier by giving her a cross reference? With any luck a few people would slip through the cracks.

Mrs. Travis and Oleander had the highest chance, being some of the oldest residents. Red not so much. The students were the highest risk as they were all the newest ones. The words that were said to him long ago hit like heavy weight. He was warned many times that this plan wouldn’t work. It was too many people; he’d never get away with it. That he needed to let go of some people if he wanted even a chance of getting it past his mother.

They were right. Of course they were. He wasn’t stupid, but as he looked at the flame now, he couldn’t say he regretted it. If he had listened back then and only saved a few of the kids, he would have wondered forever how many he could have saved if he had trusted his instinct. This way he knew for sure. He could have saved eight of them with minimal issues, but the idea that he should have let go of Hao Hao or Taeyang broke his bony existence. The moment he laid eyes on either of them, the plan would have changed to saving them.

No, there was little reason even debating it. This was always how it was meant to go.

Once he made sure that the fire was out after burning up the aforementioned documents, it was time to stop stalling. Kirai and the others had said they would be back, so there was only one way to stop this. He had to leave and take the fight right to her.

He came to the front gate. Following his instincts, he made his way into the forest with his eyes and ears open. He knew where his mother resided, and she wasn’t one to make detours. She went the most direct route. Her insistence on a reaper not having any need for stealth was a blessing in this case: it made her easy to predict. He took a straight path for the beach a few miles away. It didn’t take long for the sound of shika tromping forward to let him know he was right on the money.

Releasing his blade and swinging within a single motion, he took out several shika. Dissipated like air because that’s all they were. Signals for his mother to follow. The only harm they could cause was striking fear into souls and spirits. That was close enough to harm that Jim decided to take them out before they got to the school.

“Jim.”

It was a voice he hadn’t heard in many years, but one he’d never forget. He turned to the woman in the hood that was his mother. She floated a couple of inches above the ground. Floating to give herself speed. Physically, they looked the same to the human eye (to most other species eyes, actually), but reapers could tell each other apart with ease. This was his mother. No questions necessary.

“Shinigami.” Jim said.

“Are you really so childish still? You can call me mother.”

“No. I think I’ll stick with Shinigami.”

She looked at him with a look that screamed really? But she didn’t say that. Instead she gripped her scythe and brought it to her side. Ready to swing if Jim decided to make the first move. He mirrored her stance. They waited.

“Do you have any explanation for your actions?” she asked.

“I’ll need you to be more specific.”

“Abandoning your duties as a reaper, mingling in the human world, living on private property that is not yours, using it for illegal purposes such as housing unrested souls, and kidnapping of pixies. That about everything?”

“I did not kidnap the pixies. They came with me willingly.”

“They still don’t belong here.”

“We’ve had this conversation a million times. There’s no actual law banning it.”

“There doesn’t need to be a law. I expect reapers, especially my own son, to be a little smarter than that.”

They’d had this argument many times before. Jim didn’t feel like rehashing old fights, and so he didn’t fall back onto old habits like telling him he wasn’t her son anymore. He stood his ground.

“You can make this a lot simpler for everyone if you give yourself up,” she said.

“You already know I won’t do that.”

Just like he knows that she won’t give up either. Now that she knows what he’s done and what he’s willing to do, she’ll want to stop him once and for all. Yes, he can feel it stronger than ever now that the two of them were face to face. This was how it was always going to go.

“Then you give me no choice.”

She swung her scythe. Jim brought his forward in order to knock hers back, but her ability to float gave her more maneuverability in general. He jumped back as the shika appeared. Another of her abilities as an eldest reaper.

Jim swung his scythe back to dissipate them, but they only came back and circled him once again. Limiting his movement. Bad for him, but at least it was all the same tricks he was used to with her. This wasn’t the first time they’d fought, and if he had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t be the last either.

As metal clanked against metal in a struggle that neither of them felt they could lose, the forest appears to grow ever darker in the distance. Shinigami said, “Look at what you’ve done! That is not natural here; acknowledge it.”

They twirled their scythes like batons, spinning until it was positioned to swing again. She kept trying to get a first hit in but he was always there just in time to hit hers back. It had been proved several times before; the two were evenly matched in combat. She had trained him and it showed. There wasn’t a trick either of them had that would catch the other off guard, and so, this battle would go on until one of them slipped up.

“Wait!”

As their scythes hit and the sweat dripped from their unseen foreheads, they both stopped at the sound of a young girl’s voice. For just a moment, both of them let their guards down and watched as the young Hao Hao made her way towards them, along with Alice behind her. He was surprised. Shy Hao Hao, of all people, was jumping into conflict?

“So, this is what it has come to. You would even enlist children to your aid,” Shinigami said.

He shook his head. This wasn’t his plan at all, but she probably wouldn’t believe him if he said it anyway. He kept his attention on the kids. “What are you two doing here? I told you to leave.”

“We can’t. Not after everything you’ve done for us.”

She turned her scythe towards Hao Hao and asked, “So you’re here to fight me?”

“No! no. None of us know how to fight. We were hoping to talk.”

Even the shika froze at her words, glancing curiously towards her. Jim wasn’t sure if that was his mother expressing interest or trying to prepare an attack against them all. He searched Shinigami’s face for her motive, but she seemed as surprised as him by their movements. As he saw the spirits surrounding the kids, conjured by Hao Hao’s abilities as a whisperer, he wondered if it was possible that the shika were being controlled by her.

“I can’t imagine what there is to talk about. You are souls that belong in Shigo. Either you will let me take you there, or we’ll do this the hard way.”

“If we agree to come with you, would you come see the school before we go?”

That stunned her. Jim had never seen his mother stunned into silence before; what was Hao Hao’s plan? Admittingly, he was curious enough to watch and see how this pans out. It gave him a well-needed break anyway.

“Why would I do that?” Shinigami asked.

“Because… Jim worked really hard on it, and we’ve been doing our best to make it a wonderful place to be, and I think it would be a waste if you didn’t see that while you’re all the way down here, and, well…”

Shinigami’s hood moved towards Jim, a side glance. She asked, “Did you set this up? Is this a trap?”

Jim put his hands up defensively. “I promise, I know as much as you about any of this.”

“Not that your promises are very reliable.”

“Point taken.”

“Really, he doesn’t know,” Hao Hao insisted.

Shinigami turned to her. Eyes drifting over her like ice, not that Hao Hao could see that, thanks to the hood. His mother said, “Well, if you’re inviting me, it would be rude to decline.”

‘Wait, really?” Jim asked, “You’re coming to my school?”

“I suppose I am. Is that a problem?”

“No. Go ahead.”

She was going to go there anyway. Jim just thought it wouldn’t happen until he was in jail or dead, and even then, he figured she’d let the shika destroy half of it before she ever stepped through the gate. The idea of her coming as guest to look around had never once crossed his mind before.

As the group of them started to make their way through the forest, shika and spirits included, Jim waited for them all to be a good distance away before he turned to Hao Hao. He asked her, “What is the plan? Is this a trap?”

She shook her head. “I’m hoping to end the fighting. If we show her all the good of the school, she’ll change her mind. I’m sure of it.”

Jim sighed. His mother was ruthless: a field trip would have no effect on her feelings about it nor his relationship with her, but he hated to tell her that when she looked so bright: confident and full of hope. She reminded him of himself. Way back when he thought that if he just stood up for the right thing that things would work out on their own.

He supposed he was still like that. He said, “Lead the way Hao Hao.”

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