Hay there readers its Daniel Mathis and this story is the sequel to "When Her Heart Settled" (so read that first, its twenty five chapters long!) iv been working on it for a couple of months and planned to put it out in July but I decided t go for it ahead of schedule. This is by no means finished and im still working on the end game. If you like this story or hat it, feel free to leave a comment, fallow and subscribe if you so wish.

This is Daniel, and thanks a lot.

(the titan)

She wasn't sure when exactly it was that her mind came into focus but the scene all began to meld into a serial ambiance of sounds and shapes and colors and smells until she was certain that the world she was seeing, hearing, smelling was real and she wished that she were wrong.

Brittle stones crunched under the heel of Crona's left boot the other was in a puddle of snow, it was not fluffy snow like that of a light fun filled snow day from a childhood she never had, it was hard and frozen to a somber crisp sheet of grayish white. Above was a gray sky with slightly less gray clouds and white wisps of high atmosphere haze like shredded fabric, as for the moon, well there were five of them, each of assorted colors ranging from drab tan to matte gray, all full or nearly full and casting a light bright enough for her to see for miles from the black stone cliff that she stood upon.

No she did not know where she was, but she had seen it before, even if she had not seen this particular spot she knew that she had seen this particular planet in her visions, late at night when she was all alone or when she was with a group of Friends, no one ever saw it but her.

It was an invisible titan, with tall jagged mountains, deep turbulent oceans and thick black forests. She let out a breath, she could see it in the cold air like a ghost until it was carried away by the wind which was quite stiff, it was snowing and the mountain range seemed frigid and inhospitable, but she was not cold.

Behind her She heard a noise, she wanted to look but she could not move her body, her legs felt like they were locked into place. There was another noise, she had to look but even her neck would not turn, she was a statue of flesh and blood, as the noises came closer she realized they were foot prints, large foot falls only a beast could make. She tried to yell but all that came was a dry hiss, her eyes strained to glimpse from the edges of her sight what was coming for her. She heard a guttural growl, there was a hot breath on her neck, she could feel her hair blown forward by it. she gasped feeling a claw gently lay atop her head.

All was silence save her own beating heart and the breathing of an unseen terror just over her shoulder, her face was wide and full of panic. Crona was hit with a force so painful it ripped a scream from her petrified lips, a clawed hand protruding from her chest cavity covered in her black blood and her still beating heat clinched between its jagged talons. Blood pored from her gaping maw as her screams died away to rasping and cries of her dyeing body. This was it, the world where she was distend to die. She felt her feet lift from the ground, the hand digging its claws deep into her head, squeezing so tightly that her head was ever near to bursting. The speed at which she was thrown from the mountain was neck breaking, and while falling through the air her vision became fuzzy, it was all over now, everything was, she didn't even feel it when she hit the ground, everything faded to black, as it had always been destine.

(awake)

She sat up in bed swinging her fists and kicking her legs her sheets falling onto the floor. she stopped opining her eyes, her chest heaving. She was in her apartment, it was dark but as far as she knew there was only one moon outside, as far as she knew nothing was there to kill her, she groped for the machete at her bed side just to be sure. She fell over in the fetal position, her eyes wide, expression flat and distant ,it wasn't the first time she had a night mare, she had always had them, but that planet from her vision, that awful place, it was the first time it had come to her in her sleep. Crona did not worship any god, even if she was one herself, but she prayed to the indifferent universe that this would not happen again.

(carrier opportunities)

Lord death was pretty firm on his decision, after Crona returned to death city he would not allow her to work at the academy, Crona paid him no mind, she for some reason felt disregard for the reaper but couldn't really explain the feeling, maybe it was the fact that he unwittingly let her be taken by an evil biological weapons corporation in exchange for cash. But she didn't dwell on that bygone. It was simply that she did not care. She didn't fear or love him like other meisters, she nothinged him, he was another being on this wide planet, everyone thought it was ludicrous but she saw him as an equal and thought that others should as well. Maybe that was why he didn't want her in his academy, maybe he not only felt disdain for her but also concern.

Her job situation was okay, not great, just okay, second class citizenship in Death City meant that no business could legally hire her full time, mostly she worked part time as a Courier for the Death City Parcel Service. She did odd jobs for Stien, who was, get this, both a doctor and a professor of over ten different masteries, but generally acted like a mad scientist. She was his lab assistant/ guinea pig.

Some times she did some work for Kid. Lord deaths Son, the young socialist askew business minded philanthropist and confirmed bachelor, with a case of OCD that was so extreme that he had to be home schooled after an incident at the academy that traumatized all students and faculty that witnessed the event.

Kid had a strange hobby, rather he had several strange hobby's, he had taken a fascination with ghosts and the paranormal ever scene his experience with the Black Dragon, the ghost ship where he met Crona over a decade ago. It grew from watching television programs and reading books to actually going out to grave yards at night trying to contact them. He was a God child of Death, not spirits, he was a shepherd of souls not the keeper, so it wasn't like he had a natural understanding for ghouls and ghosts.

He often shanghaied her for nights out in some ruins or rumored haunted houses, hoping Crona's spooky nature would draw out the spirits of the dead. He paid her a little for her time, she appreciated the financial help and gladly stayed out all night if kid felt like it, he didn't require sleep, a quality that Crona, now knowing that she was a god herself, wished that she had as well, her eyes would always beguine to become heavy toward the later half of the night, sometimes she would fall asleep, but kid didn't complain about it much, unless something scary happened in which case he would be shaking her awake screaming things like. "good lord man did you just see that?!" and "i cant believe you were asleep, that was the most significant occurrence in months!" but his frustration was always trumped by his excitement.

(father dearest)

After one such night Kid came into work after changing out of his cobweb plastered shirt into a clean pressed suit. He started his morning off like he always dose, by making himself a cup of coffee. Kid liked his coffee like his nights, dark, endless and impossible to sleep through. After that he went in for a round of adoring his perfectly arranged desk, and then watched the morning news. After some paper work he visited his father.

That morning Lord death seemed distant, distracted. That behavior was becoming more and more frequent in recent days, the way he would pause between sentences growing ever longer to the point where he would often forget what he was saying all together. He gestured him to sit at his low table and he pored him a cup of tea, he still hadn't said anything so kid started them off.

"id like to run some future purchases for the academy by you, I hope we can fit them into the budget this year. i was thinking that the cafeteria needs to be repainted as the current coat is starting to peel." Kid said. "uh..." lord death stammered.. "and perhaps we should consider repaving the roof later this summer." "son" lord death said lowly. "of course is well overdue for new blackboards." "son..please." lord death held up his large hand to stop kid. Kid closed his mouth. "whats wrong?" "Kid, I'm..dying." kid's shoulders went slack. "what? How? How could you be dying?" "it's complicated, but ill tell you." kid let out a breath "father...how long?" "do I have left? A week, at best" lord death shifted. "iv warned you sense you were a tyke to be prepared for your turn to become the grim reaper, and that time is emanate. Are you ready?" kid blinked, he considers what his father was asking. "to be the grim reaper? Yes...but I'm not ready to loos my father.." "i wouldn't expect you to be okay with that." "tell me. what's happening?" lord death folded his hand's. He prepared himself for the story he would tell his son.

"back before the war in heaven and the Birth of the Meisters, when the first God's of this planet were born, we were like you in many ways, like Crona. We were young and lived in a very hostile world. Humans had only just been around for a hundred years or so and had barely mastered fire at that point, the old gods, beings from other worlds came to rule over them and pushed us from the planet, we lived among the stars and it was there that we learned to absorb the cosmic radiation of the void and the solar energy of the sun to grow our strength. We spent decades in hibernation orbiting around the sun taking in massive amounts of that energy, we finally had the power to form resistance against the old gods and bring them down." he shuffled, presuming he had proper anatomy to make facial expressions behind his mask perhaps his would have been one of pride but personally I don't think he has a face.

"I am the last of earths first born god's, if I'm honest I'm very lucky that iv made it this long, that I was able to have a son and raise you. That energy is still inside of me to this day but my body has become too...weak to contain it all. My body is going to give out soon, I will evaporate, leaving nothing but a small portion of that energy and my essences.." he looked at Kid. "as the next grim reaper I need you to absorb them, and that will make you the true death god. And I will live on ever so slightly as a part of you." kid stared dumb founded at the reaper. "right, so no pressure." lord death leaned away from the table. "I'm going to have to address the academy and Death City, and tell them whats happening. And..introduce them all to their new leader." kid fell forward on the table "I think I'm going to be sick.."