A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, K a crossover where both fandom are entirely in canon, and for the Crossover Competition.

After the Undead, the Reaper Calls
Chapter 1

Within twelve hours, Odaiba had gone from a district of the living to a city of the dead, and now things moved on. News anchors spoke of the miraculous monsters that saved more than three thousand people from the vampire who lay a day-long siege on their costal town. Luckily, news of the children hadn't spread too far. They'd been specks in the vacuum of light when most of the people in the convention centre had emerged, the new dead amongst life, and only close family had recognised the eight forms vanishing into the sky.

And when the trolleycar comes through the morning sun of the following day, only those families are on the street, waiting.

And nobody noticed. Nobody realised. Except for him whose job it was to monitor the balance of the worlds. Because Tokyo had, even in this godforsaken world, been a city of the living. They cremate their dead. They moved on. They never realised souls stirred in their urns, aching for a proper burial. They never realised that, in other parts of the world where the dead are buried, not burned, the bodies rise up from the grave until a young woman with a special shovel buries them again.

Gravekeepers. That was the name given to them, amongst others: other cruel names by those who don't want to die, or don't want to lose their loved ones. That was in the parts of the world who knew of the walking dead, who knew they had died. Those who hid bullet wounds under vests or long cuts under sleeves or sicknesses under layers of cream. Or those who'd learnt to recognise the signs of the dead. In Tokyo, there were few who escaped and they were swept up with the living, indistinguishable. And Gravekeepers did not come. Not yet.

But they would, now that there were three thousand in Odaiba. And they were not Ortus, or the other famous dead cities in the west. Cities where the dead lived on, where the living were barred, where suspected Gravekeepers were attacked and killed the moment they approached the city. The Gravekeepers would come to bury them and that would be the end of Odaiba, save the few who'd survived.

Gennai did not disagree with that principle, per say. He was closer to Digimons in kind than human beings: a being made of data, to monitor and guide. As far as the humans went, his main interest were the Chosen, and it was through the Chosen's interest in the world that he held any interest in its people at all. After all, though the two worlds were inexplicably tied, the world would not crumble from the loss of three thousand people or even the landmass upon which they stood.

The hearts of the Chosen, on the other hand, could. Because Vamdemon had, perhaps unintentionally, sent most of their living families to a life as undead.

Few, by luck or some other power, escaped. Ishida Hiroaki who'd escaped the Bakemons' watchful eyes inside the TV station. Kido Shin whose hiding place in his home had somehow gone undiscovered. Kido Shuu who'd been out of Tokyo at the time. Takaishi Natsuko, who lived across Tokyo bay and who'd never made it through the fog. Takenouchi Haruhiko, lecturing at some summer classes in anthology at Kyoto University. The Izumis, by virtue of Koushiro's digital barrier. And a few others not directly related to the Chosen fortunate enough to be spared the Bakemon and their sequelae.

And as for those who had been herded to the Convention Centre, there were only two survivors.

One he understood. Tachikawa Mimi. One of the Chosen children. Her crest and digivice came from the Digital World like Vamdemon did. It had provided some protection. And she'd been quick to escape the poison that the other children breathed.

But as for the other, he couldn't be sure. Eight year old Motomiya Daisuke. He could only guess that the boy had a digivice waiting for him, somewhere in two worlds. He was not omnipresent, only alone. Something would, in time, have to be done about that. His lack of knowledge had led to this end.

To think the eighth child had been in the home of one of the original seven all along. If they'd had the name they could have gone in and come back out of that world within a couple of hours. Vamdemon could have been defeated days sooner. Over three thousand lives could have been spared, left to die in smaller clumps as humans did, and be replaced by the newly born.

But five years ago, in human times, that had changed. The west called it the day God forsook the world and stole away the cycle of life and death with a final parting gift…or curse: the Gravekeepers. If that was true it was only the humans' world that felt the stain. Digimon died. Digimon were reborn, reincarnated – or perhaps that was an equally closed cycle his world bore. There was no such thing as a Digimon corpse. It was easier for him, from the Digital World, to know which humans were dead by human terms. Death for a Digimon was when they returned to the digi-egg state. Death for a human was when their heart stopped.

And the Chosen. Hope, light, love… Those things could easily die with death. After all, that was what they fought for. Their families. Their friends. Their loved ones. Because the world was too big a thing for eight children.

Three thousand people was not a lot in the context of the Human World, but it was to those eight children. And to the dead themselves, thinking they were still alive, going on with their daily lives as a Gravekeeper approached from the west.

Because a Gravekeeper could sense the three thousand dead that had suddenly appeared, overnight, even from across the ocean. And while the world shifted from relief to curiosity, Gennai waited with baited breath. Curiosity was a slow killer. The shovel was the first thing he had to face.

He met her at the foot of the broken Rainbow Bridge almost a week after the children returned. She looked at him curiously. The Gravekeeper – she must be, Gennai thought. She had an ornate shovel across her back.

'You are dead,' she said without surprise. 'But not human. Not of this world.'

'Are you aware of other worlds?' Gennai asked. If she was, his plea would be more audible.

'I am aware,' the Gravekeeper replied. 'I do not, however, understand.'

Which was fair enough. Gennai sought to understood other worlds only far as they influenced his own, and he failed at even that.

'There is too much to understand.' He sank down on the road, urging the Gravekeeper to do the same. He was still an old man after all: an old and weary man, even if not by human terms. 'The survival of this world and the one I come from rests on the shoulders of eight children. Maybe a few more as time goes on.'

'When the living have died and the dead are buried, there will no longer be a cause for Gravekeepers,' the Gravekeeper replied. 'We will cease to exist in a world that both calls for us and abhors us.' Her lips curled at the words, or the thoughts.

It was unusual, as for as Gennai knew, Gravekeepers had no capacity for emotion. But truthfully, five years did not give a lot to observe, and with the Dark Masters, it had been more imperative to focus on the Chosen and the condition of the Digital World than a strange phenomenon that seemed to affect only the Human World.

And yet, things weren't as clear cut as that. If it hadn't been for the Human World, the Digital World wouldn't even exist. If it hadn't been for the humans, digivolution would not be possible. If it hadn't been for the Chosen, their world wouldn't have been wrenched from the grip of the Dark Masters.

'There is no hope in a world without humans,' Gennai, after some deliberation said. 'Hope for a better world. Hope for a world where natural births occur again, where new species appear. Wishes are very powerful things.'

'Of course.' But she was thinking of other sorts of wishes. Wishes that lead to immortality. Wishes that led to their birth. 'The dead wish to keep on living. You wish the world to continue on, be saved.' The bitterness had lapsed from her voice, leaving a monotone again. 'My calling is to bury the dead.' Then, almost as an afterthought, she added: 'it will take a while to dig three thousand graves.'

Gennai breathed an inaudible sigh of relief at that. Time meant time to adjust, or time to find a way to reverse the damage Vamdemon had caused, or to do something, anything. Or, in the worst case scenario, to defeat Vamdemon once and for all – Vamdemon they'd underestimated in lieu of the Dark Masters and who'd almost cost them the Chosen in their home world. 'If I could ask a favour then,' he said, considering his words carefully. 'There are certain humans who are very important to our world, and others very important to those children.'

'A hierarchy?' the Gravekeeper asked. 'Well, it doesn't make a difference to me what order I bury the dead in, so long as they are buried.'

'And other Gravekeepers?' That was the best he could hope for, by the looks of things. 'Will more come?'

'It is rare for two Gravekeepers to come upon the same horde of dead,' the Gravekeeper replied. She stood slowly, and unstrapped her shovel. 'This will by my task.'

'And…how long will it take?'

'Three to six years.' She shrugged. 'It depends on how much resistance I get.'

What was more important now, Gennai wondered. Researching the dead, stopping attempts to research the Digimon and the Digital World or finding Vamdemon.

He was, unfortunately, only one file of data, bound to one physical form.

'Is it really necessary?' He knew the answer, but still he had to ask. For a Gravekeeper, it was their very purpose of existing. Otherwise so many would not have gone to Ortus only to be cut down at its gates. 'You are not human. Does it matter whether they are alive or dead in a human sense?'

'It does,' the Gravekeeper replied. 'They have a certain miasma that infects the living. And they decay – more slowly than the buried dead, but they decay. Even if they are left alone, they will lose all sense and reason until their body is utterly destroyed, and in the process many of the remaining living will join the dead.'

Gennai frowned at her words. He had not known – and it was a weighty knowledge to bear. 'How long?'

'Who knows,' the Gravekeeper replied. 'It has been five years and Gravekeepers, for the most part, do their job well.'

'Ortus,' Gennai guessed. 'Has something happened there?' But the Chosen were in Japan. They weren't his business – or so he'd thought and now if he'd known more about this phenomenon, he could help the people of Odaiba more, help the Chosen more – the Digital World owes its continued existence to those eight children, and half of them had lost their families because of it.

The Gravekeeper smiled bitterly. 'Ortus is an empty place once more, but the dead will continue to collect there, searching for a way to continue on.'

'A way to stop the degeneration…' If only the rest of the Order still lived. If only there were more of them that could monitor, and explore, they'd be able to cover so much more ground. They would have to cut corners, to risk sacrificing so much, to actually sacrifice so much…

Before the necessity to seek Chosen, he'd barely considered this world past its intricate connection to the Digital World. But that didn't mean he disvalued life, or that he wished to sacrifice even a part of another world for his own. And yet that was what had happened.

'The dead will still be dead,' the Gravekeeper said, 'whether they realise it or not, whether they stop the decay of their bodies and minds or not, whether someone wishes them dead or alive or not. It is an illusion to pretend otherwise.'

'But they are children.' And his heart was heavy at the thought. Three thousand people, most of them with family, all of them with friends. Four of the Chosen were now orphaned, and one was unfortunate enough to lose her entire family. Only three had come away with their families intact, and in a few years when all the dead were buried, they'd learn the truth of Vamdemon's siege, and the lives he had taken. 'They need hope. Light. Love.' And those other traits: the traits that made them Chosen, the traits that had called out so strongly that night four years ago.

'There is no-one who can wish for time to freeze forever,' the Gravekeeper said in reply. She sounded almost sad as she spoke. 'We are born as adults. But the innocence of children has a way of touching everything.'

She began to dig. The shovel easily scooped up soft soil at the bank of the bay. Gennai watched her silently for a while, and then he asked: 'That is a grave?'

'Yes.'

The dirt piled up. It was slow. He wondered how many she could dig a day. And where she would dig once the banks were full, or crowded. Or if she was chased away by workers rebuilding Rainbow Bridge. The Digital World had taken an age to change, but the human world had changed rapidly.

But the people of Odaiba would be able to live in ignorance for a little longer, and the Chosen would have their families, still walking, still talking, still loving and supporting and just being there, for a little while longer as well.