Prologue
In the war-scarred foyer of the Fleur de Lune hotel, Kiara Takanashi frantically chased after Calliope Mori. That left Ame, Gura and Jenma to square off against the fearsome Jacqueline Chadwick and her mighty reaper's scythe on their own.
It was a three-to-one fight, but the menacing grin on Chadwick's lips was filled with unsettling confidence that made Ame's heart tremble. That grin alone told Ame that the odds weren't in their favor and that this battle was nowhere near fair. The senior reaper looked like a large, rugged lioness that was playing with her food before eviscerating them.
Once Kiara and Calliope disappeared from the foyer, Chadwick scoffed and hummed with amusement.
"So what will it be, detective?" Chadwick whirled her scythe skillfully and pointed it at Ame, "My offer to you still stands. Surrender the Priestess Ninomae and the pretender from another world to me and the Grim Reapers will leave you alone. You have my word." She then laid down the base of her scythe on the marble floor and gestured with her free hand, "Think of what you can do in that time! You can catalogue the Phoenix and tell the world about your adventures! Even the great Dr. Watson will be second fiddle to you!"
"As if any of that matters!" Ame stubbornly pointed her guns at Chadwick and sneered, "Lowry and the Gendarmes are mopping up your skeleton friends outside. You're in no position to negotiate! Gura, Jenma and I will send you back to the hell that you came from!"
"Hard-headed, foolish and brash… but that's why you caught my eye, detective." Chadwick's smirk widened and she picked up her scythe from the ground, "I've made my offers. Now I won't hold back!"
With scythe in tow, Chadwick launched herself at the defenders. Ame fired two shots at the senior reaper, but Chadwick danced around the bullets and closed the distance briskly.
Chadwick went for Gura first and tested the Atlantean's strength once more. Gura held her trident firmly and pushed back against Chadwick, but the senior reaper swung her scythe wide and gradually overpowered her.
Ame and Jenma tried to flank Chadwick, but the senior reaper skillfully whirled her scythe and formed a circle of whistling death around her. That whirling scythe was like a typhoon of otherworldly metal that cut through Ame's and Jenma's cheeks and drew blood - forcing them to stay back. It kept Gura's allies away and let Chadwick isolate her completely.
"Damn it!" Gura cursed beneath her breath.
"I've been waiting for this moment, shark-girl." Chadwick hissed and pressed the attack, "Your trident screwed up Death-sensei's plans with the RMS Teutonic. I had to take the blame for it."
"Why should I care about your problems at work!?" Gura hissed back and thrust her trident back.
"You're still alive, Gawr Gura - you wouldn't understand!" Chadwick lashed back.
All of the sudden, Chadwick intensified her attack. She struck down Gura's trident with an exceptionally powerful backhand swipe. Then, the senior reaper thrust the pole of her scythe into Gura's chest like a pool cue. That strike made Gura cough up blood and robbed her of her balance, but she stood up regardless.
Unfortunately, Chadwick wasn't done either.
The senior reaper retracted her scythe and grabbed Gura by the collar of her summer shirt. She then raised the small Atlantean high up in the air and threw her down onto the marble floor, tail-first.
Marble tiles cracked from the sheer strength of Chadwick's throw. Gura was left writhing in immense pain.
"Gura!" Ame cried.
Before the detective could say anything else, Chadwick continued her assault. She focused her attention on Jenma this time. Ame found a small window of opportunity when Chadwick shifted targets and peppered her with gunfire.
Chadwick's whirling scythe blocked out most of Ame's shots, but her bad position let three shots slip through her supposedly ironclad defense. Two shots struck her arm and another struck her leg, but the senior reaper didn't slow down at all.
It was going to take much more than that to take this behemoth down, Ame realized.
As soon as she had emptied her two revolvers, the detective saw Chadwick repeat her attack on Jenma this time. Unlike Gura, however, the management trainee was immediately put on the defensive. Jenma couldn't seem to properly parry the scythe!
"Pathetic!" Chadwick taunted Jenma mercilessly, "Your so-called senpai wielded that blade - that katana - better than you. She actually kept up with me and Mori and put up a hell of a fight!" The senior reaper then grinned, "Leaving the rest of her mission in the hands of a rookie like you? She must be ashamed!"
"I'm not a rookie!" Jenma argued, "I'm…!"
However, this frustration was exactly what Chadwick was hoping for. While Jenma was distracted, the senior reaper hooked her katana from behind. Chadwick then pulled Jenma close and hook-kicked her straight in the gut.
That powerful kick knocked the wind out of Jenma's sails and she fell fraily down to the ground. All of this happened before Ame could reload her two revolvers - almost in the blink of an eye!
"Not a rookie, my ass." Chadwick spat.
Victorious, the senior reaper walked away from her two crushed opponents and sauntered towards Ame.
"These were the people you entrusted your life with, detective?" The senior reaper gloated, "You're wasting your time with these chumps. Your indecision will only make them suffer more, Miss Watson." She then set the base of her scythe on the ground again and added, "Do you think that Lowry's cavalry, if you can call it that, will save you? I can beat that aristocrat girl so badly that she'll be crying for her daddy all the way back to London. It'll be so easy that it's almost sad."
Chadwick's words were harsh, but Ame could tell that the senior reaper wasn't bluffing. Seeing Gura and Jenma defeated on the ground, the detective's resolve was threatening to waver. Then, she recalled the words that Chadwick spoke when she appeared at the gates of the hotel earlier that night.
"You said I had potential, right?" The detective tested cautiously, "What the hell were you talking about, Chadwick?"
"Ah - yes, of course." Chadwick beamed at Ame, "Are you finally seeing the light? You have the potential to become a Grim Reaper, Miss Watson. Not just any Grim Reaper, mind you." She then looked Ame straight in the eye and revealed, "I can see you having a scythe to your name."
"Me?" Ame was distressed, "A scythe-wielding reaper?"
"You put too little faith in yourself, detective." Chadwick held her scythe firmly and explained, "The fire of your soul burns strong. That fire can forge a scythe like this baby here. In time, your name will be celebrated in the underworld!"
Ame, however, wasn't moved by the promise of fame and fortune. So, the senior reaper snickered.
"More importantly, you can stay at Priestess Ninomae's side too as her knight and guardian. The shark-girl can even be your squire, if you wish! The three of you can be together forever! Until the end of days!"
This time, Ame's lips crumpled and she clenched her fists at her sides. Chadwick, on the other hand, relished in the detective's anguish.
Once again, Ame could tell that Chadwick's words were true. This was a legitimate offer - one that the senior reaper would probably earnestly vouch for. After all, Chadwick's offers - as well as her threats - have been frighteningly genuine.
However, the detective had already made up her mind.
"You're a smoother talker than I thought, Chadwick. That's a tempting offer right there, I'll admit." Ame shored up her defiant tone with a spark of confidence, "But I'm not gonna let you decide how Ina, Gura and I get to live our lives!"
While Ame was speaking, she caught a glimpse of aquamarine sparkling faintly under the moonlight. Then, it was followed by the Atlantean's grunt.
"Hoocha!"
Chadwick turned around and found a trident sailing through the air like a javelin towards her head! The senior reaper whirled around and swatted the trident away. All the while, the unarmed, bloodied Gura rushed towards her in full sprint.
"I ain't going down that easy!" Gura roared and bared her teeth, "Don't look down on us, you bully!"
The senior reaper swung her scythe to ward off the charging Atlantean, but the petite Gura ducked easily under the swipe. Gura then drew ever closer and began throwing a flurry of powerful punches right onto Chadwick's gut. Her punches were strong enough to finally hurt the seemingly invincible behemoth.
Chadwick tried to answer with hook-kicks, but Gura kept her guard up and kept on punching her giant opponent. This forced the senior reaper to hop back and throw a strong roundhouse kick at Gura.
The Atlantean stepped back and blocked the kick with her guard, putting some distance between them. While Chadwick considered her options, however, she saw that Ame was now wielding Gura's trident and was charging towards her!
"Shit…" Chadwick cursed.
Ame thrust Gura's trident through the reaper's chest with clinical precision to make up for her lack of strength. She jammed the weapon between Chadwick's ribs and pushed as far as he could.
Chadwick's eyes went bloodshot and she struggled to pull out the weapon digging into her chest. That was when a long shadow loomed over her. The bruised Jenma approached her from behind and raised up her senpai 's katana as high as she could.
"This is for my senpai !" Jenma cried.
With one powerful stroke, Jenma cut cleanly through Chadwick's back and finally robbed the behemoth of her strength. All of the injuries that Chadwick had sustained brought her down to her knees, but her wounds were healing slowly but surely before Ame's eyes. Moreover, that confident grin that the senior reaper had since the beginning remained, albeit bloodied.
"Impressive…" Chadwick praised her enemies, "Perhaps I underestimated you, detective."
"No shit." Ame lashed. She drew her Webley revolver, pulled back the hammer with her thumb and then pointed it at Chadwick's forehead point-blank, "You Grim Reapers have to pay for what you've done - to all the passengers of the Teutonic… and to her sister ship the Olympic! You bastards sicced that Sea Serpent on us, didn't you!?"
"I don't take pleasure in my work, detective… especially if it's something I was against from the start." Chadwick argued, "But orders are orders… and I accomplished my mission tonight!"
When Chadwick said this, the shrill shriek of Kiara Takanashi reached Ame's ears - coming from the main lobby one room over. That shriek chilled the detective to the bone. She realized what Chadwick's plan had been all along!
"This won't be the last time we meet, detective. I'm immortal, after all." The senior reaper widened her grin and spoke with a haunting tone, "But I'm not so sure about your Phoenix friend. She's four months past her expiration… and my talented subordinate just ended her cycle."
Sick of Chadwick's voice and existence, primal instinct took over Ame's body. She pulled the trigger with a trembling finger, blasting Chadwick's brains onto the tarnished marble floors.
With that shot, Chadwick's 'body' finally dissolved into dust. Just like what Ame had seen so many times before, skin and innards were whisked away and left a skeleton wearing the senior reaper's fine, albeit war-torn clothes.
However, the detective had no stomach to examine the corpse before her.
"Jenma, go check up on Kiara." Ame turned to her companions with urgency, "Gura, come with me!"
Gura and Jenma nodded and they split up with their weapons in tow. The detective and the shark sprinted down the hallway to the guest rooms as quickly as their feet would take them. On their way to the honeymoon suite, however, they found that the door to the hotel courtyard that had been chained shut was now wide open.
"They broke the chain…" Gura gasped, "No…!"
Ame furrowed her brow and her heart ached in her chest, but she forced herself to carry on. She held onto a sliver of hope that Calliope Mori simply escaped the losing battle. That hope, however, quickly became poison when Ame came to the door of the honeymoon suite.
The door was slightly ajar and the room inside was dark as night. Ame's knees went weak, but she shored up every ounce of strength she had left to step inside.
Then, she whimpered.
Ina'nis Ninomae was gone.
AlterMyth
The Heart of the Detective
Forty-Fourth Scene - Aftermath
When the battle of the Fleur de Lune hotel came to an end, the electric lights were finally switched on again. Those lights revealed the full extent of the damage and made them plain to see. More than a hundred lifeless skeletons were sprawled out on the charred garden along with a myriad of weapons and the bloody corpses of a few dead horses. All the while, the now headless marble statue of an angel looked over the carnage and devastation around her.
Inside of the hotel, the foyer and the lobby looked like warzones. Scores of handsome furniture were smashed and ruined by the fierce duels that happened inside. Streaks of otherworldly flame left burn marks on the plaster walls and the cracked marble tiles as well.
The two French Gendarmes who had accompanied the Lowry Expedition were horrified by the sheer scope of the damage.
Overwhelmed, the Gendarmes took over the hotel's telegraph machine and begged their superiors for reinforcements from Bordeaux - and called for an undertaker or two to pick up all the bodies in the morning.
While the Gendarmes bumbled about their business, Jenma hobbled together a table and some chairs from their barricade in the ruined lobby. Gura and Ame, battered and bruised from their rough battle, sat crestfallen one one end of the table. Ophelia Lowry sat across from them with a grim expression etched on her face.
The aristocrat turned to the smashed grand piano and the pile of ashes that sat beside it. She saw that the entire mess was draped in the thick, worn traveling jacket that once apparently belonged to Kiara Takanashi. She then turned back to Ame and Gura and spoke.
"I'd congratulate you for completing the Great Phoenix Expedition… but I'd think that's the last thing you want to hear from me." Lowry grumbled, looked at the devastated lobby and remarked, "It's just like you said, Watson. This is bigger than either of us thought. Miss Chadwick was a Grim Reaper?"
"Going by how Chadwick acted, Captain Morrison probably is one too. He's the mastermind. I can tell." Ame answered with an equally grim tone. She then turned to the two overwhelmed Gendarmes bumbling about and groaned, "But that aside, I thought you were going to have Scotland Yard coordinate with their partners in the continent? These two were all you could come up with?"
Lowry was tempted to lash back at Ame's comment, but she just closed her eyes and frowned.
"Now listen here, Watson. The French Gendarmes haven't exactly been cooperative. They're still investigating the mess that you made in the Municipal Library. Getting them to send two officers here felt like pulling teeth. I would have paid the watch commander for more support too… but the banks have been denying my checkbook recently. They're claiming that my account was frozen because I'm supposedly deceased! Bollocks!"
Ame lowered her head, rubbed her temple and jabbed, "Why don't you just telegraph your dad to fix everything like he always does?"
"I've tried!" Lowry slammed her fist on the table, "The thing is… he hasn't been responding to my telegrams since we arrived in France."
"Then what the hell can we do!?" The detective rose up from her seat, "We're freaking screwed aren't we, huh!?"
Lowry rose up from her chair too, but Gura put herself in between the feuding neighbors.
"Ame! Lowry! Stop it, you two!" The Atlantean pushed them away from each other, "You're allies, you maniacs! We have to help each other here!"
"Well, I don't think we're going to get anything done tonight." Ame concluded with a huff, "We're just wasting our time. I'm not in the mood to deal with this right now."
"Me neither." Lowry agreed with a snarl. She then marched over to Jenma to talk about lodging for her expedition.
That left Gura alone with Ame at the table and an awkward silence lingered. All the while, there were many tense things that were left unsaid.
The troubled Atlantean tried to reach for Ame's hand to speak with her, but the detective slipped away and excused herself without saying a word. Ame marched briskly down the hallway out of Gura's sight.
Seeing Ame's back turned to her left a bitter taste in Gura's mouth. After all, for a brief moment, Gura thought she was looking at a mirror.
Gura clenched her fists and decided to follow the detective. For once, she was determined to have a stern conversation with her.
Forty-fifth Scene - Lean On Me
Even though the electrical lights of most of the hotel had been turned on, the lights in the honeymoon suite remained off when Gura entered the room. She found the detective seated on one end of the bed, facing the moon peeking through their boarded up window. Gura considered flicking the switch to turn on the lights, but Ame snapped at her.
"Don't turn on the lights, Gura."
Even though she had her back turned to Gura, the detective recognized her presence. Gura heaved a sigh and brought her hand away from the light switch. Instead, she sauntered over towards Ame - but the detective snapped at her again.
"Don't come closer!"
Normally, Gura followed Ame's orders obediently - but even the Atlantean could tell that something was wrong. Defiant, Gura carried on towards Ame's side.
"I told you to stay back Gura!" Ame lashed a third time, "I just lost a friend, okay!? I don't want to talk!"
"I lost a friend tonight too, Ame!" Gura retorted sharply, silencing the detective for once. The shark-girl brought her hands to her chest and reminded, "Ina is my friend too, Ame. You're not the only one in pain, dummy!"
Ame opened her mouth and was about to say something else, but she stopped halfway and fell silent. Gura took that as the signal to close the distance and sit beside her on the bed. Under the moonlight, the two of them sat there together quietly while Gura's shark tail wagged weakly behind her.
"I'm angry and worried about what happened tonight, Ame. I'm hurting inside too." Gura looked up to the moon and spoke from her heart, "But seeing you a while ago in the lobby scared me. You're bottling everything up inside… and you were going off on the girl who saved our hides with that cavalry she brought!"
"Gura…" Ame whispered with remorse.
"I was just like that too, Ame." Gura started with a tender tone, "After I lost my friends to the Sea Serpent, I wandered across America for thirty years. Trouble seemed to follow me wherever I went. I felt like it was always easier to run away to the next town - the next state - the next country - instead of facing up to my sorrows." The Atlantean lowered her eyes and continued, "I kept things bottled up. I kept my cards close to my chest. But those troubles just kept piling up higher and higher. All the booze in the world couldn't drown that beast I made. I ran out of places to run to."
Gura then turned to Ame with a warm, appreciative smile.
"Then I met you and Ina, Ame. I joined your gang and faced my fears head-on. I fought that Sea Serpent, rode alongside a Phoenix, duked it out with Grim Reapers! I did all that because I found something that I want to protect - you and Ina! Now, I want to believe that we can still get her back!"
When Ame heard Gura's determined, wholehearted words, tears started to form at the sides of the detective's eyes. All of the tears that she had been holding back were threatening to break through while she spoke with a cracked voice.
"I always dreamed of going on adventures, Gura… but I didn't stop to think of what would happen if I actually got my wish! It was my fault that Ina got wrapped up in this whole mess. We could have just spent our days in London… things would probably have turned out alright! But now, I… Now, I…!"
Ame gritted her teeth, struggling to keep talking under the weight of her looming feelings. Then, Gura laid her hand over Ame's.
"You're an incredible woman, Ame. You're talented, smart and brave… but you don't have to act strong all the time. We ain't perfect, but I promise you. You can rely on us… you can rely on me! I'll always be here for you, Ame… because I know you'll always be here for me, okay?"
This time, Ame finally broke down into tears. Even as she wept, Ame's fingers tenderly intertwined with Gura's. The Atlantean's tail then gently pulled Ame closer and let the crying detective rest her head on her shoulder.
"Gura…" Ame whimpered and embraced the Atlantean tightly, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry!"
Gura held Ame close and patted the detective's back. It reminded her of the time that Ame took care of her on the train to Portsmouth not too long ago. She finally got to return that favor, Gura quietly thought, but she kept that thought to herself for now.
"We'll bring Ina back home together. I know we will." Gura hugged Ame back and cooed, "Rest for now. Let everything out. I'll stay here as long as you need me to, A-me."
The shark rested her forehead on the detective's and she watched Ame tears sparkle brilliantly in the moonlight like diamonds. Ame wailed bitterly, but Gura held her close and kept their fingers intertwined through the storm that brewed in the detective's heart.
Gura became Ame's safe harbor - and didn't say a word until the both of them fell asleep in each other's arms.
Forty-Sixth Scene - Watson's Oath
The next morning, just as the sun was starting to rise over the ruined Fleur de Lune hotel, Gura dragged Ame out of the honeymoon suite and into the lobby. There, they found Jenma serving breakfast to the Lowry expedition while a larger contingent of Gendarmes arrived together with undertakers to properly survey the hotel-turned-battlefield.
Lowry's expression soured when she saw Ame, but the detective beat her to the punch and promptly apologized.
"I'm sorry for lashing out at you last night, Lowry. I wasn't thinking straight. A lot of things happened, you see, but I'm feeling better now." Ame spoke honestly and clearly, "This situation is much worse than we thought, so I hope we can continue to cooperate."
The aristocrat sipped on her tea and then heaved a sigh.
"At least you apologized." Lowry stubbornly accepted, "The two of us are even now. I lost the Phoenix Expedition and I've repaid you my favors. I'm heading back to London to see what's going on with my father, but what are you planning to do?"
"We're going to look for Ina and track down the Grim Reapers." Ame explained plainly, "They brought her somewhere and I'm…" She then stopped and held Gura's hand in hers, "I mean, we're going to find them. We're not going back to London without her."
"How are you planning to do that?" The aristocrat tested.
"I've tracked a lot of riders in the past, Miss Lowry." Gura spoke this time with budding confidence, "Give us horses and we'll find out where those varmints went!"
"Fine by me. I'll have my bodyguards patrol the area too to help the search." Lowry accepted easily. She then spoke with a rare sliver or humility, "On that note, it's my turn to ask a favour from you, Amelia."
"What do you need, Ophelia?" Ame answered cordially.
"When I get to London, I want to meet with Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. I'm afraid that something is amiss back home, so can you arrange a meeting for me?"
"I'll send them a telegram." Ame offered her hand to her rival, "And thanks for the support. You're not as bad as I thought."
"We have no choice but to help each other, but…" Lowry shook Ame's hand as well, "You're welcome."
With that, Ame, Gura and Ophelia ate a simple but hearty breakfast together with their teams in the still-devastated lobby. Once everyone had their fill of food and drink, they went to the stables and mounted their horses to begin the search.
Gura led the group and had them fan out through the forest with surprising skill.
"I've had to search for runaway varmints in West Virginia like this in the past, Ame. Bounty huntin' brought in the money, after all!" Gura gave the detective a thumbs up as they rode together, "This cowgirl knows a thing or two, so trust me more okay?"
"I do trust you!" Ame smiled back at her companion, "Lead the way, sharkie~!"
Gura put on her white, wide-brimmed hat and grinned, "Leave it to me, pardner!"
They carried on like that for a while and Ame rode alongside her talented companion. Before long, Gura spotted some relatively fresh tracks in the forest. The cowgirl showed them to Ame and the two of them followed the trail of tracks through a thicket.
That path led them to a clearing in the forest where the remnants of a camp were scattered about. There were leftover pitches for tents, scraps of food and the remains of campfires with dying embers.
"This must be where they staged their attack." Gura rode around the camp and assessed, "They cleared out at night in a hurry so they left a lot of things… but there's no tracks out of this place! How did they get out!?"
Ame hopped off of her horse, walked through the camp and looked at the remains with a keener eye. That was when she came across an unusual spot of scorched earth in the far corner of the camp. There, she found a strange, cracked black orb that shimmered in the sunlight.
"Obsidian?" The detective guessed.
Beside that obsidian orb, Ame found a large, black beret that almost blended in with the scorched earth. She picked it up and she recognized it immediately.
"This is Ina's beret." Ame reported. She then showed the black orb to Gura and explained, "I don't know how, but this is probably how they got out. Some sort of teleportation, perhaps? A portal, maybe?"
"After everything we've been through, Ame, I think you're probably right." Gura wore a trusting grin, "Now all we have to do is find out how those reapers used that thingy!"
"Yeah." Ame nodded and held the beret and the obsidian orb close to her heart. Then, she spoke with a soft but resolute voice, "When we do, we're bringing you back home, Ina. Together, right Gura?"
The shark-girl's smile grew warmer and she nodded.
"Yeah, Ame. Together."
Epilogue
The hopeful conversation that Ame and Gura were having traveled far through the abyss like disembodied whispers in the darkness and somehow reached the waning subconscious of Ina'nis Ninomae.
The librarian tried to reach out to those disembodied voices and call out to them, but she couldn't move her body or call out for them. Even if she did, she couldn't help but feel like Ame and Gura wouldn't be able to hear her.
Despite this stark reality, those voices comforted her and pushed back against the lingering nightmare of darkness that filled her dreams. Those dreams of darkness, paired with knowledge of things that would drive people insane, were forced onto her when she touched the strange book in the Bordeaux Municipal Library basement.
That was the last memory Ina had before she was dragged into her unnatural slumber.
When Ina heard those voices, her consciousness started to stir. Slowly but surely, Ina started to regain control of her body and her senses.
The first thing that she felt was an odd heat that enveloped her. It was like the heatwave that she experienced in the Fleur de Lune hotel but was somehow wasn't quite as oppressive.
Next, Ina felt herself being carried in someone's arms. The texture of hands calloused by combat and practice firmly held her shoulder and leg in place. All the while, Ina could feel the familiar weight of the odd book from the library that she still somehow firmly cradled close to her heart.
After that, she heard a cacophony of cheers and rattling bones that echoed like it would in a large, deep cave. Those cheers were rhythmic and were paired with the sounding of trumpets and the beating of drums - just like the many Victoria Day parades that Ina attended in Ottawa or the summer festivals from her youth in the Far East.
Spurred by those memories, Ina finally dared to open her eyes.
Once she did, she regarded a world of fire and brimstone that sprawled around her - just like it did in her prophetic dreams in the past. There were Grim Reapers gathered there cheering for the otherworldly parade. Some of them wore the false ashen skin that Ina had seen in the library but the others retained their skeletal forms.
Despite all this, these beings - skeletal or not - were full of life and joy.
While Ina passed by in the strange procession, the Grim Reapers were throwing bunches of red flowers around. Many flowers flew over her while many more landed on the brimstone brick ground beneath her and the person that was carrying her.
One of those flowers landed on her book and she finally recognized what it was.
Beautiful red spider lilies in full bloom.
Were these spider lilies for her?
Confused, Ina raised her eyes up to the person that was carrying her.
She saw a beautiful, pink-haired girl with a beautiful face and strong shoulders that looked forward dutifully as she walked through the procession. Something deep inside Ina's soul told her that this girl was a Grim Reaper - and a powerful one at that.
And yet, she was so gentle.
Tender, almost.
That Grim Reaper kept a stoic silence throughout the procession. When she noticed Ina stirring in her arms, however, the reaper hobbled together a weak smile for her and spoke to her.
"Welcome to the underworld, Priestess Ninomae. I'm Calliope Mori. I'll be your companion while you're here…" Her expression then wavered when she continued, "Until the ritual is complete."
To Be Continued