(Final Chapter Time! I got a really awesome comment and just had to write this out. I guess Corona is giving me the time to do it – though I have been working and also I published my own original novel, so that was occupying my time somewhat. Here goes nothing!)

Lord Death wrapped himself in his black cloak and put on a mask made to look identical to his father's. He stood tall in front of the mirror of his neatly organized bedroom, which had been constructed to fit in the interior of the New DWMA—instead of being inside Nevada, this time around it was somewhere in South Africa (which provided the smaller version of the old academy its necessary lack of casual tourists as well as fields made wet and fresh from the hotter climate on which they could cultivate their own foods). An entire city had been build around the academy, a new, well-guarded Death city.

Proud of all that his friends and coworkers had accomplished, Lord Death stepped out of his otherwise normal looking bedroom with a smile.

But the sight of Blackstar made him uneasy. A mix of feelings washed over him, of relieved anticipation—he's finally back—and dread.

Blackstar had a buzz-cut now, presumably because the weather was too death-damn hot to have that kind of hair he'd had in his teens. Tsubaki stood beside him, with her hair cut to her chin and a familiar sweetness on her relaxed face. They wore matching blue uniforms, made with a lightweight material to allow them to air out.

Before anyone said a word, Blackstar reached forward and pulled Lord Death into a great big hug.

"I missed you, Kid!" he cried, emoting in a way that Lord Death—now humbled upon hearing his first given name—didn't completely process until his friend had pulled away and revealed his eyes, glassy with tears. "This place is amazing! To be built in six years? I remember when this city and DWMA were just a sketch!"

"I missed you too, Blackstar … We haven't been apart for that long. The last time you visited was two years ago."

"Two years is a long time!"

Tsubaki tucked some of her black hair behind her ear, cheeks a shade of pink. "Maka called me the other day and let me know about her becoming a professor here. Have you been hand-selecting them?"

Lord Death—the Kid nodded. "It's part of my job as the headmaster." I don't know which name I prefer, anymore. "You two seem well. And considering you decided to meet me in the hallway here in front of my … house, I can call it, I think … then it should be safe for me to assume that you have an exciting update for me."

Tsubaki nudged Blackstar, as if to tell him to give him the news.

"We have Arthur."

Kid froze.

They got him? Is he in my city?

"After all that time, we caught that bastard. He's being held in the high security prison in the next city over," Blackstar explained, not picking up on Lord Death the Kid's nerves—probably because of the mask. "So, I hope you're ready for a road trip."

Feeling himself tense all over, Lord Death the Whatever-the-Fuck tilted his head forward. "I can travel to it through a mirror."

Blackstar laughed, patting him on the shoulder. This move got Lord Death the Kid to stop thinking for a moment and focus back on his friends. "No point in that! It's better to have fun, and make an entrance at the place instead of just 'Poof—I'm here!'"

Considering this, the death god let out a hesitant chuckle. "Okay, then. I didn't really have much to do today, other than check on how staff is performing, but I suppose I can delegate that duty to Liz."

"How is Liz doing?" Tsubaki asked urgently. "The last time we visited, we couldn't get a hold of her before we had to leave again. What was she doing at the time …?"

"She was working at one of the farms not too far from town," he answered, feeling some excitement for the good news he was about to give. "She ended up serving as a manager there last year, and this year I gave her the job of supervisor."

"What?" Blackstar blinked. "Like, of the crops?"

"No!" Shaking his head, he clarified, "of the academy."

"What?" Blackstar's eyes lit up. "You're kidding! When did ol' Liz start working?"

"A few months ago. She's doing very well at it, too." Removing his mask for a more personal interaction, he revealed his grin to them both. "I also hired Patty as the janitorial manager, in case you were wondering what she's up to. Also very good at her job, though it took her around eight months working in a lower position before I could trust her with those kinds of chemicals."

"Then who are your death weapons?" Blackstar asked, incredulous.

"Oh, the girls are still my death weapons. Just part-timers. It's not like I'm out there fighting all the time." Part of him wished he could return to that. The thrill of battle, the righteousness of stopping kishin eggs and corrupted souls from causing harm. Then again, the world back then looked very different. Because witches weren't an issue, aside from the occasional rogue, the academy and city had truly become his lifeblood. "Back to business. The road trip. Let's go."

He wanted to get it over with. He wanted to end the IHK once and for all.

Ending Arthur was the way to do it.

*.*.*

Arms restrained to a cold, iron chair, Arthur stared forward into darkness.

The facility was almost entirely white, with bright lighting so he could see exactly where he was going, so not to trip anywhere undesirable or run into soldiers or prisoners. In a way, he relied on the white, the pristine, to keep his head clear and his bearings about him.

But that was the longest period of time he'd spent in such a place. He was most familiar with the rise and fall of the sun, with the coming and going of clarity.

As one familiar with light and darkness, he was also aware of their nature: light might allow him to see ahead, look at oncoming traffic, bask in the agonized face of one of his multitudes of victims, but light had allowed him to observe horrors during his youth; decades before he had watched his father butcher a dog for barking too loudly – it was the neighbor's – then when his mother stripped down in a psychotic fit brought on not my witchcraft but by mental illness and run into a lake near their home down in South Carolina, Arthur had had the empty pleasure of watching her drown. He hadn't avoided bearing witness to his own suffering: his nearest neighbor was an old man with a thing for boys his age.

He bore witness to so many things that he would come to obsess over and, eventually, perhaps by sheer nature of his innate lack of emotions save for when he felt or observed pain, he too would carry out those same acts on others.

Evil lived in light, just as it lived in darkness. Only the dark tended to play with his hearing, more so than the on and off trick of the eye. A loving kiss might come in the darkness, felt on the cheek and heard by the ear. Then a woman's screaming or old man's pleading would sound from some distance, near enough it would be reachable by foot but too far off for Arthur to care to step in and take action.

In this sense, darkness took away a sense of responsibility – responsibility he didn't care to have and certainly would not accept unless doing so was to his benefit.

And so, though the natures of light and dark were virtually identical, he would pick not being able to see even ten inches ahead of him as was the case in this prison as opposed to feeling any degree of weight that light might place on him.

I wonder when he'll arrive.

Eliza was gone. He cared for her, in a way only someone who feels no genuine "love" can care. His sympathies could be triggered by someone who suffered such insanity as she. She, a truly baffling woman, was no match when it came to the blind spots of her perception: Death the Kid had pushed her down; decapitated her on the shattered window.

For a while, his mind went blank. Then, still sitting there immobile, the switch flicked back on and he heard through his black vision a door a few meters opposite his chair creak open, letting in blinding white light. Then a figure cloaked head to toe in black, with ghostly tendrils snaking around it like abysmal clouds, stepped in.

He's here, Arthur realized, lifting his head up so his chin no longer laid on his chest.

The figure walked forward as the door shut behind it, allowing the black to blend with black and only for the white skull mask to appear, as if floating in midair.

"Arthur," the figure's voice rang out, sounding silkier and more evened out than when he'd last heard it, "I heard they caught you in China."

Arthur smirked, figuring that his visitor was able to make out his appearance with reaper night-vision.

"So, they did, didn't they?" Lord Death the Kid continued without losing confidence, "Now that you've been on the run for so long, you must know how I felt back when this world first went to shit."

Arthur listened, and locked his eyes on the two black holes of the skull, which stayed about three feet away from his chair.

"Then again, I can tell by your lack of fear that you felt utterly nothing." A sigh, then, "Likewise, you have learned nothing."

Arthur chose not to respond. He was waiting patiently. It would be merely a matter of time before Kid would revert to his sniveling self from back in the facility.

"I know telling you about how much my life has improved won't do anything other than prolong our meeting. I came to take your soul."

…

"I would like to know what you want done with it. There are two options. Either I send you into the afterlife, or I crush it so you're erased from existence."

…

The godly visitor took a step forward. Two feet away, now.

"As a bringer of justice, I desire your input here. My bias makes me want to punish you for eternity, to keep your soul around so I can torture you in spirit, or to hope there is a Hell to send you to. But my instincts are telling me that someone as evil as you doesn't deserve an afterlife. You deserve no moment to despair. No sense of remorse. What is most fitting for someone who feels so little, is to forever feel nothing …"

The face floated above him, less than a foot away. The room felt bitter cold.

"That would be boring, wouldn't it? That would be like locking someone in a room all alone with nothing else for days on end"—

there it is

—"only without the painful reminder that you exist. Without hallucinations. Without beatings. Without witnessing murder, without anyone to speak with ..."

The crack in the mask.

"What do you have to say to that, Arthur?"

…

"I don't believe you have nothing to say."

…

"After all of this time, I thought you might have a formulated explanation for what you've done. All that you did. I thought you might tell me about all the people you've hurt since the facility's collapse."

…

"I'm sure you've victimized others."

Arthur pulled his smirk back into a small, straight line, and tilted his head ever slightly to the side.

"You have. I know you have."

He raised his eyebrows by a wink.

The skull mask angled a bit to the side, like Kid was cocking his head.

Indicative of confusion.

"Haven't you?"

…

"Nevertheless, I don't need your explanation. I've made up my mind. I won't let you have any entertainment for the rest of eternity."

A blue glow appeared below the mask, taking the form of a hand. The light made the bones shine through the flesh.

Arthur's heart skipped a beat.

Still, he said nothing.

Lord Death the Kid reached forward, slowly. He seemed to be waiting for a response.

Then, after a moment of silence, he touched his hand to Arthur's chest. Arthur shivered at the feeling of the God's hand on his flesh – it seemed to go straight through the thin shirt he was wearing.

His heart beat a little faster.

"Any last words, Arthur?"

Wanting to make the end meaningful for himself and unbearably disappointing for the god of death, Arthur considered what to do next.

I'll wait.

Time felt as if it was stretching to some indefinite length. Then Kid's hand slipped through his ribs, coupled by a burning sensation that reached Arthur's core. Without wanting to, his whole body clenched up as if being electrocuted. He could barely squeeze in a breath.

His senses were shot. Ice formed around his soul, capturing it in a crushing grip. The hand around him, this little red ball of light, was trembling. It was scared. It was furious, and petrified. It wasn't going anywhere, trapped in uncertainty.

It hurts – it hurts – it hurts –

The searing cold faded to a less extreme sensation, followed by a reduction in shakiness of the hand holding him. There was no chair, only a free-falling sensation as infinite colors swarmed everything.

Then warmth. This felt so wrong to feel; it didn't hurt, it didn't constrict him.

It guided it through a vortex – a tunnel – of stars, of lights, of everything, then in an easy, gentle manner, released it so it could float freely through a cloud of gold.

The soul vibrated with an unknown. Not obsession, not vile pleasure, but a concept more fulfilling than anything it had ever experienced combined.

*.*.*

Lord Death the Kid stepped out of the room, into the somehow comfortable hallway of the max prison. He closed his eyes as he took off his mask in one swift motion. He opened his eyes again to glance back, just to close the door behind him – not to see the soulless corpse still strapped to a chair.

"I hope what I did was right," he said in a quiet, wavering voice. Letting out a heavy sigh, he expelled the pressure that had hit him when he'd first entered the room of his longing and nightmares.

Blackstar placed a strong hand on his frosty back, beaming a smile at him that helped to reduce some of the cold.

In a boisterous voice somehow full of calming assurance, Blackstar said, "Nah, you're fine! Let's go home."

Looking up at him, a comforted smile rose from Lord Death's previously down-turned lips.

"Yes. Of course. There's no better place to be."

*.*.*

The End