The shade hovered at the edges of paradise, his eyes wistful. His sighs gently floated across the river, to the banks of the mortal realm. Banks, he knew, that he would never again cross.

The woman sighed beside him. She had joined the shade earlier, shortly after he arrived at the banks that separated the land of the living from the Land of the dead, and had leaned on the fence that was too substantial for his misty form to touch.

The shade was fairly certain she was a Death, like the Death that had led him here. She had dark brown hair and deep brown eyes and wore a form-fitting leather jacket over sturdy but stylish work clothes. For his part, he'd had red hair and green eyes and pale skin; but now all was mist and smoke, and he floated there like a wisp of steam.

Death sighed again, hers mingling with his as they drifted across the waters.

“What're you in for?” She finally asked, as the pair watched a boat of lost souls struggle across the waves.

“Dying,” replied the shade, prompting the young woman to burst into laughter. “And you?”

“Oh man,” she said, “that’s a long story.”

***

“Death… bring us the heads of the transmigrators.” Intoned the Death Council, voices sombre.

“Enh?” Death cried. “No, but seriously, enh? Why do you want the heads of the transmigrators, en toto? And why am I the one who has to bring you them? As a Death, I can merely collect the souls of the dead; not kill them myself.”

“Perhaps a categorical statement upon the matter was unwise,” the chief Death conceded. “Or, rather, it was unwise to speak as if using a universal quantifier - for we want not all, nor even most, transmigrators, but some; and more specifically, the ‘some’ of the wicked.”

He chuckled at his own pun, then became serious once more. “The Underworld is tired, Death. We are tired of transmigrators abusing their truck-given rights - the skills, cheats, systems, etcetera, granted to them upon their arrival - to dedicate their lives to power and the endless pursuit of ever greater strength and authority. Nations have been toppled, peoples annihilated, marriages dissolved, for little more than a fallen god’s ego.”

“Right, all well and good, and I certainly agree,” said Death, “but what does that have to do with me? You seem to have neglected one crucial aspect: however wicked the transmigrator might be, I can’t do jack squat. You can’t, either, while we’re on the subject.”

“And that brings us to the crux of the matter,” the chief Death smirked, “we cannot do anything now. But though those of us Deaths can’t kill anyone - can’t even harm them - can barely touch them, when we get down to it - that doesn’t mean we’re powerless.”

“Our powers are useless outside of the Underworld.”

“So far, yes, yes they are; and that is why, Death, that you have been tasked with research. Find us a way to get the heads of the transmigrators; bring us a sum of the wicked. Peace must be restored to the World Above - the transmigrators must renew their proper role, which they have too long neglected. Do this Task, and receive your Psychopomp License; fail or refuse, and you will never see cute puppies again.”

***

“And that’s the rub of it,” Death finished, eyes distraught as the fuzzy buddies drifted ever farther out of her inner sight, her imagination obsessed only with the daunting Task she’d been given. “I have no idea what to do, because I can’t, properly speaking, do anything.”

“That must be hard,” the shade commiserated.

“Man, you have no idea how annoying it is. I can’t kill anyone, I can’t harm anyone; I can’t even take actions that would do so by implication. No undermining a mountain slope so they fall to their death, no placing a kill order - not even in a restaurant-”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Wait, does that mean you can only eat fruit?”

“…heck, I can only eat fruit,” Death said, at the same time as the shade asked its question. The two looked at each other. Then they burst into laughter.

“See? You get it.”

“It makes sense, at least from the perspective of the Heavens. If Death could slaughter at will there’d be none who were safe from your grasp - and there’d be no fighting Fate then. Still, it’s a little unusual. I’d always thought the unquiet dead could bother the living.”

“Oh, no, it’s only us Deaths who can’t. The dead such as yourself can totally harass the living.”

And then she froze as, with a flash of lightning, realisation struck.

“Huh, where’d that lightning come from?” The shade asked, and then he too realised the implication of what Death had said.

The two once more looked at each other, but this time there was no laughter.

“Do you ever want to go back to the land of the living?” Death asked. The shade looked about at the afterlife - at the free food stands, endless ale fountains, lineless roller coasters - and back at the woman.

“All the time,” he admitted. “But am I really the right person for the task? You know nothing about me; I’m probably untrustworthy. I have all sorts of dark and deep and awful secrets.”

“Enh, we file paperwork whenever we bring a new soul down to the Down Below. I can just go check that. Unless you’re telling me you murdered someone.” Her eyes narrowed in mock suspicion.

“No, no - unless we count brutally skewering someone by means of insults.”

“Pfft. I’m just kidding. How did you end up here, anyways? Beyond dying, that is.”

The shade rubbed his hands evilly, a thin slit of a smile appearing in his face. “Aha, now it is time for the dark truth to be revealed. You see - I am a transmigrator.”

***

It was a story just like many others. I had died, unjustly, and passed on to a cultivation world. When I awoke it was to the sight of a mobile; but it was no human who was looking in at me as I sat in the cradle, but demons. A pair of them, watching their beloved new son cooing on his blankets.

I grew up in the demon community. It was a small farming village on the tail edge of civilisation - I believe we gave tithe to a local lord of the kingdom of Rabais Quebec, though I didn’t live long enough to visit the regional capital, nevermind that of the state.

I had an uneventful childhood - of my own devising. My first life was one of pain and suffering, and I wanted nothing more than peace and quiet. This I had in spades; for the sake of time, I’ll spare an exhaustive itinerary of my life, and proceed to my death.

It was one uncommonly warm morning midway through spring. I was inside washing the dishes when I heard the sound of screams. I rushed outside, but by the time I was out past the door it was already too late.

There were four of them. They wore mediaeval armour, and were walking with a swagger as they strode through the village, butchering everyone in their path.

“Man,” said one, a smarmy looking youth with brown hair and silver plate, “can you believe all this free xp was just lying around, ripe for the taking?”

“I know,” said another, a pudgy woman with a mohawk, “and to think the locals were just leaving them alone. Bunch of cowards. But hey, their weakness is our strength gain.”

“For real, for real, no cap. Man, I love being an Isekai Protagonist,” the man concurred. I had nothing to say to this; at the sight of them slaughtering the villagers I had grown up with I rushed forward but, armed only with a broom, proved easy pickings for the transmigrators, and was then bleeding to death upon the ground.

And here for the first time Death interrupted the story.

“I remember this case. The Dunville Massacre. Two hundred dead. Took months for them to catch the perpetrators - ah,” and here she looked apologetic, “I’m afraid you won’t be able to get revenge; they’ve all been executed.”

The shade of the demon spat. “I wouldn’t want to even if I could - it would involve putting my hands on their filthy bodies. But as I was saying-”

I died there, on the steps outside my house. It wasn’t long then until I met Death- err, not you, the other guy-

“Oh yeah, Death. I know him. Likes to collect stamps. Thinks dyeing his hair bright purple makes him unique. Replaced his flying sword with a bamboo pole to be eco-friendly. Finest jackfruit cook you will ever meet, even if his insistence on eating it with barbeque sauce is a little unusual.”

…Yes, that Death. He took me by the hand and - wait a moment, you’re Death. You probably know what happened next.

“Yup,” Death admitted, popping a candy into her mouth, “Afterlife Protocol is standardised across species, at least so far as the entry process is concerned.”

***

“So there it is. The dark truth.” The shade finished. Death stroked her chin.

“Fascinating. So, in other words, you once lived among the enemy… then your knowledge of them must be profound.”

“I suppose. Certainly the choice of slang used by the transmigrators indicated, fairly uncontroversially, that they and I came from one and the same area of earth. Whether this translates into any effective method of combating them is quite another matter.”

“Enh, we’ll figure it out as we go,” Death said, waving off his worries with complete nonchalance. “Now come on - we got transmigrators to excise.”