In which "family" doesn't always mean "forever."

Inazu's POV

We left Berry's mansion, Diana making sure to thank him for the oppurtunity, though there didn't seem to be much to thank him for. Asui was yammering about some flower from the garden, and Kira was talking to Diana about her new key.

"I wonder what it will be," she said, holding it close to her face before showing it to Diana. I walked up to her side.

"Can I have a look?" I asked. She looked up at me, her eyebrows knit together, before reluctantly handing it over to me. I could tell she didn't want to let it go, but apparently she trusted me enough anyways, which was nice. I examined it, looking at it from different angles to figure out what it was, though that wasn't particularly helpful. The symbol looked to me like a thunderbolt, which reminded me of a story I had been told when I was younger. The lady who took care of me when I was a kid was really into astronomy and the Greeks, and told me a bunch of stories. She especially liked to tell me about Zeus, and tried to convince me I was a descendant of him because of my lightning power.

It was lunchtime, and there was a bird at the birdfeeder by the window. I went with my lunch over to where Nanny was sitting, knitting, to look at it while I ate.

"Do you like the bird?" she asked. I nodded eagerly. Birds were so cool. They were able to go wherever they wanted, and could get there super fast by flying. They could be really pretty, too, because they came in lots of different colors. I wished I could be a bird.

"You know, Zeus had a special bird." My eyes widened, and I leaned towards Nanny to listen to the oncoming story.

"Really?" I asked. Nanny nodded, smiling.

"You didn't think Zeus carried all his lightning bolts himself, did you?" I frowned, looking back at the bird again. "He has a trusty bird that did that for him. And it's name was Aquila." I looked up at Nanny with awe and amazement. Maybe I could have a bird to carry my lightning, too, and be just like Zeus.

"Can I have a trusty bird, too?" I asked. Nanny chuckled.

"Oh, I don't know, Ina. Birds are a lot of responsibility, especially for someone as young as you," I looked back at the bird, who had now been joined by a couple other birds. Nanny gave me some cookies and sat with me while I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the birds.

"Maybe it's Aquila," I said, handing the key back to Kira. Her and Asui both looked at me quizically as we got our train tickets. "You know, Zeus's bird. That carried his lightning bolts."

"How do you know anything about Zeus?" Asui asked as we boarded the train and found seats.

"That's not important," I said, taking a seat next to him.

"Are you sure you don't want to sit next to Kira-chan?" Asui asked, not-so-subtely pouting about when I'd shoved him earlier. I glared at him.

"I'm fine just looking at her," I retorted.

"I'm sure you are," he said, winking and breaking out into laughter.

"You're not going to be laughing when this train starts up," I said. Asui could really get on my nerves sometimes. I leaned my head back as Kira and Diana got into the seat.

"Asui, come here," Diana said. As Asui leaned forward, so did Diana, punching him in the gut and knocking him out. She cracked a half-smile. "Now we should have a peaceful trip." Kira frowned down at the key on her lap, then looked around at the train cabin. Diana raised an eyebrow at her. "What's wrong now?" she asked.

"I don't know if there's enough room," she said, rubbing her thumb against the top.

"What are you planning on doing?" I asked, looking from her key to her face. She stood up, looking around the room before going out. She opened the door one last time, looking at Diana.

"I'm going to see if I can get the cabin next to us," Diana nodded and turned to look out the window.

"What is she doing?" I asked again, turning to Diana.

"She's going to get her contract and everything figured out with the new spirit," she responded without looking away from the window.

About twenty minutes passed, and I felt a strong burst of electricity coming from the back of the train. With such strong power on the train, and Kira still missing, I decided to look into it. i would be devastated if anything happened to her, especially when we weren't that far apart. I went to the last train car and knocked on the door.

"Kira?" I asked. The door opened.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. I scratched the back of my head and looked down at the ground.

"I just...wanted to see what you were doing," This was so frustrating. I wasn't doing anything bad, and my intentions weren't impure or anything, so why was I acting all embarrassed? I knew what Asui would say, and decided to put the thought out of my mind. Nothing in this situation was wrong. Everything would remain civil. I followed Kira inside.

"So, what are you doing?" I asked. She held up the key.

"Watch and learn," she said, smiling at me. She stood with feet shoulder-width apart, and did some weird arm motion thing. A golden light glowed from the key, and the air filled with static electricity.

"Open, gate of the thunderbird! Aquila!" Kira declared. I smiled to myself. I had been right about the key. All because of some memory from my childhood. A small, duck-like creature formed on the ground.

"Wow," I said, obviously disappointed. I couldn't tell why Kira was practically glowing with pride. It didn't look to be very powerful or useful in any way. Really, it seemed she had a thing for picking out cute but useless spirits. She picked it up and held it against her chest, kissing it on the top of its head. From the legends I had been told as a child, I expected something larger and more powerful. I scratched my head in confusion. Kira looked up from the duck, noticing me again.

"I figured out it has two forms," she said. That would explain the burst of electricity earlier, I thought to myself.

"So, how do you get the other form?" I asked, curious. I needed to make sure this would actually be useful, in case we needed it.

"Well," she said, looking down at the duck again. "It can really only be accessed if the mage is in danger." I crossed my arms, and raised an eyebrow, looking around. How could she have figured that out if there was nothing here to put her in danger? I guess one of the boxes could have fallen on her, but it didn't look like anything was missing or out of order. "And it's kind of activated by screaming," she said, sheepishly rubbing her toe on the ground. I knit my eyebrows together, looking at her with both a look of concern and confusion.

"And it can't really tell the difference between excitement and terror," Kira looked up from her feet to me. My face went unamused. Her embarrassed blushing was cute, but that wasn't the point. We were talking about her spirit, not levels of attraction.

"Do you have everything figured out with your contract and whatever?" I asked. She nodded, and we headed back to the cabin. Diana was sitting with her head against the train window and her eyes closed, and Asui was still knocked out, taking up the entire seat. Kira sat next to Diana and I lifted Asui's head, sitting down before letting it down on my lap. His breathing hitched, then continued as normal after his head thunked onto my lap. After about another twenty minutes, we arrived at our stop. Diana had woken up sometime after Kira and I had returned and hauled Asui onto her shoulder, pulling Kira's luggage along with her other hand.

"So, what is that?" Diana asked after we had gotten off, pointing at Aquila, who was still in Kira's arms. It took the Celestial magess a minute to figure out what was going on, but once she figured it out, she held Aquila out to Diana.

"Oh, him? This is Aquila!" Diana scrunched her nose, looking at the duck with pure disgust. Kira matched the look with one of disappointment.

"Shouldn't he be bigger? Stronger?" Kira defensively pulled Aquila closer to her.

"He can be! When it's needed. And I like him just the way he is!" Diana rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"I hope it can protect you because it's just pathetic now." Kira humphed and turned her head.

As we approached the guild, it was quiet, which I could tell never happened, so something had to be wrong. I looked over to Diana. Her eyes were narrowed, her movements a bit stiff from how they'd been entering the city. Even Kira was frowning. She closed the gate on Aquila, sending a short look at Diana. That meant this definietly wasn't some tradion or surprise party.

"What's going on?" Asui asked wearily from Diana's shoulder. Noticing he was awake, she let him down, and I let him lean on my shoulder until he could stand on his own again.

"Something's wrong," Diana said, crossing her arms. Asui sniffed the air and frowned.

"It smells...different. Empty. It didn't smell like that when we first got here. And I barely hear anything inside, either," he said, looking up at me and grunting as he struggled to stand up all the way.

"We still have to go inside, right? I mean, this is still our home," Kira said. She walked to the door, shoving it open with a small sound. She headed in, but stopped right in the doorway.

"Kira?" Diana asked, gently pushing Kira to the side. I could hear her choke, but she still moved out of the way for Asui and me. We walked in together, and were greeted by a couple of guys drinking at some of the tables. Where was everyone else? I couldn't imagine losing our newfound family so soon. And what would have wiped out an entire guild, but not affected any of the rest of the town?

"They should have been back by now," Diana said.

"Back from what?" I asked. Kira and Diana looked at each other before looking back at me.

"I think we should tell him," Kira said. Diana nodded.

"Every year, the Master selects a few honored participants to compete for the title of S-Class wizard. This year, the trials were to take place on Tenroujima Island, our holy island. IOt's where our First Master was buried. The exam is only two or so days, even if it goes long. It's only supposed to take a day. But they left three days ago," she explained. Looking around, she found someone to ask what was going on. Macao, I think; I'd seen him drinking with one of the women a lot. Cana? It didn't matter. Even though I had only seen him a couple times, he already looked older.

"Do you know what happened?" Diana asked him. He shook his head.

"They were supposed to be back by now. We couldn't even find the place Makarov said he was taking them on a map. We asked around to see if they had been seen anywhere, but nobody knows anything. I don't know what we're going to do with the guild, either. There aren't really enough people to carry on anything. But we have to wait for the others. Hopefully they'll come back home soon."

Okay, that's it until next time. Like it? Leave us a review! Hate it? Send us some criticism! Either way, we're happy to have you with us!

Until next time!

Ninja~