AN: Well, this is it. The final chapter. Thanks for sticking with me, and sorry it took so long.

Disclaimer: we all know what goes here.

Please read and review! Hope you like it.

This chapter, and I guess the rest of the story, is dedicated to my baby brother, who has [somewhat] patiently heard me re-read this story over and over again, and is the only one who supports my writing so enthusiastically. Love you Raimeru!

P.S. lots of talking and information, might be a little OOC because I'm sappy like that... also I'm aware that Ciel gets his eyes from his mom's side, but I feel like a recessive blue eyed gene would need a blue eyed gene from both sides of the family, you know? Am I reading too much into this? Probably. Sorry. Back to the story.

Chapter Nine: The Promise

Once upon a time there was a very accomplished reaper who instinctively retrieved souls the same way demons stole them. Like the rest, he cared for no one but himself and thought of emotions as simply unnecessary (and quite annoying) displays of weakness that only lesser beings had.

From the moment he was born, he had a low disregard for other people. After all, he was first in the line of the prestigious reaper family that birthed a Grim Reaper in every generation. His very existence screamed importance, the way everyone else's did not.

He never enjoyed mingling. Not only were people more trouble than they were worth, but their motives to befriend him were always pitiful. Instead, he became a recluse and focused solely on becoming a Grim Reaper like his father and great grandfather before him. This outlook on life did him well because as soon as he graduated, he was given the preeminent title of Grim Reaper.

To be a Grim Reaper was the utmost impressive position any reaper could ever achieve. They were beings with the most power and the highest standing in the reaper world. In essence, they were in charge of the bigger things that went on in their universe, and were widely looked up to like royalty.

While other reapers were sent to collect regular souls, as a Grim Reaper, he was given two jobs. First, he was assigned the most difficult souls to judge. These were souls which were known to put up fights in the past, whose will to live was strong enough to fight against just any reaper. Occasionally these souls were also ones that, given more time on earth, could potentially improve society. The latter hardly ever happened, but it was within his power to prolong a life until he saw fit.

Secondly, he possessed a rare Black Book which notified him if a person was at risk of dying earlier than they were arranged to. He would then have to go to earth and make sure the human lived until their set date.

. . .

It was a day like any other when a message appeared in the book.

Lost will, were the words written in ink, meaning a soul in his care was losing their will to live. He was already disappointed by this assignment, for he had seen this reoccurring storyline many times before. Why, hundreds and thousands of people lost faith in themselves every single day. This was an aspect of his trade he never quite understood. If a person was to die eventually, then why did the world make such a fuss when it was their choice to die sooner? Tricking them into staying alive seemed redundant to him, especially if their soul learned no lesson, and they ended up repeating their cycle again.

Nonetheless it was a part of his job. So, strictly part of the soul collecting procedure, he visited the soul. Even without doing so, he was already positive that there was nothing about this person special enough to save. They never were.

He shadowed the lady who sat in her bed, mundane tasks at hand. It was painfully obvious to him that she was completely ordinary. She had slightly more than average looks and had a more than average wealth to compensate for all her other shortcomings. Yet that was not enough to please her.

He observed the way her nose scrunched up when she was given food she disliked, and the way she would immediately dismiss her servants who tried to help her. She always held a book in her hands as a means to block the rest of the world out, and he noticed how she laughed wildly in between lines that no one else found amusing. But most of all, he remarked her cold, blue eyes that had the ability to see right through anyone. She regarded the kindness of her servants, and saw it as just that: nothing more than them doing their job. A model person with more money than she knew what to do with, was his first impression of her. The only reason he could tell her apart from the other characterless assignments he had, was that she was terminally ill and had been confined to her chamber quarters for most of her life.

As he watched her, he tried to figure out what he could do to restore her determination to live. The girl, however, was very in tune with her surroundings, and quickly became aware that she was being examined. She pretended she didn't notice him at first, but his silence was a distraction, his attentive gaze beginning to frighten her. After all, what kind of gentlemen would climb a tree and spy on her through her second story window?

"Are you just going to stand there and gawk at me, or will you finally present yourself?" the girl questioned, eyes temporarily leaving the page to glance at the reaper hidden in the leaves. Then, when he did nothing in reply, she focused her attention back to her book, as if she really didn't care for his excuse.

The reaper was taken aback. No one had ever spoken to him like that. For once in his life, he had no quick retort or witty comeback so sarcastic that any person who dared to insult him would never want to speak to him again. He left, not giving her a second chance to blow his pride.

The haughty way the girl blurted 'gawk at me,' as if she was even worth being introduced to, irritated him. How could she speak to him like that? Why, had the other reapers witnessed it, she would be ignored and labelled an outcast. But she did not know that he had her life in his hands or that he was a Death God. In this world, she was a person of status, and in her own right she was used to people eating out of the palm of her hand. In a strange way, they were the same, and there was a lot to be said for that.

He went home that night, her face not straying far from his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he found her funny. He had never been spoken to like a real person before, and he appreciated the fact that she did. Even when he was a child, adults continuously praised him, and anyone who played with him acted carefully around him, lest they upset him. This was his first time meeting an individual who treated him impartially, and not the Grim Reaper he was always expected to be.

Soon, everything the girl did, from the way she ate the meal despite disliking it, to the way she insisted on doing things for herself while she still could, was fascinating. The more he saw her, the more her profound sighs and her infectious laugh, and most of all, her piercing blue irises that plunged him into a sea of (what he could only describe as) light, became things he could not think to live without.

The reaper started visiting more frequently. A few weekly trips escalated to him rushing to her house in between his hourly breaks. He began to spend so much time with her that his seconds were split evenly between his job and his time with her.

While neither understood why, they enjoyed the company. She was admittedly lonely, and deprived of the social aspect of life. She knew so little about the outside world, her sickness causing her to miss out on moments to converse with people who weren't her servants. He was her first taste of society, and being on the cusp of adulthood, she was more than willing to learn from him.

On the other hand, she accepted him without knowing who he really was. His standing and title didn't matter to her, and he knew she would do nothing to betray his trust. The more they were together, the more intrigued the reaper was by mankind's mortality. For how could someone as interesting as this girl have such a short life to live?

There was no longer a threat to the girl's life, for she found a reason to look forward to the next day. They brought out the best in each other by simply being there. There was no façade, no need to keep up pretenses. They freed each other from the pressures of their daily life, which was more than anyone had ever done for them.

And so the story goes, they fell in love.

But as destiny would have it, another message appeared in that black book of his, and, upon reading it, the reaper was torn. Scrawled in jet black ink was the word love, and underneath it, the explanation.

Her father knew that she had a limited amount of time to live, and feared not having an heir to the Earldom he created. Knowing this, he arranged for her to marry. But she was in love with our little reaper. If the news of her marriage was brought to her ears, she would instantly refuse, and her father, enraged by her disobedience, would strike her feeble body repeatedly until she died.

The reaper was at a loss of what to do. He couldn't bare thinking about her would-be brutal death, but at the same time, he also could not watch her fall in love with another man.

Finally, he made up his mind. Their love would be the cause of her unhappiness, but it didn't have to be. He had interfered with her life long enough and any more would result in him losing his license. In the end, he chose his job.

That night, he snuck into her room and gently woke her up. Soaking in her large azure eyes, he told her how much he loved her. Then, once she confessed the same, he waited for her to fall asleep in his arms. Gently, he lay her back down and pulled the covers up to her chin. Taking out a small, purple bottle from his coat pocket, he ripped the cork off with his teeth and slipped a serum between her lips. She took it unknowingly, and when she drank the last drop, he kissed her forehead, leaving her room as if he had never stepped foot in it.

Of two things he was sure of. First, if he allowed their relationship to continue, he would be severely punished, and potentially stripped of his title. Everything he had ever worked up to become, every outrageous rule he diligently followed, every ounce of suffering he put himself through would be thrown away for a little girl he had only known for a couple days.

Secondly, her soul would be so traumatized by her gruesome death that she would return to earth in a different form to repeat the cycle. Again choosing his profession over everything else, he spared both of them from their tragic ends. He made the concoction to erase her memories of him so that she could go on and live her life the way she was expected to.

The girl woke up the next day and remembered nothing of the reaper. The days they spent together were lost with the morning mist, and the lavender hue of the rising sun. When her father announced that she was to marry, she had no objection to it. In fact, she was more than thrilled.

That naïve little girl married the human man her father chose for her, and became Mrs. Claudia Phantomhive. She grew to love her husband as any wife should, and they lived merrily together.

The foolish reaper, who so easily let Claudia go, continued to look after her, and became the facetious Undertaker: the great Grim Reaper who judged the souls of Marie Antoinette and Robin Hood.

Despite being sickly, Claudia produced two healthy successors to their wealth. While her happiness was something Undertaker put above all else, seeing another so easily take his place was a cruel reality. Was Claudia's love for him just a figment of his own imagination? Was he really so easy to forget?

She died a few years later, her children not yet old enough to understand her passing. On that wretched morning, when the sun was brightly shining, it was Undertaker who collected her soul. She had no recollection of her love for him until the very end, for the briefest second before the remaining life drained from her eyes. And in that millisecond of understanding, Undertaker was sorry he ever doubted her. Because in the moment their eyes met for the final time, he was aware of the life he could have had with her, the life he willingly gave up.

From Claudia he learned three important things: laughter and happiness, love, and the value of every second a person spends alive. He made sure he would never forget the life he almost had, the life he wished he had chosen time and time again.

After retrieving Claudia's soul, he could no longer stand being a reaper. He retired and began living on earth, a place he knew no reaper would bother him.

Obsessed with human impermanence, he began his own half-hearted experiments to prolong human life. With that, he opened a funeral parlor, and surrounded himself with death. He spent his life after her finding a way to bring her back, failing at every instance.

In his heart of hearts he knew she could never return, but that didn't stop him from trying.

He knew that cinematic records contained the story of an individual's life, and that the sum of a human's experiences made the person unique. When humans died, their cinematic records stop, rendering them unable to create new memories.

Working with that, he got his hands on a recently deceased human's record, and tried adding things at the end of it. Unfortunately, all that created was a monstrosity: the body was able to continue moving, but since it lacked a soul, it was unable to register old memories, and fed on other humans to replace their missing one.

The disgusting creature, however, did not discourage him from continuing his work. After years of unsuccessful attempts, he was finally getting somewhere.

He began working with animals, waiting until they died to take away their souls, and placing them in inanimate objects to preserve them. He discovered that using objects commonplace to the human, made it easier to retain the cinematic records, and create more memories. By fastening the object to the empty carcass, the soul could take over the body, allowing it to move, albeit rather stiffly. Since the soul is not fully attached to the body, neither it nor the body would grow, preserving both.

This was the beginning of a creature he called Dolls.

Unfortunately, Claudia's body was a mummified corpse by now, and her soul could no longer be found on earth. He was years too late to be given a second chance with her.

Slowly, he was forced to let her go. He lived almost perfectly among humans, until the day came when a little Earl with azure eyes walked into his life, a demon butler at his side. Without a second thought, he knew the Earl was a descendant of Claudia.

And then he saw it, saw what was standing before him. He knew this was his chance to prove his love for Claudia was true.

He began some research on the last living Phantomhive, and the peculiar soul the boy possessed. He traced it back to the earliest cinematic records and pieced it together.

In truth he had witnessed other contracts with demons, but he had never seen one created with a child. He kept a close eye on them, and was surprised to learn that the bond between the two ran thicker than any other he had seen. The boy was still young, and like most people, could not control his soul. However, it did not take an expert to notice that his soul only glimmered brilliantly when the demon was around. Likewise, as able as the demon was, even he could not feign emotions. But the Undertaker knew that the demon found himself doing things out of his spoken contract, things that even his aesthetics could not force him to do.

The further he dug into the soul's previous life, the more everything made sense. When the soul was first created, his life was extended by an angel's force. Whether it was by accident, or done out of curiosity, the angel did something he was not entitled to do. He did something that Undertaker could not: choose the soul over everything else. Surely there was some consequence for ignoring the laws of his world.

Remarkably, the soul's will was strong enough to look for the angel each cycle it was reborn. It wandered aimlessly, but was never able to find him. The only plausible explanation was that the angel was no longer that. He must have turned into a being that lacked a soul.

The reason the boy's soul is bound to the earth is because it is eternally connected to the angel-turned something. They have painstakingly searched for each other for centuries, and were finally brought together as human and demon.

After that, the Undertaker returned from retirement and reclaimed the title of Grim Reaper to keep better track of the master-servant duo. He put himself in charge of the boy's soul, waiting for the moment the two realized how they felt for each other, and would need his help to stay together.

When it seemed likely they could achieve what he could not, fate intervened. A note appeared in that Black Book of his. Angel of Death, it read, and Undertaker knew. This encounter with the angel might speed up the boy's death, but a second, fast approaching meeting was to happen, and that was the day he was to collect the boy's soul.

The boy had a limited amount of time left, and the butler was willingly leading him to his end. It did not surprise him, though, because he was still a demon and unaware of the truth. But, if neither were to figure it out soon, they would very well lose each other forever.

He had to show them, to make them understand before it was too late. But what could he do? If he were to tell them outright, neither would believe it. The proud boy and the almighty demon would never admit to being in love with the other. He had to make them see for themselves. That's why he posed the riddle, and was sticking his neck out to save the boy from becoming the demon's meal. He literally saw the face of ultimate bliss, saw that if they were able to stay together, they would live the way he and Claudia should have. He had to try, for their sake and his own.

He might have lost his love, but he would make sure that these two didn't have to.

. . .

"As I thought. You will only bring each other unhappiness," Undertaker sighed as the demon's cinematic records slowed to a halt. He had seen everything, from the moment they made their contract, to the life the demon had up in heaven. Everything he had speculated until this point had been confirmed.

The scythe was lodged so far in Sebastian's chest that its tip peaked through his back. Setting his foot on the top of his shoulder blade, Undertaker kicked him down, extricating the blade from his heart cavity.

Sebastian fell backward, the open wound catching him off guard. He maneuvered his legs so he was back on his knees again. Wiping the blood from the corners of his mouth, while clutching the bleeding gash with his right hand, he shook his head in irritable disbelief. "You can't possibly mean that. I have given him everything- I have made him..."

Calmly, the Undertaker took out a cloth from his robes and started to clean the demon's blood off his weapon.

"You have done nothing more than force him to relive his hour of vulnerability and serve as a reminder of his sins. You will only bring him misfortune," he informed him, not bothering to look his way.

"I protect him from those things," vermillion eyes flashed as the demon denied the thought.

"You can't. Even now, you are the danger. You in your current form will only try again and again to take his soul."

"Then make me human," Sebastian proposed, voice on the edge of distress. His injury was making it difficult for him to speak properly, even at the rate it was fixing itself.

Undertaker paused and turned to him. "Are you a fool?"

"I can act human, but I will never become one. We may be superior to humans, but that does not mean we can change into anything we want. But you... you are a Death God. Your name has God in it. There must be something, anything..." He had to hurry. Each moment he wasn't doing anything meant risking the master's life, and losing the boy.

"Don't be ridiculous. What you're asking for is impossible. No demon has ever wanted to become human."

"I will for him. If it means being with him for one more day, then I will. Otherwise, I'd rather cease to exist. That's why you should have kill me when you had the chance," the demon growled reproachfully.

"That is something I am not allowed to do. You know you must live."

"Not without him," Sebastian insisted adamantly. He looked back to the statue, where his master was laying peacefully moments ago.

"Then I supposed that only leaves us with this: make the master an immortal demon child," Undertaker sneered.

"How many times must I tell you, I want all of him. Every fiber of my being is made for him. I will not rest if he is not exactly as he is now, not if it makes him lose his humanity."

Undertaker narrowed his eyes, staring at him as if to make sure he was not lying. "There is another option you may be unaware of."

"Which is?" Sebastian prompted, eager for a solution. His body was mending itself in a way that felt like little shards of glass jamming into him. The discomfort kept him in place.

"Butler, do you happen to know how reapers come into existence?"

"Are they not just procreated?" he guessed, not understanding the direction this was headed.

"More often than not, yes. However, there are exceedingly rare occasions when human souls have the personality to become reapers, and are granted this through the powers of the five Grim Reapers. Humans with exceptional abilities to judge the circumstances and possible outcomes of other people, or those who have uncaring personalities are considered upon their death, and are turned into reapers if they are ready to move on."

"You can change him into a reaper? Is that even possible?"

"Had you requested this earlier, and had the Earl consented, it would have been possible. But as of late, his soul is no such soul. Since he has done what he has set out to do and has made peace with this world, he will not be able to undergo the transformation. Becoming immortal is not a simple task, and since he has achieved his revenge, he will not fight to continue living. His will for life is waning, and he will not survive the struggle to become a full reaper."

"If you weren't planning to do it, then why did you even suggest it to me!" Sebastian hissed. This was all a waste of time that was better spent being with his master.

Undertaker lifted both hands to placate him. "Allow me to finish. If you were somehow able to transform him into something and then give him something worth living for, I have no qualms that he will continue to live exactly as he has."

"You mean mutating him into a monster, and then forcing him into accepting it?"

"Not quite. I will make it so that he is given a choice of immortality. I will make him into a creature even more rare than a reaper: a doll."

"Dolls?" The demon thought about it. He had been told stories about those things, but had never seen one in real life. "They exist?"

"They do. If he becomes a doll, he will be half immortal, and will be stronger for it. His lifespan will become longer than any human's, and because of it, he will be much harder to kill. It is a much simpler transition that guarantees his survival because it does not involve him fighting for his life, and everything including his physical appearance will remain the same, which means he can keep those blue eyes of his."

"And his soul..." Sebastian pressed, "will it be intact?"

"Yes, his soul will be intact, but it will remain out of reach so that any contract it made with you will be severed, and even if you were to try, you will not be able to have his soul. He will continue growing at a human rate for the next four, maybe five years before he stops changing altogether. As a doll, he will work under me. I will make sure he will enjoy his new life, but it will ultimately be up to him if he decides to continue living this way."

"This is..." Sebastian paused, "Unbelievable. If it is as good as you are making it out to be, then why do you hesitate?"

"In exchange, I will take the master and erase his memories of you, and you are to stay out of his way. He will remember everything else and his mind will fill in any gaps that have to do with you. This way, you will no longer be the cause of his unhappiness."

"NO! You are only trying to keep us-"

"Decide, Butler. You and your master are running out of time. If I don't change him soon, you will go mad and take his soul. I will show you that I can protect him more than you ever could. His transition into his life, without you in the way, will be easy. It is obvious that you need him, but he does not need you in the same way."

"He does," he replied with absolute certainty.

"We shall see about that," Undertaker mumbled, reaching in his sleeve pocket to take out a purple bottle.

"Well? What do you say? His life in return for your absence from it. I will watch over him from now on."

"Yes," Sebastian agreed, trying to retrieve feeling in his legs. "And if he remembers me?"

"He won't. This is the strongest elixir I have ever made. Now, excuse me. You are to remain out of his sight so long as he does not know who you are," he dismissed the demon.

"He will remember me," Sebastian warned, "And when he does, I will be right by his side. Even you cannot stop me from doing so."

With that, a thick fog appeared, sweeping them both away.

. . .

Cerulean eyes peaked meekly through half open eyelids to see the dusty cloud of air particles and lilac orbs swirling above. It was an unfamiliar room, and in attempt to remain calm, he shut them again and thought back to the last thing he remembered.

Nothing.

He fumbled around with his hands and established he was lying on a small bed, big enough to fit a single person. The bed was not his own, he knew. The question was, where was he?

Deciding he was in no immediate danger, he sat himself up.

In a room of white walls and white linen sheets and white...well, everything, he grew slightly worried. The absence of everything was not only unpleasant, but also very alarming. He knew he had not been here before, and was acutely aware that he was not used to waking up alone.

Scanning the room, he looked down to see that he was not dressed in his usual attire. In place of his wardrobe was a papery thin white gown. He had seen almost identical gowns used for patients in the Royal Hospital, and concluded he must be somewhere similar.

There was a rap at the door and a silver haired man walked in.

"Looks like you're finally awake," the man croaked. He sat on the edge of the cot, examining the child.

"Undertaker?" the boy curiously eyed the man, "What happened to me?"

"You, my little Earl, are in the reaper hospital."

"The reaper...what? What business do I have here?"

"You are dead. The Earl Ciel Phantomhive has passed away and has become nothing more than a memory to those who knew him."

The boy calculated his thoughts before responding. "If I'm dead then...why am I here?" he asked.

"You should feel honored, you are of the select few who have ever been here. Not many reapers have seen this place either. It's the median between heaven and earth, you know."

"Answer me, Undertaker. Why am I here?"

"You are a doll."

"A doll?"

"Yes, and by that, I don't mean those inanimate objects children play with."

"I gathered that much," Ciel replied sarcastically.

"Of course humans don't have knowledge on these things. I suppose it's simpler to say that dolls are like reaper familiars. You are our messengers, our eyes and ears, who are sent to follow humans around when we Grim Reapers don't have the time. Luckily enough, you report directly to me when you are finished."

"If I am dead, then there is no reason for me to return. Am I supposed to be grateful that you arbitrarily chose to make me something less than human?"

"Of course not. However, you have completed your revenge, and died because of it. I have given you the opportunity to live. You have given up your previous life and that is something most people have trouble accepting. In exchange for that, you have gained immortality and can stand with the Gods. Whether you live or not is not up to me, but I do hope you choose wisely."

The boy deliberated it for a moment. Without even trying, he had gained something humans have spent their lives searching for: everlasting life. And while living had lost its appeal, he was still interested to see the sort of things this afterlife had to offer.

"I suppose there is no harm in staying around for a while longer. When do I receive my scythe?"

"No, no. You are a doll, not a reaper. You only get this," Undertaker explained, tossing a device that looked similar to a wireless telephone. Ciel examined it carefully, but had no inkling on how it worked.

"You don't need a weapon because you don't collect the soul. You are only there to make sure the human is safe, and stop it from doing anything stupid, in whatever way you want. That," he nodded to the contraption in the boy's hands, "is how you will contact me to report how things go, or if you need help with something. Understand?"

The once earl flipped the phone over a couple times, trying to figure it out.

"It's much too early to bombard you with information, so I will give you a briefing and a list of human names which you will be in charge of looking after, later. That's still quite a ways away. You still need to get settled and go through some training before you get to working in the field, but that's another thing altogether... Ah, will you look at the time," Undertaker exclaimed as he stood up. "I'll be back soon if you have any questions for me, but rest for now. I'll speak to the nurses about when they plan to discharge you, but you stay here until then."

"Alright," Ciel concurred, not quite used to taking orders.

"One more thing, Phantomhive," Undertaker added, halfway through the door, "Should you ever decide to end your life, all you need to do is take off that ring of yours and smash it on the ground."

"And why is that?"

"It's a bit hard to explain, but in order to make you immortal, I separated your soul from your body, and fused it with your ring. As long as it is on you, your soul will be unattainable, and whatever happens to your preserved body will not affect it, but you must keep it with you at all times. Crushing the ring is the same as destroying your own soul," he explained, scrutinizing the boy's unreadable face. Of all the times he explained this process, this was the most composed reaction he had ever seen.

Seeing as the boy had no more questions, or at least, was restraining from asking them right away, he excused himself from the room.

"So this is my life from now on, is it? Funny..." Ciel said aloud when the door clicked back into position. He lay back down on his bed, supporting his head with a pillow.

He thought back to the people he left behind, to Lizzie and his parents, and the servants he had considered his family, regretting nothing that had happened to him. With so much time on his hands, he let his mind wander to the things he had long forgot.

It finally occurred to him why he wasn't bothered by the sudden change of events. Immortality was what he wanted all along, he knew that. But...why?
He wasn't so self-righteous to want to live just for the sake of it. Aside from his revenge, there was a definite other reason he wanted to continue living, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Even as he tried hard to remember, it remained something he couldn't fathom. Feeling slightly groggy, he let it go and allowed his mind to drift towards the inviting spell of sleep.

. . .

The next day, Ciel woke up to Undertaker's face. He was informed that he would be let out later that afternoon, and so he casually asked for a couple books to read until then.

When the time came, Undertaker picked him up and brought him to his new home.

It was a manor slightly smaller than his own, but the boy couldn't complain. In truth, he was glad to be out of the hospital.

"It's my family mansion," Undertaker said. "I personally prefer the home in London, but I figured you would prefer something more like this. Going back to your mansion is out of the question, of course. Don't worry, the rest of my family moved out a while back, so only a few servants who take care of the place live here. Aside from the Head Butler and a few maids, most of the help I hired yesterday, so if they displease you, just tell me."

He was led up a spiraling staircase, through spacious but bare corridors, all the way up to the master bedroom.

"This is where you'll sleep. If you need anything, just call me on that thing," the reaper motioned, pointing to the telephone in Ciel's hands. The boy took slow, cautious steps around his new room, running a finger on the side of the bed. He then got up on the bed and started untying his dreadful shoes.

"If you're settled..."

"There's just... something I feel I'm forgetting," Ciel said, more to himself than to Undertaker.

"Ah, that." Undertaker nodded. "Don't worry too much. It happens to the best of us. You see, by taking out your soul, the fusion between it and your body diminished, making your soul its own entity. Your soul doesn't only belong to that body. It belongs to all the bodies it had in the past."

"So I really am missing something. How long until the memories from all my lives come together?"

"Who knows... It can take a few months or years. But it doesn't matter, truthfully. They will come when the time is right."

The boy sighed, uncomfortable being the one in the dark. He showed the Undertaker to the door, feeling a spark of nostalgia when he was introduced to the Head Butler of the house.

He couldn't explain why he was expecting a different butler than the one before him, but he shook it off. This situation will definitely take some time to get used to, and it would only take longer if he did not try to leave his old life at bay.

. . .

Ciel was gifted with many things, and figuring out other people was one. Within a week, he gained access to all the events that transpired in his past lives. Along with the memories he knew were incomplete, he also grew aware of the fact that Undertaker was hiding something from him. He was unsurprised, but thought to keep the revelation to himself.

He quickly became accustomed to his new life, but was burdened by the fact that something was still missing from it. Secretly, he mourned what he knew he was forgetting.

After he recalled scenes from his first life, he concluded that, that something was the angel who always watched over him. You see, while every other memory was present, and every experience accounted for, the first instance the thought of an angel showed up, an immense feeling of love swept him away. His soul was in love with this invisible creature he had never met.

Ciel recognized that an angel saved him, and he knew that his soul jumped from body to body, taking up a millennia to be reunited with him.

He remembered the summery nights when he felt safest, and the promise made under an old oak tree, but the memory that stood out the most, was the day he figured out nothing was there to save him anymore.

It amazed him how sad he was over someone he had not met. How could he, a Phantomhive, be so captivated by another being?

Before he knew it, two years had passed, and his birthday arrived. The ache he felt from losing his parents all those years ago had not yet diminished, and his mansion, the place where he spent all his life living, held too many unpleasant memories for him. So, he stayed as far away from it as he could.

Within that year, he became such a perfect doll that Undertaker began to worry. Ciel did his work promptly, never stepping out of line, or using shortcuts to break the detailed procedures he was to follow. When he was given free time, he felt inclined to take on more work and busy himself. Although his face when he was human was just as expressionless as it was now, there was a certain sadness to the current one etched in porcelain. Rarely did he speak to anyone, or do anything but simply observe everything. He made no friends, deliberately going out of his way to be left alone, using the solitude of his job as an excuse.

While he would never concede to it, Undertaker knew he miscalculated something. He thought that by giving Ciel a job, he would go back to being himself. It was evident, however, that the boy had been wandering around as a hollow shell of his past. It was not that he was bored, or that he did not want to live, but something, he knew, was missing. He lost such a big part of him that he did not know how to be himself. When he was reborn, something about Ciel changed, and the only one to blame for the drastic lack of life was a demon.

"Phantomhive," Undertaker lightly tapped his head with a book to get Ciel's attention. "Would you lighten up a bit? Look, your rounds are done for the night. Why don't you take a stroll or something?"

"Isn't there something else I could do? I can finish those reports for you," he offered, but Undertaker was shaking his head before he could even finish.

"You've done enough today. Besides, you never have free time, so why not just go out and enjoy it for once?"

Ciel begrudgingly obeyed. He stood outside the building's entrance, thinking deeply about what he could do to fill up the time. Coming up with nothing he sighed, and started walking home.

Above, the sky was a vast grey emptiness that expanded to either ends of the earth. He realized the fact that it was a night of the new moon, and that he had no pressing places to go. In the distance, he thought he saw the twinkle of a star, and walked towards it as if it promised to show him something wonderful.

When he finally gave up on chasing the illusion, he inadvertently found himself on the grounds of his own mansion. He decided that it was too late to turn back, and doing so would only mean weakness. So, he trudged around the yard, finally allowing some emotion to take over him.

The house did not seem as if anyone was currently occupying it. Maybe no one knew what to do with a manor that had seen the deaths of all its previous owners.

It had been years since he had played in the yard. Still, he knew each crack on the wall, every position of the climbing vines that were normally taken down, and the areas where his treasured white roses grew in abundance. He strolled past the iron gates, not daring to give himself a tour of the place once filled with so much life. Instead, he walked straight towards the surrounding forest area, through the patches of unkempt grass and now dying trees. He pushed past the black gates with ease and slipped into his family cemetery, making his way in front of an angel statue.

He stretched out his arm, reaching for the hand covering her face. Paying no mind to the tombstones beside it, he traced over the fine lines.

Something was missing... someone was... a voice whispered persistently, demanding to be heard.

And, as the palm of his hand grazed the cold marble, he suddenly felt a tingling on his lips: a shy, feathery tickle that warmed his insides to the fullest. He remembered...

The contract. Being saved. The presence that stood at the side of his bed. The savory sweetness of dessert. The knowing glances. That smug smile. A kiss. A name.

The name formed on the tip of his tongue, and filled with desire, he cried the only name he ever wanted to say again.

"Sebas...SEBASTIAN!" he screamed, the name so familiar, so natural that it sent waves of uncontrollable pleasure through him as he said it.

"SEBASTIAN! SEBASTIAN, SEBASTIAN, SEBASTIAN!" he called towards the empty sky, shattering the stillness of the night with the coarseness of his voice.

He sensed the presence before he heard a silky voice reply,

"You called?" He turned around, taking in the figure before him.

The demon stood tall opposite him. He looked the same as he always had, from his jet-black hair that stayed perfectly in place, to the ironclad tailcoat he always wore.

"Sebastian..." was all he could say in return. "I...I remember you." A smug smile appeared on the elder's face as he extended both his arms towards him.

"Do you, now?" he teased. Ciel nodded, taking a step closer to the demon.

"How could I...how could I forget?" he accused angrily.

Sebastian said nothing as he closed the gap between them. Then, he did something he yearned to do all along. He pulled the boy into his chest.

"You couldn't help it," he soothed, busying his hands with the younger's hair. They held each other for a while, Ciel allowing himself to breathe in the demon's scent.

"You're real, right? I'm not just imagining you?" the boy asked, already doubting himself.

"Yes," the demon assured him, tightening the grip on his waist. Ciel brushed him off, forcefully pushing him away.

"How did this happen to me?" he demanded, crossing his arms and turning his head to hide the hotness of his cheeks. He wasn't used to Sebastian acting outwardly loving.

The demon thought about how to word his answer, but there was only one way to explain what happened. "Undertaker..."

"And you allowed him to do that to me!"

"It was the only way to save you. The contract was fulfilled and I was so close to killing you... I wanted to..."

Ciel's eyes narrowed, shooting daggers at his once-butler. "Since when do you get to decide things for me?" he scoffed. How could Sebastian allow this to happen? Was he in that much need to get away from him?

"You went behind my back and-"

"I apologize, my Lord," Sebastian sobered, "but I did what I thought was best for you." He kneeled down before the boy, his way of begging for forgiveness. Ciel looked at him a second time before permitting him to stand. How could he remain upset when the demon was apologizing like this? After all, he only did it for him.

Then, Ciel remembered.

"You... you were the angel that saved me," he affirmed, "and because of that, because of me, you turned into a demon..."

"I suppose that is one way to look at it," Sebastian disagreed, trying to ease the guilt the boy felt, "but I did it for us. You were mistakenly trying to do the same, weren't you? Why else were you so willing to give up your soul that night? Simply because you knew that if I consumed it, it would mean being together."

Ciel couldn't deny that was his intention. He stared at the demon, unable to believe he did all this for him. Slowly, ever so carefully, his steadied his shaky hands and placed one on either side of Sebastian's face.

"You lied," he scolded.

"I know," Sebastian acknowledged, grabbing one hand and pressing it closer.

"I need you, you know," Ciel admitted earnestly, ignoring the flush in his cheeks, and forcing himself not to look away.

"As I need you," Sebastian confessed. Then, moving his face closer, he gingerly pressed his lips onto the younger's, holding him there. Their lips molded into the shape of the other, a heated need passing between them. When they parted, they stood impeccably still, as if moving would mark the end of their reunion.

Sebastian let out another soft chuckle.

"You grew a bit, you know," he mentioned, laughing harder when Ciel buried his face into his torso and told him to 'shut up'.

They ran out of words to say, their silence speaking for them. For what could be said in this moment of happiness? They had been apart longer than they had been together, but this single instant where their feelings reached each other, and nothing threatened to keep them apart could make up for all the times in the past.

"So what does this mean?" Ciel wondered aloud.

"It means we go to Undertaker and I get to give him an 'I told you so'," Sebastian replied cheekily, his long fingers entwining with Ciel's.

"No, no," Ciel sighed, his face reddening profusely. "I mean, us."

"We go back to what we were before, as master and servant as always. Except..."

"Except, I am no longer an earl, or a human, and you are not a butler so we can't exactly go back to what you call normal. Regardless… you still belong to me," Ciel reminded him.

"Of course, my Lord. I wouldn't have it any other way."

The boy yawned quietly, more tired than he was a minute ago.

"I think it is time to retire," Sebastian suggested.

"Let's go home, then," Ciel turned, tugging at the demon's sleeve. They started heading back, side by side, when Sebastian unexpectedly stopped in his tracks.

"Wait a moment," he objected, pulling Ciel back in. The boy gave him a questioning look, encouraging him to speak.

"I made a promise to you, not too long ago, or rather, I want to promise you..." the demon smiled. A grin appeared on the boy's face as his eyebrow arched.

"Promise you'll never leave me again?" Ciel asked.

Suddenly, Sebastian remembered something.

If angels are supposed to protect the weak from losing what is most important to them, then why was he unable to protect what was most important to him?

Simple.

It might be a silly human presumption that he had accepted as his own, but everything-down to the last moment spent apart-happened so that he would learn not to let go of the boy again.

"Nevermore," Sebastian promised, and together, they waltz into their own fragment of eternity.

The end.

AN: Thank you for reading! It means so much to me to read your reviews and encouragements! Now, on to the next story. I sincerely hope to see you there :)