Vanessa's eyes narrowed. "Yes. And the worst part? Whoever K.Z.N is, they've been careful. They've left traces only the most observant could find."
She continued, "And me? I'm observant. I notice patterns. I connect dots. Which means… we're sitting on the greatest rogue reaper investigation in the history of the Land of Death."
Grim gulped. "That sounds… terrifying."
"Exactly," Vanessa said. She flipped the page to an older file, brittle with age. Yellowed edges crumbled under her fingers. "Look at this, Grim. Here's a report from three hundred years ago."
"A soul, an innocent mortal was scheduled to die at dawn. The paperwork was overwritten at the last second. Cross-verified signatures: fake. The culprit? K.Z.N. No trace of punishment, no record of reprimand, no explanation. Just… gone."
Grim's hollow eyes widened. "Three hundred years? That's… centuries."
Vanessa leaned closer. "And that's not all." She tapped another faded file, covered in dust and glowing faintly with residual death energy.
"Check the anomalies linked to this name. Every century, there's a spike in irregularities, in souls being rescheduled or swapped. The cycle is… deliberate. Someone is testing the system, pushing boundaries, and—God help us—covering their tracks."
Grim rubbed his temples. "This… this is way above my pay grade. Above my entire existence. Above everything."
Vanessa smirked faintly, despite the seriousness of it all. "That's why you're here, Hoodie Boy. To make sure I don't break the first two rules of the Land of Death: A) Don't get caught, B) Don't die, C) Don't panic. Wait… those aren't the rules, are they?"
Grim groaned. "You just made them up."
She grinned. "Exactly. And now let's break some records, shall we?"
---
Vanessa spent the next hours cross-referencing centuries-old FCO reports with the forbidden file.
Ghostly energies swirled around her, reacting to her presence as if the archives themselves were alive.
Grim hovered, nervous, muttering incantations to keep their presence hidden.
"Vanessa," Grim whispered, pointing at a ledger, "look at this."
She leaned over. Rows of scheduled deaths, some erased, some rescheduled, some completely fabricated.
Every single entry bore a faint spectral watermark, a signature hidden in plain sight.
"Exactly what I was thinking," Vanessa said.
"This reaper or whatever K.Z.N really is has been manipulating the Life and Death Bureaucracy from the shadows. It's like… like they're a ghost in the system itself."
Grim shivered. "That's… nightmare fuel."
Vanessa continued scanning. Patterns emerged. Every irregularity had one thing in common: the FCO bureaucrats either ignored it or actively covered it up.
Elder Valta, as meticulous as he was, was unaware or pretending to be of the rogue influence embedded in the paperwork.
"And that," Vanessa said, voice dropping, "is why my first death was almost fatal. And why someone tried again recently. This isn't random. It's… experimental. K.Z.N is testing the limits of the system using me as… what? A constant variable?"
Grim pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're like… the guinea pig of the Land of Death?"
"Exactly," Vanessa said, eyes flashing with frustration and excitement. "And if K.Z.N has been doing this for centuries… then the system itself is rotten."
---
Grim flopped onto the floor, forehead pressed against the cold stone. "I… I can't. I'm a minor reaper. I stamp things. I hover. I pass paperwork. I do not chase rogue centuries-old conspiracies!"
Vanessa leaned over him. "You do now."
"I'm too small! Too weak! Too… too…"
"Too alive," Vanessa supplied with a grin. "You're lucky you're not dead yet. And besides, if you quit now, I'll haunt your hoodie for eternity. And I will leave little sticky notes with 'I told you so' in every pocket."
Grim groaned. "Why must you always threaten me emotionally? Why can't you just say 'please'? Or bribe me with soul-grade coffee beans? Or… or I don't know, give me a day off?"
Vanessa laughed. "Because that's not dramatic enough. Now get up. We have footprints to follow."
He complied reluctantly, muttering curses under his breath and swearing to haunt her in every lifetime.
---
Hours passed as Vanessa pieced together decades of rogue reaper activity.
Every illegal action, every mismatched soul tag, every death postponed or manipulated traced back to K.Z.N.
And then she saw it: the pattern wasn't random. K.Z.N had a method, a rhythm. Each manipulated soul, each erased identity, each anomaly formed a chain.
And at the center of that chain was her. Always her. Every century, every anomaly, she or rather, her "soul type" was involved.
Grim's voice shook. "You're… somehow the target? Why…? Why would anyone… anyone… target you specifically?"
Vanessa stared at the ledger, heart hammering. "Because… I'm the one who can see it. I'm the one who notices. I'm the one who breaks patterns. And K.Z.N… has been searching for someone like me."
Grim's hoodie drooped, literal despair pouring from him. "You are doomed."
"Or lucky," Vanessa countered, lips curling. "Depends on how you look at it."
Grim whimpered. "I'm going to need therapy after this."
Suddenly, a flicker in the shadows caught Vanessa's attention. A distant corridor, two floors above them.
The energy signature of a high-level Elder, one who would never normally enter the archive without cause.
Vanessa froze. Grim glanced over. "That's… trouble."
"Yes," Vanessa whispered, "and if they catch us with these files… we're not just in trouble. We're canon fodder."
Grim's expression switched from despair to outright panic. "Canon fodder?! What does that even mean?"
Vanessa rolled her eyes. "It means… don't get caught. RUN!"
They darted between the shelves, the forbidden file secured in Vanessa's coat. Shadows twisted around them, whispering warnings, and the footsteps of the approaching Elder echoed louder, faster.
Vanessa grabbed Grim's arm. "Stick close. No falling behind. No panicking."
"Too late!" Grim shouted, tripping over a spectral quill that rose up like a ghostly cobra.
Vanessa yanked him upright. "You are not dying here. Not again."
He muttered, "I feel like I've already lived multiple deaths in this week…"
And together, they sprinted deeper into the labyrinthine corridors, chasing clues, evading power, and following the footprints of a rogue reaper whose name K.Z.N would soon echo through Vanessa's life in ways she couldn't yet imagine.