Chapter 2: Step 2 : never forget to feed your cat
Paris, on the night of 31 December to 1 January, a few hours earlier
It's been getting dark for a while now. The days are shorter and now, when I get home from my student job, the moon is already high in the sky. I close my studio door behind me and throw my rucksack on the floor. Exhausted, I collapse on my bed, which creaks under my weight. What an exhausting day!
I stay like this for a while when my cat, flint, jumps onto the mattress and lets out a high-pitched meow. I realise he wants my attention. With a distracted hand, I scratched his head. To say he was my cat was an understatement. He and I shared the same fate. Abandoned by fate, we'd both be homeless and alone if we didn't have each other. I've only got a year and a half left before I finish high school, and after that I could have a full-time job! No more going to bed hungry and taking cold showers from the fifteenth of the month! Or at least that's what I was hoping for, but I'm well aware that life isn't that easy.
My eyes are drawn to the book I took from my grandfather. The only family I had left, and one I didn't really know because, when my parents died, he preferred to leave me to an unscrupulous family for a bit of money rather than bring me up himself. Last weekend, the funeral services called me to come and collect the few things he had. He had passed away a few days earlier and I was apparently his only known family. Of his meagre possessions, I only recovered this notebook and a pendant that came with it because they seemed mysterious to me. Their strange appearance had attracted my curiosity and I took them with me. Everything else had been sent to the rubbish dump without further ado.
I picked up the notebook, wary of the pendant. When I'd first tried to grab it, an electric shock had flashed across my wrist. The pain had lasted for several minutes, which had been particularly unpleasant. The notebook, on the other hand, had been harmless. I opened it to the first page.
-Register of Shinigami," I read aloud.
I leaf through a few pages. A long list of strange names is laid out on the paper like a solemn litany. I read a few of them. The blue lotus shinigami, rather poetic. The devil shinigami, a strange one. The death-eating shinigami, downright creepy! I continue my partial reading before stopping on one of them. The purple-eyed shinigami. For some reason, he catches my eye.
My curiosity got the better of me and I continued reading this strange book. The next chapter deals with the hierarchy of shinigami. There are upper temple shinigamis and lower temple shinigamis, solitary shinigamis and renegade shinigamis. And a final category that I can't quite make out because the words have started to fade.
Further on, I read that shinigamis are attached to a temple by the purity of their soul. The purer their soul, the greater their distinction, because their powers are proportionately increased tenfold. Purity of soul is the basis of their power. All these details bring a smile to my face. Surely this notebook was written by someone with an overactive imagination who was bored stiff. Or maybe just someone a bit crazy. In any case, it was a really strange book I'd found in the home of this man whose only memory was his inert expression when he saw his grandson in front of him. I resumed my reading.
Then there's an explanation of the origin of shinigami. They are created by the void between death and life and are therefore by definition neither living nor dead. They belong to the world of the dead but carry out their function in the world of the living, which makes them ambivalent beings. A shinigami is born every twenty-five years and they only disappear by divine decree or of their own free will, if nothingness agrees to grant them rest.
I want to read on, but Flint is becoming insistent. He makes circles on my chest and rubs his head against my chin with a force that can only mean one thing: I'm hungry!
-Oh, I've got it, I've got it, I'll get you something to eat," I say, getting up without much energy.
The poor guy is as deprived as I am and only gets one meal a day. As for the rest, I know that he hunts mice and cockroaches, which I know are plentiful in my miserable studio. But I have a roof over my head so I'm not complaining. For an orphan like me, that's already a lot.
I open the cupboard where I keep his tinned pate and stare at the empty space before me with embarrassment. Silex rubs himself against my legs and meows. I can't negotiate with him, he's hungry. I sigh and close the cupboard.
-My little father, I forgot to buy you some groceries," I said, stroking his tail as he spun around, losing patience. Give me two seconds and I'll bring you your dinner.
I quickly slip on my shoes and grab my jacket. The Monoprix downstairs closes in half an hour. I leave, closing the door on a disgruntled feline. On my way down the stairs, I open my phone and check my bank account. I have seventy-two euros left. I have to keep fifty-five euros for the electricity bill, which leaves me with only seventeen euros. I won't get my next pay packet for another five days. Silex's paté costs around eight euros - eight euros sixty-two to be precise - and a five hundred gram packet of pasta costs one euro fifty. That's the first price.
I put my phone away. I'll be eating pasta for the last few days I have left. With two packets of pasta, I've got a total of eleven euros sixty-two, which leaves me with five euros and change that I'm saving for a rainy day, like when my bike breaks down and I have to take public transport to go to school. That should do it. I feel a few dirty coins lying around in my pockets. I'm not doing too badly.
I'm so used to having only one meal a day at the end of the month that being able to eat pasta every day until the end of the month seems like a luxury. And as there's no way I'm cutting back on my flint rations, I'll settle for this.
I leave the shop with a small shopping bag in my hand. Once outside, the chill of the onset of winter penetrates my tired clothes. My jumper, which had holes in places, and my jacket, which was the only warm item of clothing I'd bought with my first pay cheque, barely covered me enough to withstand the sub-zero temperatures.
I'm on my way to the front door of my building when I see some burly guys hanging around out front. One look at them and you can tell they don't belong here. My heart rate quickens. I've made my interest payments this month, so why are they here? As discreetly as possible, I turn around and walk in the opposite direction, trying to keep my gait calm.
I walk a few metres like this before turning left. I pick up the pace. My intuition tells me they've seen me and are following me. When I reach another crossroads, I realise I'm right. I quickly turn and merge into a dense, festive crowd preparing to celebrate the countdown in a few hours' time. My small size and rather frail stature allow me to thread my way easily through the crowd, who pay me no attention at all.
I make it a good five hundred metres this way before breaking away from the crowd into a dark alleyway. There I let myself slide against the wall and curl up. The fear and the chase had sent a rush of adrenalin through my system and now that it's all gone down, all I'm left with is anxiety and the cold that was gnawing at my fingers.
I rub my hands together to try and warm them, but to no avail. I can feel my body shaking all over. "If I stay here, I'll freeze to death," I say to myself as I scramble to my feet. A thought for Silex, who is waiting for his meal, gives me a little courage. Once I'm on my feet, I'm about to set off in the opposite direction along another path when a figure suddenly appears before my eyes.
A man... not a woman? Brandishes a katana in the air and leaps to the ground, splitting it with her blade. Her extraordinary agility fascinates me and I stand there watching her for a moment. Then a blue light emanates from her hands and travels along her blade. I admire her face more intensely. Her short hair danced dangerously around her face, which was hardly expressive despite the intense action she had just performed. Her cold, fine features give her a non-human air. As if she had come from another world.
As for the rest, her spindly body, which led me to mistake her for a man, showed a fine musculature beneath her loose-fitting clothes. In fact, her clothes were completely out of the ordinary, closer to what he'd seen in manga than the usual European work clothes. Totally captivated by the young woman who had just appeared before my eyes without making a sound, I couldn't take my eyes off her extremely fluid movements. Something about her appealed to me.
Controlled by my curiosity, I reach out to touch her. Our eyes meet and I read the surprise in that inexpressive gaze. She stumbles and my fingers graze her wrist. Suddenly my heart begins to beat painfully in my chest. My breathing becomes wheezy and an abominable headache seizes my brain. I fall to my knees.
Before my eyes, reality is distorted. Red spots appear and take on terrifying shapes. Screams of terror echo in my ears and I can't stop them. I feel like I'm dying. Just as I think my time has come, an unpleasant sensation takes hold of me, as if someone had plunged his hand into my consciousness and was trying to extract it from my body. I struggle unconsciously, but soon give in. Suddenly there's a complete calm.
All the horror I had experienced a few minutes earlier had vanished in the space of a second. Now it's an absolute void. I can't feel anything. Just my heart beating in my chest, that's all. A blue glow invades my field of vision, and again the unpleasant sensation returns, but less intensely. Once again, I have the impression that things have gone back to where they belong. I regain my composure and raise my hands. Am I alive? I bend my fingers and they respond.
Stunned, I look up at the woman I had been watching just a few seconds earlier. She towered over me.
I am Shiki, the purple-eyed shinigami and you, Nakamura Akira, are now an Arcanian bound to me by a contract. From now on you will be my assistant. Nice to meet you and welcome to the club of those who don't have a friend to spend New Year's Eve with," she says, holding out her hand in front of my stunned eyes.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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