Well, here is somewhat sequel-ish goodness to Deidara's Happy Story, even though you don't really need to have read that to fully understand what's going on. Eris and Ripowal, as you will probably guess, are my OCs, as are Maddie and Michiko.

Necessary Background Information: Maddie is a ghost, and was the first ghost. She was killed by Eris, who felt marginally bad about it (seeing as it was an accident) and brought her back. Fast forward three years, there is a Deidara/Michiko/Itachi triangle. Michiko basically tells Itachi to go and kill himself, and he does (which surprised her). However, Maddie found him before he actually left the world of the living and forced him to come back as a ghost. Michiko, realizing Itachi is still around, completely abandons Deidara who, in a roundabout way, asks Eris to kill him. She obliges.

The rest you can find out if you read this.

The Spinning

Ripowal sighed a disappointed sigh, trailing the tip of his scythe absently through the diluted mud and disturbing the moving image held there. He held the scythe near its top with his left hand while his face rested in his right, staring at the spreading ripples. One might have thought him trying in vain to catch a glimpse of his long lost love, were he not The God of Death. He could have been so many things were he not The God of Death.

But no, Ripowal was sighing over the loss of a soul.

A soul called Deidara.

Ripowal sighed because he felt cheated. He was not prone to violent tantrums like his little sister, Eris, Goddess of Chaos and Destruction, instead feeling a great regret and sense of loss. Those tantrums were part of the reason Eris had been banished to the actual physical realm of mortals such as Deidara, though he was beginning to regret that decision.

His sister had, in the span of a mere three years, cost him just as many souls. He would never have Deidara, especially now that he had faded, but neither would he ever have Maddie or Itachi. Technically it was not her fault he could not have Itachi, because Maddie had detoured the man back to world of the living, but it was solely Eris' fault Maddie was ghost, and consequently her fault Itachi was now a simple spirit as well.

And even if Ripowal had been the one to send Deidara back as a ghost, it was only because Eris had killed him. He had assumed Deidara was an annoyance to Eris, and that was why he had sent him back. He had not expected to find, watching his basin of seeing mud expectantly, that Deidara was in actuality a pawn Eris used to create the chaos that kept her happy.

To think it all could have been avoided if he had only looked at the clipboard! His clerks had told him Deidara was dead because of Eris, and he had jumped to conclusions. Only in his later confusion had Ripowal actually read Deidara's Death Board and found, under Cause of Death, "Eris – Assisted Suicide".

And he had snuck a judicious peek into the past to find that the suicide itself had been inspired by a half bat-demon vampire thing/girl named Michiko. He knew this information was important because looking at the past was "bad". It was a privilege reserved for Epochryo, The God of Time. It had given him the same feeling as sending back Deidara.

He could tell it was really bad not because he felt a little bad about it, but because it felt so good.

Sighing again, this time at his own folly, Ripowal pushed himself away from the gothic stone basin that he realized – in his critical mood – looked strangely like a birdbath. Obviously only the most evil of birds would bathe their, but still, it bothered him.

Scowling halfheartedly, he slapped his free hand across the surface of the watery mud, sloshing a pathetic amount over the edge and into the sunken floor around its base that acted like a bowl.

Other gods chose water for observing mortals or anything else more interesting than their own lives (which admittedly was not very hard to find), or some other more ethereal, mysterious liquid. Ripowal chose watered down mud, because that what life was to him.

Life was a muddle, dirty, filth, and slipped right through one's fingers. Except Ripowal kept his hands cupped and caught them all as they dripped into death, finally coming to a stop.

And the one Eris had wanted back the most would actually be the only one to come to an eventual halt, because he had not required an immaterial form when his soul was returned. Because she had kept the body, but it was the soul she needed, wanted.

It had been a most curious case, in retrospect. The body had been perfectly preserved, even in life. The soul called Sasori had been returned to its container, which had not changed like other corpses. Maybe that was because he had not left a corpse upon his expiration, merely a shell, so there had been nothing capable of being changed after his death in the first place.

So after a good amount of time passed, Ripowal would get Sasori back. The thought brightened his mood briefly, but the permanent loss of Deidara loomed up again and put a rival damper on it once more.

Eris had cost him Deidara, Itachi, Maddie, and for however brief a time, Sasori. He had been loath to give the puppet master back because it would count as a victory to Eris, thus felt like a loss to him.

And the only thing he held in common with his sister was that he hated to lose.

But when she had come for Sasori she had made a convincing point; the last time she had wanted to keep one of his newly acquired souls he had not even considered that as an option. She had even challenged him, even when she knew he never lost, but he had proclaimed her challenge null and void. Because even though she was a pain in the ass, she was still his sister, and once she lost she would have ceased to exist… Although now that she was costing him so many souls he began to wonder whether her sudden disappearance would have been such a bad thing…

She had won, in the end. Tired of her nagging and whining and pleading, Ripowal had given Sasori back, though by that point he had held so much contempt for his pretentious sibling he had not handed off the soul, rather tossing it lightly and secretly hoping she would miss. It would have served her right to be forced to watch in horror as the poor soul that had somehow fallen under the misfortune of becoming the object of her twisted affections was absorbed into the fabric of eternal death.

Come to think of it, the last one before Sasori she had wanted to keep – a Master Tsuboya, had it been? – had also been boxed into the unfortunate position of absorbing Eris' parody of love.

He had been an artist of some kind as well, correct? A painter, perhaps? Ripowal drifted along several inches above the floor toward the Special Room; the room where souls he took pride in were collected after they first arrived in their designated circle of hell. He gathered great intellects, great philosophers, great artists, all people who left a lasting imprint on their worlds.

Sometimes, even, when he felt the strange and pressing need for company and his underlings were not satisfactory, he would bring one from its place and hold a conversation with it. Most of these eventually devolved into arguments as the former mortals' viewpoints began conflicting too heavily with his own, but while they lasted Ripowal was sure he experienced something paramount to a heaven.

All things considered, he had kept Tsuboya here. Not because he was an artist, or even because he dabbled in philosophy, but because this particular soul had marked a victory over Eris. He had come here now because he felt a plan forming, growing, stretching its wings and tasting the air.

This room was kept dark: due to the souls' natural shine, no artificial light was needed. They were perfect, rainbow glittery spheres kept balanced on stands and set up like trophies, though they more resembled – what did mortals call them…? Ah, yes: snow globes.

Eris loved chaos, did she not? Indeed, it was the very thing that kept her alive.

Ripowal mused over this as he ventured deeper into the recesses of the room, finding at last, in the darkest corner, the brightest soul. It glimmered when he picked it up, worming around inside its container, as if it could sense his intent.

It made him grin.

Finally, after some impatient prompting from his fingertips, the soul began to stretch and expand, growing slowly to the full size of its former host. As it changed, Ripowal readied his scythe, positioning it to slice through the gap between worlds just before the soul called Tsuboya reached its zenith.

Eris loved chaos, but she hated to be the one affected by it. Her personal happiness depended on the suffering of others. Her own suffering, however, was something no one had witnessed in ages.

As the soul called Tsuboya stretched its arms and blinked, Ripowal tore through to the world Eris occupied. The Tsuboya stared at the diagonal void intently, seemingly unaware that it was being sucked closer even as it wondered. Once it had vanished and the wound in space had resealed itself, Ripowal clapped his hands across one another briskly, as if dusting them off. Then he vacated the Special Room and returned to his birdbath of mud, which had already absorbed once more the little puddle he had removed from it earlier. Staring earnestly at its surface as a picture began to form, he could not help but grin at his own cleverness.

He awaited what would happen, what events would unfold, when Eris' other object of most likely one-sided affection was unexpectedly returned. Would he form the necessary thir point of a new love triangle, like Deidara had? Because he might have worried about his little sister if he had harbored the paternal feelings most older brothers were gifted with. After all, triangles were dangerous shapes. Their corners were sharp; perfectly deadly, as Deidara had proven.

If not handled properly, someone could get hurt...

Well, that's that. Once I find out what happens next I'll be sure to write it up and post for you.