Anor stared across the table at Grim with pure disgust.
The table itself was ancient carved from a single slab of pale rock veined with glowing turquoise fractures, its surface scarred by markings that looked less like writing and more like memories forcibly pressed into stone. The Spirit World did not waste effort on aesthetics. Everything here existed because it had to.
And right now, unfortunately, so did Grim.
Anor's pure black fingers curled slowly against the table top. His nails scraped slightly across the stone as he leaned back in his seat, as his skeletal frame tensed.
"You know," Anor said faintly, his voice echoing slightly in the vast chamber, "I still don't believe you're the God of Death."
Across from him, Grim looked delighted.
A wide, sadistic grin split his pale face, stretching unnaturally far as if his skull itself had been shaped for cruelty. For the first time since Anor had met him, Grim allowed his teeth to show fully rows of razor-sharp points, gleaming faintly in the turquoise light. They were not the teeth of a man.
They were the teeth of a predator that had never needed to pretend otherwise.
Grim propped his left cheek against the palm of his hand, elbow resting lazily on the table. His posture was casual, almost bored, as though they were sharing a tedious meal rather than circling a mutual annihilation.
"Oh, dear Anor," Grim said with mock tenderness, his voice dripping with theatrical amusement. "Please. Tell me what would it take for me to gain your trust?"
Anor didn't blink.
"The other gods," he said. "Your relatives. Who are they?"
Grim's grin twitched but did not fade.
"Answer that well," Anor continued, eyes fixed, unflinching, "and maybe I'll believe you."
For a moment, the Spirit World seemed to lean inward.
The turquoise fractures along the walls pulsed faintly, reacting not to Grim's presence but to Anor's demand.
Grim exhaled through his nose, a slow, measured breath. "Straight to business, then."
He shifted upright, removing his hand from his cheek and folding both arms loosely atop the table.
"Very well," he said. "Let's talk family."
His eyes darkened not with sadness, but with something colder.
"My parents," Grim began, "Eternity and Destruction sealed away. Not killed. Sealed." He tapped the table once, emphasizing the word. "Buried beneath concepts so fundamental even gods fear touching them."
Anor listened in silence.
"My siblings?" Grim went on. "Destroyed. Mostly. Their cores shattered so completely they can only exist through vessels now borrowed skins, borrowed wills, borrowed time."
A flicker of irritation crossed his face.
"The Forbidden God was sealed long ago long before your heavens learned how to lie properly. And the Dark Gods?" He scoffed. "Same fate as the other Fallen Gods. Stripped. Bound. Broken. Rewritten."
Grim leaned back, spreading his arms slightly, as if presenting a grand tragedy.
"An entire divine lineage reduced to cautionary tales and half remembered myths," he said lightly. "Tragic, really."
Then
He kept talking.
And talking.
And talking.
He started yapping about random nonsense centuries of divine politics, betrayals layered upon betrayals, alliances formed only to be undone, gods devouring gods, concepts devouring themselves. Names spilled freely from his lips, each carrying weight Anor could feel pressing against his soul.
It went on far too long.
"And then oh, you'd love this part Time tried to overwrite Fate, which, of course, didn't end well."
"For Lord's sake," Anor snapped suddenly, slamming his palm against the table. "Shut the fuck up."
Silence crashed down like a guillotine.
Grim froze.
Not theatrically. Not deliberately.
Genuinely.
The grin vanished.
His brows drew together slightly, eyes narrowing not in anger, but confusion.
Slowly, Grim straightened.
"…You used that name," he said quietly.
Anor's chest rose and fell, breath ragged but controlled. His gaze burned with something ugly resentment, exhaustion, a hatred too old to be clean.
"Why would you mention it?" Grim asked, voice sharpening. "You're a traitor to Heaven. Cast out. Hunted."
He leaned forward again, pressure radiating subtly from him now.
"This doesn't add up," he continued. "Are you even serious about destroying it?"
Anor didn't answer.
Instead, his eyes drifted not to Grim but to the glowing veins in the stone wall behind him.
Grim opened his mouth to press further
and then paused.
A soft sound echoed through the chamber.
Tap. Tap.
Something small padded into the room.
A spirit cat emerged from between the stone pillars, its form semi-translucent, body composed of softly glowing teal mist and faintly defined fur. Its tail swayed lazily behind it as it approached with the confidence of something that belonged exactly where it was.
Anor stiffened.
The cat hopped effortlessly onto the table and padded across its surface, leaving faint ripples of light in its wake. It rubbed its head against Grim's resting hand, purring a sound more felt than heard.
Grim's entire demeanor shifted instantly.
"Oh," he said warmly. "Good morning, Suna."
He lifted his hand, fingers sinking gently into the cat's spectral fur. The sharpness in his presence softened, edges dulling as he scratched beneath Suna's chin. The cat leaned into the touch, tail flicking happily.
Grim smiled, a real one this time.
Then, without warning, he grabbed Suna's cheeks between both hands and squished them together.
"Who's a good boy?" he cooed. "You are. Yes, you are."
Anor stared.
Disbelief flickered across his face raw, unfiltered.
This was the God of Death?
Grim released the cat, who flicked its tail indignantly before curling up comfortably at the centre of the table.
Then...
Grim looked up.
His gaze locked onto Anor's.
And the air changed.
The warmth vanished. The casual humour evaporated. What remained was something ancient, precise, and terrifyingly focused.
"Anor," Grim said softly, each syllable cutting cleanly, "what is your opinion on Astra?"
The name struck like a blade.
"Your replacement," Grim continued calmly. "And your hunter."
Anor broke.
Completely.
His chair scraped violently backward as he collapsed forward, slamming his forehead against the stone table. A scream tore from his throat raw, broken, animal. His hands clawed at his own skin, fingers digging into blackened flesh as though he could rip the memories out physically.
Tears poured freely, streaking down his pitch-black face, splattering against the glowing stone. His body shook violently, ribs heaving as sobs wracked his skeletal frame.
"STOP!" he screamed, voice cracking into nothing. "STOP IT STOP SAYING HIS NAME!"
His nails drew blood now dark, ichor-like streaks seeping between his fingers as he clawed harder, desperate to feel something other than the agony ripping through his core.
Grim did not interrupt.
He simply watched.
The answer, after all, had been given.
Suna lifted his head slightly, ears flattening.
Anor's sobs echoed through the chamber, filling the Spirit World with a grief too heavy to fade.
And Grim the God of Death, fallen and smiling no longer leaned back in his chair, eyes cold, calculating, and utterly certain.
"Yes," he murmured quietly.
"That explains everything."