8 Days Before Halloween [PART H]

"Can you believe it? It has been here all along! " the boy in the white cloak exclaimed, lifting his head and his eyes were blazing. "The most important clue has been right beneath our noses all these time!"

Someone uttered a Chinese word. "...Hang on! I've seen this before! There was one in..."

"The Jack Incident!" both the boy in the white cloak and the one in the emerald cloak voiced, simultaneously.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! That was..." the person in the emerald cloak uttered another Chinese character, feeling startled and excited at the same time. "The only girl who tried to fight Jack! It appeared on her the moment she was killed by him! But the power she conjured that night in 1891, they say it was not something anyone has seen before. Do you think-"

"Boyz!" The girl in the purple cloak clasped her hand together, interrupting the boys' intense discussion. "Is this really the time for this?"

Returning to their previous topic, the girl in the purple cloak said, "Let's say this really is the work of this Reaper's ring. What does it do then? Care to enlighten the rest of us?" she signaled at the boy in the white cloak.

"This can only be traced back to the first accounts on this ring in the 100-"

"Agent 616, cut to the point!" she interjected, slight impatience in her tone. "This is no time for stories and history lessons."

"Oh...um…" The boy in the white cloak appeared a little bit upset by the girl's rude intrusion but he dared not continue, and obeyed the order. "According to what was written on the scrolls, it grants someone the ability to harvest souls like a real Reaper. " he explained, briefly. "The only difference is… anyone, no matter humans, faeries, daemons, Witches, Warlocks, the Forsakens or even us… as long as we have that ring, we will be able to reap souls!"

"So it's practically a magical ring that allows any being to become a Reaper even when you are not born as one, or are chosen by one of them?"

"Not everyone, exactly. In order to use the powers within, one phrase does suggests that you have to be a vir-"

"It doesn't matter whether anyone or only one person in this world can use it. What matter is..." another girl in the group who wrapped herself with a dark blue cloak butted. Her eyes looked at the boy in the white cloak, grimly. "A ring that has the ability to reap souls... It doesn't just mean someone can use it to kill without being caught!" She cast an uneasy glance at the dead man. "For sure the non-magus will never figure out that this man was murdered. They would probably treat it as a heart attack or a paralyzing stroke! Nonetheless, this is not our greatest concern." She paused with a sigh and her brows creased.

"What is?"

"The owner of the ring, of course!" she answered. "Since you mention about the Jack Incident, it reminds me of an ancient prophecy that Grandma Lily once told me…" Having that said, she uttered a phrase with a tongue from another world.

"One shall...end the Wheel of Life with the scythe of Death?" the girl in the purple cloak translated the Elvish phrase and her answer got a nod of approval right away.

"Her tribe thought the prophecy ended with Jack." explained the girl in the dark blue cloak. "But it didn't refer to him. It referred to someone else or perhaps, something else."

"Don't tell me you are suggesting-"

"Why not? Think of this, the power of reaping might now be held by an amateur or worse, perhaps, a madman. It's practically like a ticking bomb and if we don't find him...or her as soon as possible, who knows when will he or she loses control of it, or should I say loses one's mind...just like Jack."

Her expression appeared even grimmer.

"We might not have witnessed that historic event ourselves but from the monitoring systems and rules they have set specifically for any being who holds the power of Death...it shows how serious and haunting that incident was even though our Senpai eventually took it under control. But who knows what will happen this time! If this case does go out of hand, it's not going to be just us failing a mission, it's going to be the end of a lot of lives, perhaps… ALL…LIVES!"