It was saturday, warm and sunny, and people were outside all over the city. The Thompson sisters, BlackStar, and Soul were playing basketball, while Tsubaki and Maka sat nearby. After a few minutes, Maka put down her book.
"Do you think Lord Death still had Crona exiled after the fight or do you think Crona just left?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure. Lord Death hasn't said anything. It's been about a week and a half since Asura was defeated so you'd think that if Crona left on their own without telling anyone he would have told people to be out looking for them."
"I guess. I'm just worried about them."
"Maybe you should ask?"
"Stein didn't know."
"Hm."
In the background they could hear Liz whoop as Patty stole the ball from BlackStar and made a basket. Just then Akira jumped down from the brick ledge behind Maka and Tsubaki, starting them both.
"Hey." they said, sliding down to sit with them.
"Aren't you supposed to be in the dispensary?" Maka asked.
"Three days is more than enough time laying around for a stab wound. It's not like the blade was that wide."
"Does Lord Death know you're gone?"
"Uhh… maybe…"
"Does Mira know you left?" Tsubaki questioned.
"Probably."
"You shouldn't be here, should you."
"I'm fine though." Akira shrugged, slightly concerned that they were going to make him walk all the way back to the dispensary. The girls sighed in unison.
"Yo dude! You're back!" BlackStar yelled. Akira grinned and waved.
"You wanna play with us?" Soul called.
"Nah, I'm good." They crossed their legs and looked up at the orange-turning tree leaves above all of them.
"It would be blooming season now if we were in my mom's realm." They said quietly.
"What's blooming season?" Maka asked, putting her book back down.
"It's sort of like spring, all of the plants bloom, and the whole world smells like flowers," Akira said wistfully, "the season after is like fall here, where everything is harvested, except the plants don't go dormant. Then the Growth season is where everything comes back after being harvested, but it still takes a while before it's Blooming Season again."
"How different is it from here?"
"There's a lot of parallels, but it's a bit smaller. Some of the animals and plants have different traits, but I could tell what they're like based on what they were in the Lower Realm. I think the biggest difference though is in the Great Forest. Some of the trees there are called Ironwood trees, like a few types of wood here and above are, but they grow from enchanted veins of metal and sprouted from the ground. Some areas like that have metal plants whose magic attract certain minerals, and they accumulate into crystals like amethyst and jade, and all kinds of things. Some of the animals are made from naturally animated objects, like golems almost. Some are made purposefully of course, but the natural ones are always the most interesting. You could never leave firewood out too long back in the main city because after a couple of days it might become it's own creature and run away, same thing with garbage. And the dragons would get into everything too so the whole place was kept pretty clean mostly just to avoid that kinda stuff."
"Hold on, you guys had dragons?" Maka asked, amazed.
"Yeah. They're pretty small, like, komodo dragon sized are the biggest they get, most are the size of just common lizards or salamanders. There's different kinds of course but Middle Realm lore kind of over-glorified them based on old dinosaur bones. They can't actually get that big anymore. There aren't nearly enough resources."
"So magic is a huge thing in your old realm, huh?" Tsubaki noted.
"Yeah. It occurs as naturally as water and it's something everything there can harness and use to some degree, if their soul doesn't produce magical energy in of it's own as a separate wavelength anyway."
"So, like a witch?"
"I guess."
"Can you do magic?" Maka asked curiously.
"Of course I can do magic, only humans can't, and even then Weapons and Meisters are a small amount of magic on their own since they have the ability to use wavelengths. You wanna see?"
"Sure."
Akira picked up a thin stick about a foot long, and it's sky-facing end burst into sparks of brilliant colors. Where the sparks landed on the ground small ash constructs appeared in the color of the sparks, delicately shaped into flowers. The girls stared in awe. When the stick got down to only an inch left, it sputtered out.
"That was amazing." Tsubaki murmured.
"Thanks!" Akira said excitedly, "I haven't done anything like that in a while, I was a little worried it wouldn't turn out right!"
"Elder?" a royal-looking woman asked from the entrance of the basketball court. Everyone stopped to stare at her.
"Ma!" Akira leaped up from the ground and ran to her. They hugged one another tightly.
"That's Kid's mom?" BlackStar asked, looking over his shoulder at Soul.
"She looks like a princess!" Patty marveled.
"Yeah, she's a queen actually." Soul remarked, glancing at Maka and Tsubaki and then back at the family reunion.
"Look at you," Akira's mother said holding him by the shoulders out from her, "My beautiful child, how you've grown!" She pulled them in for another hug. "Have you been able to get used to being here?"
"No." Akira mumbled. Memoria let out a deep sigh.
"Have you made any friends yet?"
"Yeah, they're over there."
Memoria looked up at the group of slightly bewildered human teenagers and smiled gratefully.
"Now," she said, looking down again, "We're going to take the opportunity of the four of us being in the same place to have a regular Council, even though it will take some time to get all of Life's children here for reports. So I'm going to be here for a while, alright?"
"Is Rowan with you?"
"She's in the realm somewhere, doing her own thing. I'm not quite sure what her deal is right now to be honest." Memoria admitted.
"Are you worried?"
"I trust that she can handle herself."
"Are you worried though?"
"A little, yes, but I worry about the two of you regardless of the circumstances. It's a parent thing," she laughed. Akira giggled with her. "So! Introduce me to your friends!" Memoria said.
When Akira turned back to them Liz thought he looked happier than she'd really ever seen them.
"This is Liz and her sister Patty, they were the first ones, and then I met BlackStar and Soul, and then Maka and Tsubaki." Akira said excitedly. Memoria smiled at each of them in turn.
"She looks so much kinder in person." Maka thought, remembering the way Kid's mother looked in the necklace picture.
"So why are you here?" Tsubaki asked.
"Has Elder explained the realms and the four Gods and everything to you six yet?"
Tsubaki nodded.
"Well, every so-often, the four of us have to get together and report the levels of corruption in the community. How many cases of Kishin eggs, and the trouble with the Gorgon sisters will be on Lord Death's report for example."
"What do you guys do that for?" BlackStar asked.
"We have found in the past," Memoria began calmly, though some tenseness was trickling into her voice, "that levels of corruption within the realms spike whenever something terrible pertaining to the gods is about to happen. In order to prevent something from starting up again, we are keeping an eye on possible warning signs."
"Is something going to happen?" questioned Soul, slightly suspicious. Memoria clenched her jaw.
"Only time will tell."