Meanwhile, in a multiverse not his own…
Death slowly regained consciousness, irritation already simmering as fragmented memories began stitching themselves together in his mind. The sensation alone was unpleasant—being dragged through a vortex never was—but what truly grated on him was the audacity of it. A vacation interruption? After millennias of work? Unacceptable on every conceivable cosmic level.
With a low, gravelly groan, he pushed himself upright, joints clicking faintly as he moved, and opened his empty eye sockets. The first thing that greeted him was not sun, sand, or the gentle sway of palm trees.
It was decay.
He found himself sprawled in a narrow, decrepit alleyway, hemmed in by crumbling stone walls that leaned inward as if very eager to collapse. The ground beneath him was very uneven, littered with shattered masonry, ash, and twisted scraps of metal whose original shape had long since been erased. The air was thick, stale, metallic, and faintly acrid, like the lingering aftertaste of explosions and bloodshed. It clung to the back of his nonexistent throat. Every surface bore scars: spiderwebbed cracks, blackened scorch marks, and deep impact craters that spoke not of age, but of sustained destruction.
Death slowly took it all in, irritation sharpening into a familiar, cutting edge.
This level of devastation was familiar. Too familiar. The careless destruction, the sheer disregard for collateral damage—it immediately reminded him of one of his own Sorrows. Specifically, Major Warren Pliskhan, Head of the Modern Warfare Department, whose idea of "efficient soul acquisition" had a chronic tendency to involve large-scale wars and unnecessary explosions.
Death pinched the bridge of his nonexistent nose, already drafting a mental reprimand.
If Pliskhan did this without authorization, there will be memos.
But as his gaze drifted upward, that assumption unraveled almost instantly.
The sky above him was wrong.
Instead of the dull, oppressive gray skies he associated with a typical war-torn mortal third-world country, the skies burned a deep, blood-red hue, as though the sky itself had been wounded and left to bleed eternally. Etched into it was a massive, glowing pentagram, dominating the very skies, its lines pulsing faintly with ominous, deliberate power. That is certainly not a decoration.
And as if that weren't unsettling enough, two celestial bodies loomed from above.
One was a pale white orb encircled by several thin, luminous rings, with wispy, wing-like clouds curling and unfurling around it as if alive. It looked almost watchful—serene in a way that set his nerves on edge. The other was unmistakably moon-like but drenched in a dark crimson hue, bearing a pentagram carved directly into its very face, glaring down from above. The contrast between the celestial bodies—purity and serenity, violence and impurity—made something unpleasant twist deep within his bones.
Death straightened fully now, brushing debris and ash from his robe, his irritation blooming into something far sharper.
"Lovely," he muttered sarcastically, his voice echoing softly through the ruined alley.
This wasn't the work of one of his department heads. Nor was it a battlefield sanctioned by Death, Inc. And it most definitely wasn't anywhere he had approved—or even heard of. Wherever the vortex had dumped him, it was somewhere deeply problematic, and he knew it the moment he exhaled a long, annoyed sigh.
First, his vacation was ruined.
Second, he was stranded.
And third—worst of all—he could already feel it in his very bones.
This place was going to be a hella lot of work.
Then, taking a deep breath, or at least going through the familiar motions of one, Death forced himself to steady. Experience had taught him that panicking never improved a situation, no matter how justified it felt. With deliberate, methodical care, he began to check over his belongings, grounding himself in routine.
His cloak was the first thing he noted. It still draped over his frame, its dark fabric fluttering faintly in the stagnant air. It was slightly rumpled and dusted with ash and grime from his less-than-graceful arrival but otherwise intact. No tears. No burn marks. Very expected, all things considered.
Next, his gaze shifted to his scythe.
It stood embedded in the ground nearby, driven deep between fractured stones as if it had arrived with purpose rather than by accident. Its blade caught what little light filtered into the alley, glinting with its usual ominous sheen, utterly unfazed by its surroundings. Reliable. Dependable. Just the way he liked it. Beside it lay the Pitbook, resting calmly against the rubble as though it had simply been set down rather than violently transported. Its cover was unmarred, its pages safely sealed.
A small, begrudging sense of relief washed over him.
"At least something's going right," he grumbled, giving his cloak a sharp shake to smooth out the wrinkles, as if that alone could restore a sense of dignity to the situation.
He reached for the scythe and gripped it firmly, yanking it free from the ground with a bit more force than strictly necessary. Stone cracked faintly in protest as the blade came loose. The motion was sharp and decisive—an outlet for his growing irritation. His skeletal fingers tightened around the handle, the familiar weight of it anchoring him as his mind raced, already running through possibilities, probabilities, and worst-case scenarios.
Stranded somewhere unknown.
Unapproved.
Unscheduled.
AWAY FROM HIS VACATION.
His jaw set as he scanned the alley once more, eyes flicking over the ruined architecture, the crimson sky barely visible above the leaning walls.
"But first where in the void am I now? " he growled, his voice echoing faintly through the eerie stillness.
The alleyway, of course, offered no answer, only silence, thick and heavy, as if the unknown world around him was waiting for him to just make the next move.
Deep within his bony skull, Death mulled over the possibilities. This definitely wasn't the Underworld, no familiar pull, no comforting inevitability woven into the air. It wasn't the mortal realms either; the atmosphere here was far too saturated with lingering violence and something else in the air. And it was certainly not Life's Heaven, thank the void for small mercies because he'd rather not deal with her at the moment.
He absentmindedly scratched the side of his skull where nonexistent hair might have been, a habitual gesture born of long years spent thinking himself into and out of situations. The unease threatening to creep in was shoved aside with practiced ease. Worry could wait. Action came first.
Leaning down, he retrieved the Pitbook from the rubble, inspecting it briefly before tucking it securely into the folds of his cloak, where it belonged. With that done, he lifted himself smoothly into the air, floating a few inches above the ground, his preferred method of movement, efficient and effortless, or at least it usually was.
With a flick of his skeletal hand, he attempted to summon a portal to Death, Inc.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
His eye sockets narrowed, irritation flickering as he tried again, the motion sharper this time. Still nothing. No swirling void, no familiar pull, not even a flicker of response.
Taking a deep breath, completely unnecessary, but comforting nonetheless, Death concentrated harder. He muttered incantations under his breath, ancient words shaped by habit and authority, and slashed his hand through the air with decisive intent. The space before him remained stubbornly, insultingly empty.
When the familiar portal refused to appear yet again, his temper finally flared.
"Oh Come on!" he growled, clenching his free hand into a bony fist.
He tried again. And again. Each attempt met with the same result: absolute failure. With every unsuccessful summoning, his annoyance grew more tangible, the low hum of energy that accompanied his floating becoming uneven, almost erratic, as if even around him was testing his patience.
"Ughhh, I just wanted a vacation, just one week of undisturbed peace" he muttered darkly, glaring at the uncooperative air as though it had personally conspired against him. "Is that too much to ask?"
The air, predictably, offered no response, leaving Death hovering in a ruined alley of an unfamiliar place, increasingly aware that whatever spatial rules governed this place, they were not inclined to cooperate with literal DEATH itself.
Unfortunately for Death, his irritation was far from over.
As he turned to survey the ruined alley more thoroughly, the faint, instinctive awareness honed over eons of existence pricked at the back of his skull. He wasn't alone. His sharp, empty eye sockets shifted and landed on multiple figures looming ominously behind him, their silhouettes cutting dark shapes against the blood-red glow of the crimson sky.
With an exasperated sigh that carried centuries of tired resignation, Death turned around fully.
What greeted him was… baffling.
Anthropomorphic sharks stood clustered together in the alleyway, their massive forms blocking the narrow exit. Each one was dressed in a sharp, well-tailored mafia suit, pinstripes, pressed lapels, polished shoes, the whole absurd ensemble. Their fins jutted through the fabric where arms should have been, and their cold, predatory eyes gleamed with unmistakable menace. They looked less like random thugs and more like a well-organized crime family that had taken a very strange evolutionary turn.
Death blinked once.
Then again.
What in the void…?
As far as he knew, Life hadn't created these things. She was chaotic, yes, but she was also loud about her creations. He would have known by now if she'd decided to populate a universe with anthropomorphic, suit-wearing sharks. This didn't fit any of her usual patterns, nor any brand of chaos he was familiar with.
Before he could puzzle it out any further, one of the sharks stepped forward.
The hammerhead was unmistakably the leader, broader than the rest, shoulders stretching his suit uncomfortably wide. He flashed Death a malicious grin, rows of razor-sharp teeth gleaming in the hellish light as his eyes narrowed with cruel amusement.
"Well, well," the hammerhead sneered, his voice thick and mocking, "would ya look at that? A fresh sinner in Hell."
He leaned in slightly, looming over Death's floating form.
"And would ya look at that, it's a little shrimp."
For a split second, the alley was silent.
Then the rest of the mafia sharks erupted into laughter, harsh and guttural, their cruel cackles bouncing off the walls and echoing through the alleyway like a chorus of mockery.
Death's skeletal expression hardened instantly. His posture shifted, subtle but unmistakable, and his eye sockets narrowed into a sharp, dangerous glare. Slowly, almost absently, he lifted a hand toward his skull, fingers brushing bone out of pure habit.
That's when he felt it.
The tick mark.
That tick mark.
A faint, almost imperceptible crack of irritation formed in his bone, a sign known all too well by anyone foolish enough to provoke him. His hand stilled as his temper, long restrained, finally found a target.
"Oh," he muttered under his breath, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register, "that guy didn't just call me a shrimp."
The laughter continued, unaware, blissfully ignorant of the fact that they had just insulted Death itself in the face, especially now where he was already having a very bad day.
The sharp, malicious laughter continued, echoing off the cracked walls, grating against Death's non-existent nerves like a badly tuned instrument. Whatever faint patience he'd managed to scrape together after being forcibly relocated finally snapped.
"A Shrimp huh? " he repeated again, his tone utterly flat, devoid of humor, emotionless in a way that was far more dangerous than shouting. His skeletal fingers tightened imperceptibly around the handle of his scythe, the weapon humming faintly in response. He glanced down at himself at his admittedly short stature in this particular manifestation and his bony jaw clenched, irritation radiating off him in waves.
The hammerhead shark's grin only widened, clearly mistaking Death's stillness for weakness.
"Yeah, that's right, shrimp," he sneered, leaning forward just enough to be insulting. "Don't see many runts like you down here. What're ya gonna do? Poke me with that stick o' yours?"
Death's nonexistent eyebrows twitched.
Oh, this is going to be fun, he thought grimly, the last remnants of confusion dissolving into a familiar, cold clarity. The storm of annoyance brewing inside him shifted, sharpening into something far more dangerous—vindictive amusement. He had been yanked out of a well-earned vacation, stranded in an unfamiliar place, denied his portals, and now he was being mocked by sentient, suit-wearing shark.
That simply would notstand.
Already well past the end of his patience, Death didn't bother with pleasantries, warnings, or explanations. He didn't announce who he was. He didn't give them time to regret their words.
With a single, fluid swing of his scythe, he severed their strings of life without a second thought.
The effect was immediate.
The laughter died mid-breath. The anthro sharks froze where they stood, bodies locking up as an invisible force tore through them. Their smug expressions twisted into shock and agony as pain, raw, overwhelming, absolute, ripped through their very existence. They collapsed to the ground almost simultaneously, their suits scraping against the ground as they writhed and screamed, their voices echoing chaotically through the alleyway as though their souls themselves were being cut apart.
Death stood unmoving amid the chaos, his scythe resting calmly at his side. His expression remained apathetic, almost bored, as if he'd merely completed a mundane task on a checklist. The alley filled with noise, cries, gasps, desperate thrashing but none of it moved him.
In the quiet recesses of his mind, however, he couldn't deny a small, deeply satisfying flicker of vindication.
That'll teach these chumps to call me a shrimp if they were to be alive to begin with.
Moments passed, and the screams dwindled into nothingness. One by one, the Anthro Sharks' bodies went slack, their writhing slowing until it stopped entirely. Then, without ceremony, they began to crumble, as their forms collapsed inward, suits and flesh alike breaking apart into fine, gray dust. The particles lifted gently into the air, carried off by a faint, listless breeze that swept through the alleyway as if erasing evidence of what had happened.
Death watched in silence.
The dust dispersed quickly, thinning until there was nothing left of them at all. No bodies. No residue. Just emptiness where they had stood moments before.
Death blinked.
His scythe came to rest against the cracked stone beside him as he stared at the now-empty alleyway, a faint note of surprise flickering across his otherwise impassive demeanor. That… wasn't right. He had expected the usual aftermath, the telltale release of souls, the inevitable emergence of spectral forms tugged toward their proper destination. It happened every time. It was as natural as the end of one's life itself.
But there was nothing.
No flicker of light.
No screaming essence.
No confused, drifting soul awaiting processing.
Just dust. And silence.
He tilted his skull slightly, then reached up to scratch at it with a bony finger, the gesture slow and thoughtful.
"Huh," he mused aloud, voice echoing faintly off the ruined walls. "I think I may have overdone it… probably."
Despite the words, there was no real regret in his tone only mild curiosity, as if he'd accidentally used too much force when swatting a particularly annoying fly. Still, the absence gnawed at him. This wasn't normal. Even when he overdid things, there was always something left behind.
His empty eye sockets narrowed as his thoughts churned.
No souls meant no proper transfer. No paperwork. No pull toward the Underworld. That alone was concerning. Death was many things, overworked, irritable, perpetually exhausted but sloppy was not one of them. The system worked because it always worked.
Except here.
Something about this place was different.
Wrong.
He straightened slowly, the faint hum of his presence settling as he took in the alley once more the walls, the oppressive air, the blood-red sky barely visible above. Whatever the heck this place was, it didn't follow the usual rules he was accustomed to. And if the rules were different…
Death exhaled slowly.
"…Great," he muttered.
Curiosity, once sparked, refused to die. And now, stranded in an unfamiliar place where souls didn't behave as they should, Death knew one thing for certain:
This place was going to be a problem.
As Death pondered the unusual scene, a fragment of the hammerhead shark's words resurfaced in his mind, replaying with an irritating clarity: "Fresh sinner in Hell."
He tilted his skull slightly, a slow, deliberate motion, and tapped a bony finger against his jaw in thought. Hell? Did he mean the Underworld? That couldn't be right. This place was nothing like his domain, no familiar gravity of inevitability, no orderly pull toward endings, no comforting structure of eternal bureaucracy. And it certainly wasn't Life's Heaven either. The blood-red sky, the massive pentagram in the sky, the very atmosphere, it all felt fundamentally wrong. Foreign. Crude. This place didn't resemble anything under his jurisdiction… or hers.
Then another question surfaced, and his empty eye sockets narrowed further.
And what in the name of the Void is a "sinner"?
The word itself irritated him. It carried implications that he didn't like judgment, morality, rules imposed by mortals other than the natural way of things. Death dealt in conclusions and finali, not convictions. Things died because they reached their end, not because they were deemed "unworthy."
Death let out a rattling sigh, dragging a hand down his skull in a tired, frustrated gesture. Trying to untangle all of this without coffee or at the very least, a briefing memo felt like attempting to crack the toughest bone with a dull spoon.
"Y'know what? Enough theorizing," he muttered to himself, his voice echoing softly in the empty ruins. "I should explore this… place. Maybe some answers are floating around somewhere."
With that, he adjusted his cloak, settling it more comfortably over his shoulders, and rested his scythe across his back, the blade curving ominously above him. A faint hum resonated through the air as he floated higher, rising above the ruined alleyway. From this vantage point, the devastation stretched far beyond what he'd first seen as there's collapsed buildings, distant fires, silhouettes of broken spires clawing at the red sky. Whatever this place was, it was vast, probably hostile, and very much active.
One way or another, he'd get to the bottom of this.
—
Meanwhile, back in the Have a Nice Death universe, within the confines of Death Inc.'s Halls were anything but peaceful.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE THAT OLD BAG OF BONES IS?!"
Life's furious shout tore Throughout the entirety of Death's office, reverberating off walls and rattling loose stacks of paperwork that teetered dangerously on the edge of collapse. The very air seemed to vibrate with her anger. Her normally radiant, ethereal hair crackled violently now, flaring like an unstable flaring of a star, sparks of intense white-gold light snapping and arcing around her head. Her eyes narrowed into sharp, slanted glares, burning with completely unrestrained fury.
She was not in the mood for incompetence.
Her glare was locked squarely on Pump Quinn, who stood frozen under the weight of her attention. Despite visibly trembling from stem to stem, the pumpkin-headed assistant somehow managed to remain upright through sheer professionalism—or through sheer loyalty and adoration for CEO Death, keeping them from running out of the office.
As Pump Quinn was perched awkwardly atop a small desk positioned near Death's own towering, imposing desk, which loomed behind them like a silent judge. Around the office, mountains of paperwork rose in chaotic, precarious piles of unfinished reports, disciplinary notices, soul-processing backlogs, all of the result of recent doings caused by the rebellious Sorrows and their unruly Thanagers thus The room at present smelled faintly of coffee and stress.
Pump Quinn shuffled nervously as they desperately searched for words that wouldn't get them atomized.
"I-I'm telling you," they stammered, voice trembling but stubbornly firm, their glowing jack-o'-lantern eyes wide with sincerity. "All I know is that the Big Boss is on vacation. That's it! Nothing more!"
Life's scowl deepened, her lips pressing into a thin, dangerous line. Without another word, she spun on her heel and began pacing furiously around the office on foot, each step sharp and purposeful. The floor beneath her feet faintly cracked with every stride. Her glowing hair flared brighter with each pass, light spilling across the room and casting jagged, dancing shadows over the towering stacks of paperwork.
She muttered under her breath as she paced, fragments of irritation slipping out, complaints about irresponsibility, inefficiency, and certain missing skeletal CEO who thought they could just disappear from HER. The temperature in the room climbed steadily, the tension thick enough to choke on, as Death's office bore silent witness to the rare but catastrophic sight of Life pushed past her patience.
"Disappeared," she hissed, the word sharp and venomous. "He's actually got up and disappeared without a trace. No presence to track, not in the material realms, not in his Underworld, and not in my Heaven which is utterly impossible!" She clenched her fists, raw power rippling outward in visible waves, rattling shelves and sending loose papers fluttering through the air like frightened birds. Her tone dripped with disbelief and fury. "That old bag of bones isn't clever enough to pull something like this off. He's not scheming, he's lazy! And that's all he's ever gonna be!"
Pump Quinn winced, their carved expression somehow managing to look apologetic despite being fixed in place. Their small form shook visibly, but they forced themselves not to back away. Someone had to keep the office from imploding, and apparently today, that someone was them.
"I'm, uh… technically in charge while he's gone," they added hesitantly, the words tumbling out before their better judgment could stop them.
The instant the sentence ended, Life froze mid-step.
The temperature in the room dropped or perhaps spiked; it was hard to tell. Slowly, deliberately, she snapped her gaze toward Pump Quinn. The full weight of her attention landed on them like a predator sizing up their prey.
Life snorted, crossing her arms as she looked the diminutive assistant up and down. "You're in charge?" Her voice was mocking now, edged with sharp amusement. "Oh! That's rich!. Maybe I should just call off my plans to take over Death, Inc. entirely. It'd be pathetic, No!, very cheap and below of myself to wrest control of Death, inc from you." She waved a hand dismissively, as if the very idea offended her sense of competition.
She turned away, pacing again, her lips curling into a sneer. "No. It wouldn't be satisfying at all. If I'm going to take Death, Inc., it's going to be from Death himself." Her voice sharpened with intent. "I want him to grovel. To admit defeat. Then I'll take what's mine." She paused, her pace slowing, her voice dropping into a near-murmur. "…Not that I care about what happens to him or anything afterwards. Obviously."
Pump Quinn tilted their pumpkin head slightly, one glowing eye squinting as they caught the tail end of her muttering. "Uh, ma'am? What was that last part?"
"NOTHING!" Life barked instantly, whirling around. Her cheeks glowed faintly, the light flaring hot and bright, whether from anger or something far more inconvenient was impossible to tell. "Just… find him, pumpkin-head. I don't care what it takes. If anyone's going to best that old skeleton, it's going to be ME!"
The declaration echoed through the office as Without waiting for a response, Life tore open a portal in a violent flash of light and stormed through it, the edges snapping shut behind her with a thunderous crack. The room was left in stunned silence, papers slowly settling back to the floor.
Pump Quinn stood alone amid the chaos, the glow in their eyes dimming slightly as they exhaled a shaky breath.
"…Right," they muttered to themselves, looking around Death's disorganized office. "No pressure."