Chapter 10. Final.

  The wind howled softly across the hillside cemetery, the sky a canvas of ashen gray. Glenn stepped cautiously through the rusted gate of the graveyard he remembered being buried in. The old stones whispered stories of forgotten souls, but one plot called to him louder than the rest: his own.

  There, nestled beneath a crooked willow tree, was a modest headstone. Moss-covered. Uneven. Yet impossibly familiar.

  Yoshiko stood a few paces behind him, arms folded, her expression unreadable. “This is it,” she said quietly.

  Glenn didn’t respond. He was already walking forward, as if being pulled.

  A figure waited at the grave.

  His grandmother.

  She sat quietly on the edge of the stone, older than he remembered, dressed in simple mourning clothes. In her lap rested something cradled in a strip of midnight cloth. When she looked up at Glenn, her eyes shimmered with pride—and profound sorrow.

  Glenn approached slowly, the black skull mask still covering his face, shadow flickering from the edges of his cloak and armor. His aura burned with the raw power of the Three Sisters. He looked like death incarnate.

  He knelt before her.

  His grandmother said nothing. She reached out, gently offering her hand.

  When Glenn took it, something shifted.

  The shadows peeled away.

  The mask faded into mist.

  And for the first time in what felt like ages, his true face was visible.

  His grandmother’s eyes softened, and she cupped his cheek.

  “Ah... ahí estás, mi ni?o,” she whispered. "Oh, there you are."

  Her voice trembled with warmth. “You’ve come so far.”

  His eyes widened. “You can talk.”

  She nodded. “Only now. Because you are ready.” She placed her other hand over his heart. “I watched you grow into something so special even the gods are jealous. I was told to wait until this moment. Mora gave me memories—not my own—buried inside me like seeds. Locked in silence. She trusted me to keep them safe.”

  Glenn swallowed hard. “You knew everything?”

  “Enough.” Her expression softened, eyes brimming. “Enough to be proud. Enough to know this day would come.”

  She slowly unwrapped the cloth in her lap.

  Inside was a flower.

  A single, perfect black bloom.

  Velvety petals shimmered with iridescent shadow, pulsing faintly, like a living heartbeat. It radiated not death—but finality.

  “This is the last piece of her,” Nana whispered. “Of your mother. Death herself. The flower she created before she was undone.”

  Yoshiko stepped forward, suddenly uneasy. “Glenn… wait.”

  Glenn didn’t turn.

  His grandmother took his hand again. “Tengo una petición más, mi corazón.” She smiled gently. “I have one more request.”

  He looked at her, tears threatening.

  “Will you guide me?” she asked softly. “To the other side?”

  His breath hitched. “Of course.”

  As she smiled holding Glenn’s hand he noticed her cold body laying on the ground. He was holding her spirit. The moment he touched her, she passed.

  And when she exhaled her last breath, Glenn raised Mora’s scythe and swept it gently through the space between them, collecting the soul from body.

  The moment her soul passed, Lytha’s lantern flared.

  The flame inside grew tall, spiraling upward like a snake of fire, wrapping around Glenn’s arm, his chest, his head—until his vision blurred and vanished.

  A memory unfolded within him.

  He saw a nursery. A baby. Himself.

  Mora stood over the crib, tears in her eyes. “You came back to me. Even if you don’t remember.”

  She walked through time in flashes:

  Taking the soul of a car driver, causing the fatal accident.

  Whispering to Glenn’s grandmother: “Raise him. He carries her.”

  Arguing with Nyra and Lytha in secret. “We are all a part of her! Death. There was another… Mother is still out there!”

  And finally, laying the black flower at a grave. “When he is ready, he must become who he was meant to be.”

  Glenn came back to reality.

  The lantern had quieted.

  The flower pulsed beside him.

  Yoshiko crouched nearby, pale, shaken.

  “What did you see?” she asked.

  Glenn didn’t answer. He simply stared at the black flower.

  “I have to eat it,” he said.

  Yoshiko's eyes widened. “No. You don’t have to—”

  He looked at her, truly seeing her hesitation.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know enough to be afraid.”

  He plucked the flower from the cloth. The petals felt like velvet and smoke.

  “La muerte no es el fin, es el regreso.” he whispered.

  And then, slowly, he placed the flower in his mouth—and swallowed.

  The world cracked.

  Light and shadow poured from Glenn’s eyes, his hands, his chest. The cloak wrapped tighter. The lantern fused to his ribs. The scythe etched glowing runes up his arms.

  And in the silence that followed, he stood.

  No longer just Glenn.

  But Death returned.

  And he would find the ones who had killed his mother.

  And he would end them all.

  The cemetery wind still clung to their clothes as Glenn and Yoshiko walked in silence down the empty rural road back to the portal, the moon following them like a silent observer.

  “What now?” Yoshiko finally asked, her voice soft.

  Glenn’s black cloak rustled in the wind, though the shadows it held were calm now, as if waiting. The mask was gone. His face — tired, human, burning with quiet fire — turned toward her.

  “We go back to the office,” Glenn said. “I need to speak with Management.”

  Yoshiko stiffened.

  “You really think they’ll listen?”

  “I don’t care if they listen.” Glenn’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll make them.”

  But even he knew he couldn’t walk into the building looking like a god. With effort, Glenn focused — letting the cloak fade to a dull black trench, the lantern disappear into his coat, and the scythe vanish into its smaller shard form. To most, he looked like a normal Reaper again. Almost.

  But Yoshiko knew the truth was now much harder to hide.

  The lobby was half-lit, half-built. Walls still bore claw marks and burn scars. Shattered glass sparkled like frost in the corners. But already, new workers — faceless assistants, lesser demons, and golem repair units — were reconstructing cubicles and repainting hallways like it was just a normal Monday.

  Mictlantecuhtli stood calmly at the reception desk, sipping from a ceramic mug that read #1 Supervisor of Death.

  “Well, well,” he said as they approached, his skull gleaming with polished calm. “Look who survived their own prophecy.”

  Glenn said nothing.

  “I must say,” Mictlantecuhtli continued, “we were all very proud of your performance. A touch dramatic, perhaps, but effective. I hear you want a visit with Management. Well, I think you earned it.”

  He smiled coldly.

  “Relax. Go sit at your desk. I’ll arrange everything. I just need to take care of a few things first.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He then turned to Yoshiko. “A moment of your time?”

  Yoshiko followed reluctantly, throwing Glenn a look over her shoulder — one that didn’t sit right with him.

  It was hauntingly quiet. Most of the desks were empty, with only a few new recruits scattered like ghosts pretending to be busy.

  Glenn sat down in the broken silence.

  He remembered all his old coworkers. He imagined them still here.

  He reached into his coat and pulled out Steve’s old ID badge, still flecked with soot and ash.

  He stared at Steve’s smiling face on the front— always too worried, even in the picture.

  Glenn flipped it over and paused.

  There, scratched faintly along the bottom edge in soul-ink, were the words:

  “Take this ID badge to the Scales. Yoshiko…”

  It ended before the message could be finished. The energy drained from Glenn’s face.

  He stood slowly.

  The vast chamber still smelled of stone and ancient dust. The Scales of Judgment, once meant to weigh the hearts of the newly dead, stood dormant.

  Glenn stepped onto the podium and slid Steve’s ID badge into the reader slot usually reserved for reaper credentials.

  The room dimmed.

  Then flickered.

  A floating monitor activated.

  And the footage began.

  Security camera feeds.

  The lounge.

  The hallways.

  The break room.

  Reapers screaming.

  Blood against cubicle walls.

  Maeve falling. Yami being torn apart. Baron crawling before being silenced.

  Hildr.

  Yoshiko.

  Together — swift. Ruthless. Efficient.

  The projector clicked off.

  And Glenn just stood there.

  The dark slowly thickened around him as the shadows stirred.

  Meanwhile at the Director’s office, Yoshiko stood across from Mictlantecuhtli, her arms crossed tight. She looked pale.

  “You said no one would get hurt,” she hissed. “You said—”

  “I said,” Mictlantecuhtli interrupted smoothly, “that it was necessary. The office will recover. We always do.”

  “He trusted me.”

  “He trusted everyone, and look where that’s gotten him,” the god said, swirling his mug. “He’s too powerful now. But his power depends on the Sisters’ gifts. Remove those — the cloak, the scythe, the lantern — and he’s just a human again.”

  “You said we wouldn’t hurt him—”

  “No. I said you wouldn’t have to.” He smiled thinly. “But if he doesn’t surrender those artifacts... someone will.”

  Just then, a security Oni ran into the office.

  “Sir,” it chirped, “subject Glenn Garcia has accessed the Room of the Scales.”

  Mictlantecuhtli’s smile faded.

  “Why would he...? Get Hildr.”

  Yoshiko’s heart began to race.

  “Let’s go.”

  The massive doors creaked open.

  Glenn stood in the center of the darkened room, his silhouette wreathed in flickering shadow.

  His back was to them. The scythe was now at his side.

  When he turned to face them, his eyes weren’t angry.

  They were quiet.

  And far more dangerous.

  “I saw everything,” he said.

  Silence.

  Yoshiko froze, her heart sinking.

  Mictlantecuhtli didn’t blink.

  Hildr stepped forward to lead the group, cocky as ever.

  Glenn didn’t move.

  The dark chamber of the Scales was cloaked in a silence so deep it seemed to muffle reality. Glenn stood at its center, cloaked in his full Death form—the black skull mask shadowing his face, Mora’s scythe glowing with eerie light, Nyra’s cloak coiling in invisible wind, and Lytha’s lantern flickering with the fire of eternal truth.

  Hildr stepped forward, cracking her knuckles with a grin that gleamed like frost.

  “Well, well,” she drawled. “Look who thinks he’s a god now.”

  Glenn didn’t flinch. He barely moved.

  A single flash of silver.

  The edge of his scythe sang through the air like fate cutting through denial.

  Hildr’s head hit the floor before her body knew it was dead.

  Her smirk lingered for a fraction of a second—then vanished into nothingness.

  Mictlantecuhtli stepped forward from the shadows, his obsidian skull-mask cracking slightly with tension.

  “That wasn’t very professional,” Mictlantecuhtli said, his voice silky with sarcasm. “I’d ask how you did that without a soul implantation, but I suppose... the rules don’t apply to you anymore, do they?”

  He tightened his grip on his scythe.

  “I carry my mother’s power now. I am not just a Reaper.”

  “I am Death.”

  Glenn’s voice was low and hollow behind the mask. “You killed them all.”

  “Not me,” Mictlantecuhtli shrugged. “Delegation is the hallmark of good leadership.” He gestured toward Yoshiko.

  Mictlantecuhtli snarled, but before he could speak, Glenn’s voice cut through the silence again—softer, almost broken.

  He turned to Yoshiko, eyes hollow with hurt.

  “Why? Why would you trick me?” he asked. “Was anything even real?”

  Yoshiko’s breath trembled. Her eyes glistened like a storm about to break.

  “At first… no,” she admitted. “I did it because he promised me I could be with Yoshinaka again. That his soul was waiting. At first it was just to watch you and report. But then he said that if I helped poison the party… if I helped… I could be with him. Forever.”

  Glenn’s heart cracked.

  “But then,” she whispered, “I started to see you. The way you fought for others. The way you carried your pain like it mattered. The way you looked at me like I was more than a ghost.”

  “And I fell for you, Glenn. I didn’t mean to… but I did.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  From behind her, Mictlantecuhtli laughed—deep, cruel, ancient.

  “Such beautiful lies dressed in pain,” he said. “Touching. But utterly irrelevant.”

  He opened his hand.

  A single, ghostly colorful flower floated between his fingers, petals carved from souls.

  “Your master, Yoshinaka’s soul. Yours, if you obey.”

  Yoshiko’s face went pale. Her hand trembled toward the flower… but didn’t touch it.

  “Not yet,” Mictlantecuhtli said, his tone now iron. “Subdue Glenn.”

  “I-I don’t know what to do.” She said tears started to form in her eyes.

  He turned to Glenn.

  “You mortals created evil. Before you, there was only balance. Then came desire. War. Jealousy. Lies. I use what you gave this world, boy. Don't ask me to feel remorse for playing by your rules.”

  Yoshiko descended on Glenn and pinned him against the wall. Her blade to his neck. Tears in her eyes. “I am sorry.”

  “Give up your cloak, your scythe, and the lantern. Now.” Mictlantecuhtli said.

  Breathing with rage, he laid the scythe down. The cloak unwound itself and floated to the floor. The lantern dimmed.

  He slowly transformed into normal ol’ Glenn.

  Mictlantecuhtli smiled and turned to Yoshiko.

  “Now finish him.”

  She raised her blade.

  Glenn didn’t resist.

  “I’m tired of all these lies. I just wanted the world to be better,” he said. “If it’s you… I won’t fight.”

  She stepped forward—then stopped. Her hand shook. The blade clattered to the ground.

  “I can’t. I won’t.”

  Mictlantecuhtli roared and sent a blast of raw force at Glenn, who screamed as he hit the wall. Blood pooled. Bones cracked. He could barely lift his head.

  “You can’t win. We are management. We make the rules. You follow,” Mictlantecuhtli growled, raising his hand to end it.

  That’s when Yoshiko moved.

  Fast. Quiet. Like a falling petal in the wind.

  She placed herself between Mictlantecuhtli’s hand and Glenn, wrapping her arms around Glenn’s broken body.

  “He won’t die,” she whispered. “Not like this.”

  Mictlantecuhtli laughed. “Then die with him.”

  He struck again.

  Yoshiko took the full force.

  Her body shook violently—but something changed. The blast rippled back. Energy folded in on itself as she held onto Glenn’s items.

  Glenn felt her fading, her soul seeping into him, unlocking the full force of Death within him. The scythe on the ground trembled, then lifted on its own into Glenn’s hand. The cloak surged back onto his shoulders, alive with power.

  “Yoshiko…?” Glenn said, holding onto her limp body folding over his legs.

  Her voice was barely a breath.

  “What was that phrase you said at the graveyard? ‘La muerte no es el fin... es el regreso.’ What does that mean?”

  “Death is not the end. It is the return,” said Glenn.

  She smiled through the blood.

  “So maybe… I’ll find you again.”

  Then she was gone.

  Nothing left but wind and memory.

  Glenn stood, wrapped in silence. His cloak, reforged by her sacrifice, rippled in defiance. The scythe—Mora’s gift, now infused with his mother’s essence—burned with unholy light from the lantern.

  “You took everything from me.”

  Across from him, Mictlantecuhtli straightened. Towering. God of Death. Bone god of the Aztec Underworld.

  “You think power makes you more than a man?” the god sneered. “You’re still born from a mortal. Still bound to weakness. Grief. Love. Loss.”

  Mictlantecuhtli raised his arms. The shadows of a thousand dead bloomed behind him—spectral jaguars, obsidian serpents, withered kings, all howling.

  The walls melted into rot. The ceiling cracked, revealing a swirling void of black suns and bleeding stars.

  “I am the God of Death,” Mictlantecuhtli roared, hurling a black spear of soul-venom toward Glenn. “And this is MY domain!”

  The spear struck.

  And shattered.

  Glenn didn’t move.

  He stepped forward once.

  And the shadows recoiled.

  Mictlantecuhtli's skeletal jaw twitched.

  Glenn raised his hand, and all the souls Mictlantecuhtli had ever devoured screamed free, bursting from the god’s ribs like meteors from a dying star.

  “You don’t understand,” Glenn said, voice like thunder beneath the earth. “I’m not just Death.”

  His eyes ignited, silver and endless.

  “I’m justice.”

  He vanished—then reappeared behind the god with a thunderclap. His scythe sliced through realms, cutting not just body, but meaning—tearing apart Mictlantecuhtli’s divine essence.

  The god staggered, holes in his form like black holes bleeding white fire.

  He summoned a great serpent of bone, eyes of ember, mouth wide enough to swallow the underworld.

  Glenn pointed.

  The serpent turned to dust before it reached him.

  “This isn’t reaping,” Glenn said, walking forward.

  “This is reckoning.”

  Mictlantecuhtli fell to one knee. Bones cracking. Power unraveling.

  “You… were meant to be my pawn,” he gasped. “Like all of them. Like her.”

  Glenn didn’t answer.

  He lifted the scythe one last time.

  “You used her pain. Her love. You made it a weapon.”

  He stepped forward, the blade arcing like a god’s judgment.

  “I think it's time for a change in Management.”

  Shhhlkkk.

  The scythe sank through the god’s chest.

  Mictlantecuhtli screamed—not in pain, but in disbelief. The stars in his body imploded. His bones withered to sand.

  Then his jaw fell. His crown crumbled.

  And the God of Death was no more.

  The dust settled.

  Only silence remained.

  Glenn dropped to his knees beside Yoshiko’s body. Her face was peaceful, as if finally free from burden.

  He touched her hair gently.

  “I would’ve forgiven you. We could’ve figured it out together.”

  His voice trembled. He pulled her close one last time.

  A faint wind swept through, lifting a strand of her hair—and with it, her body slowly faded into glimmering spirit light, and returned to his lantern.

  Suddenly, a golden door ripped open in the wall behind him.

  Anubis stepped through—tall, poised, radiant in his jackal-headed form. His cloak of stars rustled like the sky.

  Glenn rose slowly, instinctively readying his scythe.

  Anubis shook his head.

  “No, Glenn. I’m here because it’s over.”

  “I’ve been absent… because I’ve been digging deeper. Something’s rotten at the core of Management. This wasn’t just Mictlantecuhtli going rogue. He had access. He had support. Someone wanted this chaos.”

  Glenn’s brow furrowed.

  “So what now?”

  Anubis gestured. Another door rose next to the other—a vast, dark gate etched in black iron, humming with red veins. Glenn remembered this door. The door to hell.

  “You’re being promoted. Lower Management.”

  “You killed legends, gods, and celestials. You exposed a corruption no one else dared confront. You upheld the reaper’s ideals… and paid the cost.”

  Glenn hesitated.

  “And the others? The office? Who watches over them now?”

  Anubis nodded solemnly.

  “I’ll return. I’ll lead them. I swear by the Nile, I’ll honor the balance you fought for. But Glenn… if you take this step, you get to change the rules. You get to make the system better.”

  “Or worse. That choice will be yours.” He continued.

  Glenn looked back once more—at the place Yoshiko had vanished. At the ruins of everything he knew.

  Then forward, into the door of destiny.

  “If death is the return,” Glenn whispered, “then maybe I was always meant to come here.”

  He stepped toward the portal.

  They say death is the end. But for some… it’s only the beginning.

  Glenn Garcia died once. Then he learned how to live. And now… he will learn how to lead.

  But power comes at a cost. Gods do not like the change of the status quo.

  Chapter 10.1

  Just as Glenn stepped toward the glowing door to Lower Management, the portal began to hum louder—then violently glitched with a horrific squeaking, screeching noise like a balloon being murdered.

  From a sudden black tear in reality, a squirrel launched out like a cannonball, twirling through the air in gold-tipped flips, landing on all fours with a dramatic puff of spectral fur.

  DEATHNIBBLES.

  Miniature cloak billowing. One glowing red eye. His tiny paw holding a massive black scythe far too large for any animal.

  Anubis narrowed his eyes.

  “Who… in Ra’s beard… is this?”

  Deathnibbles bared his little teeth, tail twitching with righteous fury.

  “Squeek!” he screeched in a high-pitched yet demonic voice. What he was saying in English was: “YOU MURDERED MY FAMILY! YOU STOLE EVERYTHING FROM ME! YOU—YOU LEFT ME IN CENTRAL PARK!”

  Glenn squints.

  “Wait… wait a second… is that the squirrel from my first reap?”

  Deathnibbles slammed Hades’ ancient scythe into the ground, cracking the floor beneath him.

  He spun in place, proudly showing off his ridiculous loadout:

  Hermes’ golden shoes, The Tide Necklace of Bakunawa, Cipactli’s ancient ring, a grotesque Grootslang earring, and of course… Hades' old scythe, humming with dark glory.

  Anubis just stared.

  “You let that live?”

  Glenn, with cloak fluttering and Mora’s scythe resting on his shoulder, shrugged.

  “He stole my scythe. Bit me. Mocked me. Pretty sure he flipped me off once.”

  “And you let him go?”

  “He was fast!”

  Deathnibbles snarled and exploded forward in a blur of golden speed, delivering a flurry of attacks. Glenn blocked, but each hit carried monstrous strength.

  Boom. Slash. Crack. Bite. Tail-slap.

  For a brief moment, Deathnibbles actually overpowered Glenn, driving him back with a combination of Bakunawa tidal waves, Cipactli mouth-bites, and even a summoned Grootslang tail-whip.

  Glenn stumbled, slightly scorched, holding his ribs.

  “Okay. I’ll admit it. You are insanely strong.”

  Deathnibbles squealed with villainous delight.

  He charged in for a dramatic finishing move—but suddenly—

  Anubis slammed his briefcase to the ground.

  Time halted.

  Deathnibbles frozemid-leap, his mouth open in mid-battle squeak.

  “Enough,” Anubis sighed. “Lower Management will want to speak with him, too.”

  He walked over and gently picked Deathnibbles up by the scruff like a cosmic cat.

  “Squirrel… If you truly wish to test Glenn Garcia’s strength…”

  The golden door to Lower Management flickered again—this time revealing a vast arena of flame, shadow, and echoing cheers.

  “Then enter the Tournament of Hell.”

  Deathnibbles’ eyes sparkled.

  “Oh… I’m gonna enjoy this,” Deathnibbles thought.

  He was sucked into a glowing, squirrel-sized portal against his will—still screaming threats and promises of vengeance.

  Glenn wiped blood from his lip, exhaled, and turned to Anubis.

  “Tournament of Hell, huh?”

  Anubis smirked.

  “Welcome to Management.”