The world beneath him shimmered with new light as it's structure and mass was restored back to what it was before its destruction. Toneri allowed himself a single breath of satisfaction before his gaze shifted toward Neptune, the damage done to it was much more bearable compared to that of Uranus but still it needed fixing all the same.
In the blink of an eye, he stood above the roiling blue giant, hands already lifting to clap in the prayer seal when he then sighed again for the… Toneri didn't even bother counting how many times he sighed anymore.
"Oh, don't let me start without acknowledging my audience," he said, voice laced with sarcasm. "Come out. I know you're there."
For a long moment, there was only silence. The deep quiet of space stretched between heartbeats and then, a sound broke it. At first Toneri tried to comprehend what it was before it finally clicked.
It was a giggle.
It wasn't the laugh of anything mortal. It was airy and inevitable, carrying a cadence that felt like both the first cry of birth and the last sigh before death. Then came a voice, it sounded warm and inviting, curling into his ears like smoke.
"What a surprise… Tell me, how long have you known I was watching or should I say since when have noticed?"
As the words flowed, the voice began to take shape in the corner of his perception. Toneri turned his head slightly, and what he saw made his thoughts stumble.
'A… lady?'
She was unlike any woman he had ever seen. Pale as moonlight, yet her skin seemed more alive than anything, as if it absorbed light rather than reflected it and in that same instance he could have sworn she turned into dark skinned woman. She wore simple black jeans and a sleeveless shirt bearing a small silver ankh over her heart. A thin chain with the same symbol hung around her neck. Her hair, jet-black and perfectly straight, fell just past her shoulders, with a single stray lock curling across her face. Her eyes… they were not merely dark but infact upon looking closer with his Tenseigan, they were the deep, endless void of eternity itself, softened by an expression that was strangely kind.
Before he could speak, her voice sounded again and this time from in front of him.
"You have such peculiar eyes," she said, studying him with an amused tilt of her head.
Toneri's expression didn't change and proceeded to answer her earlier question. "I felt you… when I tried to bring back those who were warped by chaos. After my battle with the witch boy Klarion, I felt a cold sensation of… nothingness."
She nodded slowly. "Yes. Imagine my surprise when I felt an intruder trespassing in my domain, trying to seize back souls I had already claimed."
"That caught your attention I'm sure," Toneri guessed.
"Oh, It did," she admitted. "There aren't many who could do that. And the few who could… know better than to upset the balance."
She took a slow step closer, her boots making no sound on the invisible ground of space. "You see, none usually attempt to bring the dead back, not because they can't, but because they understand the balance. The only ones who do are beings who can manipulate that balance itself… to make their actions part of the order rather than a disruption."
Toneri's eyes narrowed in thought. "You mean those who bend the law of life and death until it accepts their changes as its own."
Her lips curved into a knowing smile. "Exactly."
Then, softly almost with delight she giggled.
Toneri straightened. "Then… you are Death."
She arched a brow. "And you say it without fear. Yes. I am Death. Of the Endless."
"Then allow me a proposal," Toneri said evenly. "Let me return these mortals to life for a few years. They'll die again eventually and you can claim them later plus I will give yoo something of value."
She shook her head slowly, the motion deliberate. "Do you know what function I serve?"
"You're the keystone of the cycle," he replied without skipping a beat. "Without you, there's no rebirth, no reincarnation, no progress. Life without death stagnates; death without life is meaningless. It is the balance between the two that allows the world to breathe."
She regarded him for a moment and was genuinely impressed.
"Every death," she said softly, "is linked to other forces such as fate, destiny, karma. Threads in a web so vast even the gods cannot see its edge. When I take a soul, it is not merely gone, it is redistributed. Fate writes it anew. Karma carries its weight forward. Destiny shapes where it will go next. Even the death of worlds, stars, and eventually the universe… all of it comes through me. And when it ends, I will be the last to leave, closing the doors, stacking the chairs, and locking the windows behind me. Do you understand now what I am?"
Toneri studied her carefully then nodded. "You are the magnitude and the multitude. The singular and the unavoidable. The very future of all that exists."
Her smile deepened. "You keep surprising me."
She began to walk, except her steps did not carry her along any surface. It was as though she were strolling through the fabric of space itself, circling him.
"But you, on the other hand…" she said softly.
Toneri felt her presence drift behind him, like a cold shadow across his spine.
"I don't have your name on my ledger," she said. "I don't even see your name in the grand design. Which… is impossible. And yet here you are. You do not belong to any sequence I am aware of and I am aware of everything in creation, in the universe and multiverse alike. And yet…"
She came back around, stopping inches from him, her eyes locking into his impossibly bright ones.
"You are. An existence that shouldn't be. The only explanation… is the one that shouldn't be possible."
Toneri tilted his head. "And why is it impossible?"
Her gaze sharpened. "Because it would mean there is an adjacent multiversal sequence… completely separate from this one."
Toneri said nothing though his silence told her he already knew.
"Although, I am aware of one other," she continued. A faint, wistful giggle escaped her lips. "A marvelous place."
Toneri opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off, her tone suddenly low and dangerous.
"What matters," she said, "is that I want to know where you spawned from. Tell me… is there a version of me there?"
"No," Toneri said, without hesitation.
Her brows rose slightly.
"Don't misunderstand," he added. "We have death. And the function of finality. But it is not you, not in any way."
Her interest sharpened. "A version of Death utterly separate from my own and yet… very much the same." She chuckled again. "How curious."
Then something strange happened.
The sound of wings. A rush of air. A blur that was not bound by time.
And suddenly, Toneri was sitting in his throne room. His eyes narrowed faintly. He hadn't blinked, he hadn't seen what happened, but had caught a glimpse of feathers he saw in that impossible moment.
"There," Death said lightly. "That should do it."
Toneri's gaze sharpened. "What did you just do?"
"I sped up the reconstruction your re construction," she said with a small, knowing smile. "And brought us somewhere more comfortable."