BM - Chapter 9 - Hearts and Souls

Cool Fact: This is the longest chapter to date

Amelia felt her mind being pulled out from a haze. She didn't really want to leave, though. It was comfortable here. So cold and painless, like a doctor's office. The tugging became more persistent, causing her eyes to slightly flutter open.

Calliope Mori was shaking her limp body back and forth. Amelia felt the stinging pain of her burns come back. She really wished she was still unconscious.

"Oh thank fuck…" Calliope said, sitting back.

"It looks like she is still conscious after all," a voice boomed from somewhere nearby. This really woke Amelia up. She sat up with a jolt and looked around. She flinched from the pain she caused herself.

"Don't scare her," Calliope complained to the unknown voice. Amelia finally saw the floating skull just behind Calliope. The rest of its body was cloaked in some kind of shadow. It made actually seeing them very difficult, as if she couldn't focus her eyes on them.

"Sorry about that," they said. The shadow cloak fell off of their body, revealing someone that looked like they belonged in an anime. They wore a large robe adorned with several shiny metals and jewels. Their body was nothing but a skeleton, no skin or muscle. It was like they were…

"Death-sensei, now that she is awake can we actually talk about what I came here for?" Calliope was impatient as ever, wanting to jump straight into the issue at hand. Death-sensei frowned. Wait, how did a skeleton frown?

"Now now Calliope, your friend just woke up. How about we give her a bit of time to recover?" they offered. Calliope crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"Always one to delay. And she is not my friend, just so you know." Amelia almost felt hurt by that statement. However, memories of the fight they'd just had verified that the statement was true. Friends don't throw friends around like ragdolls to get something they want done.

"You carrying her all the way here says otherwise." Amelia looked at Calliope, who was still trying to burn holes into Death-sensei, and then looked over at the robed skeleton.

"S-she did what?" she asked, her voice cracking under disuse. How long had she been out?

"It was already a great risk to bring you down into the Underworld. Mortals tend to break under the intense atmosphere down here. However, she did that to save your life and then she carried you for a full day to get you here," Death-sensei explained. Amelia felt her jaw fall onto the floor. "You two catch up, I'll be back in a few." Death-sensei vanished into a dark shadow underneath them, leaving only the two girls in the large room.

Now that Amelia actually had a moment to breathe, she took in her surroundings. She was currently in a large room, completely devoid of any furniture or defining features. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all seemingly made out of shadows. It was still solid, though.

"This is Death-sensei's chamber," Calliope broke the complete silence, "I brought you here since it is the only place you could get help. I still need you alive to Destabilize the Crystal. This wasn't because we're friends." Calliope sat down on the floor a few feet away from Amelia. She put her chin in the palm of her hand and stared up at the ceiling.

"W-well, thank you anyways…" Amelia said dryly. She flinched again as more pain shot through her body. She moved an arm out in front of her and examined the burns. There was a dark cloth wrapped around them, along with a sticky, black substance. It felt cool to the touch. Amelia began to put the pieces in her mind together.

The fabric was once a part of Calliope's clothing and the black substance was probably Shadow magic. She knew her wounds weren't life threatening, so why did Calliope go through all effort to help her? All the time they had known each other, they had been at each other's throats. Quite literally sometimes.

"Stop thinking!" Calliope noticed the train of thought Amelia was on and tried to derail it. Amelia couldn't help but think 'tsundere' at that moment.

"Sup, I'm back," Death-sensei reappeared from the shadowy floor. They walked, floated, over to the girls and sat, lowered, himself down to their levels.

"Can we please speak about this now?" Calliope practically begged them. Death-sensei thought for a moment.

"Possibly, but I want to hear about Amelia Watson first." Calliope tried her best to not go completely berserk in that moment, taking a deep breath in and out. She didn't need to breathe, obviously, but it helped calm her nerves.

"Watson, this is Death-sensei the ruler of the Underworld and my teacher. Death-sensei, this is Amelia Watson, a stranded time traveler and a pathological liar." The reaper very obviously played one of them up and the other one down. Amelia wasn't at all surprised.

"Well then, it is nice to meet you, Amelia Watson. Calliope has been searching for you for sometime now." Death-sensei nodde towards his student. "I look forward to seeing how you'll do in your life." Amelia didn't know whether to be comfortable or terrified of the skeleton in front of her. The two vibes they gave off, one of death and one of chill, just didn't mix well with her.

"So I've been out for a day?" she asked. Death-sensei chuckled slightly.

"Not quite. You've been knocked out for three days by this point, if you go by Earth's timing." Amelia would have stood up in a panic if she wouldn't end up in so much pain from it.

"What?! Three days?!" She looked frantically over at Calliope, who just nodded in agreement.

"You passed out immediately after we entered the Underworld. I honestly thought that you were going to be out until we left, but you never stopped stirring. It made applying those wraps really difficult," Calliope said.

"Why were you trying to wake me up?"

"I wanted to meet you," Death-sensei answered this time. "I could feel that you were only unconscious from your wounds and not because of the pressure here. Very few mortals can manage that."

"Speaking of those mortals, Phoenixes," Calliope abruptly shifted the topic in her favor.

"Ah yes, you were coming back from the Hatchery. I think I can assume that it didn't go as planned, did it?" Death-sensei was blissfully unaware of the rage building in Calliope.

"Indeed it didn't. Kusotori died and Watson got hurt. It could've been a lot worse." Death-sensei sighed.

"I'm glad it wasn't," he said with relief. Calliope felt her eye twitch in anger.

"What gives you the right to be thankful for our safety?" she asked, holding back the best she could. Amelia could almost feel the air vibrating.

"Why wouldn't I be? You're my apprentice-"

"An apprentice that you didn't warn about the things that happened at that damn Hatchery!" Calliope was done with her act. Death-sensei recoiled slightly from the words directed at them.

"Where in the Underworld is that coming from, Calliope?" they asked in shock.

"Don't you play dumb. You may be old, but I know that memory wouldn't forget the killing of an entire race by Reapers!" Calliope lashed out. She gritted her teeth in anger. Amelia became worried that this might get ugly.

"What are you talking about? Reapers stopped hunting Phoenixes millennia ago. They slowly died out here, rebirthing their way into other timelines. Only Kiara and a few others can stay in one after a rebirth."

"Bullshit. Don't lie to me!"

"I'm not lying, Calliope! I would've certainly remembered something like that." Death-sensei rested his forehead against their bony palm. "You've looked through the Archive at least a dozen times, so you know that is not true."

"There were slashes from scythes and a Dark magic nullification barrier around it. If Kiara and I weren't so sharp, we could've just walked right past it."

"This is very odd. I will check the Archive once again to be sure, but I doubt I'll find anything new. Stay right here." Death-sensei left the chamber once again. Amelia felt the tension in the air lessen slowly. After a minute, she felt that it was safe to speak.

"What's the Archive?" she asked innocently.

"A record of the history of the Underworld and Reapers. It keeps track of everyone who dies and everyone who is reborn," Calliope explained.

"Wait, people get reborn?" Calliope nodded.

"It takes tens of thousands of years, but every soul eventually gets recycled. Over that time, they slowly lose their memories, though. The reason Phoenixes can be reborn with their memories and bodies intact is because of how little time they spend down here." Amelia leaned back, satisfied with the answer she'd been given. After a little while longer, Death-sensei returned.

"I looked through the last few centuries and we did have an influx of Phoenixes on one particular day. However that day was square in the Forgotten Times, so it is most likely that they were killed in that war." Calliope's anger tried to find a target, but was unable to.

"Damn it!" she yelled in anger, smashing the ground with a fist.

"Are you sure they were killed and not reborn?" Death-sensei asked.

"There were skeletons all over that place. They were killed, permanently." Calliope clenched her fists even harder.

"So in the mix of the Phoenixes killed in the war, there were Phoenixes killed in the Hatchery," Death-sensei surmised. Calliope relaxed her fists, trying to think about the situation more logically.

"But why didn't their souls say anything?" she asked a question that no one in the room had an answer for.

"Their souls may have been led astray by those same Reapers. I hate to think that some of us might do such a thing, but I must realize the possibility." Death-sensei was obviously disturbed by the current revelations. He had so much faith in their Reaper's abilities to perform their jobs, to think some of them would go behind his back…

"It must have been a radical group of hunters. They took advantage of the war to sneak around and kill the Phoenixes in the Hatchery. There is no way anyone else could've done what I saw…" Calliope looked as if she was having flashbacks. Death-sensei put a hand on her shoulder.

"That is possible, although unlikely. I'll ask and search around, but in the meantime," they looked over at Amelia, "I think you have some important things to talk about."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Calliope almost pouted.

"Go and grab Kiara's soul and get out of here. I'm sure the others aren't happy with your long absence."

"Pft, they don't care about where I've been."

"Maybe, but they do care where Amelia has been." Calliope turned incredibly pale and her eyes became wide. It was as if she hadn't even considered that possibility before.

"I-I would like to get back to the living world," Amelia said meekly. Death-sensei patted Calliope on the back and vanished once more.

Calliope stood up and offered a hand to help Amelia do the same. Amelia accepted it and got up from the floor. She hissed slightly from the movement, but it was much more bearable than when she had just woken up.

"Since you can't Shadow Walk out of here, we're going to be walking for a while," Calliope said. Amelia sighed.

"Plenty of time for us to talk then," she replied with less confidence than she wanted to.

"Oh really, we're going to talk?"

"Yeah, a lot." Amelia liked her tone that time.

"Might as well start now then," Calliope said, starting to walk towards one of the shadowy walls. It was a good distance away from them.

"Well, let's start with that fight we had." Amelia started walking, too, enjoying the cool sensation of the shadows on her burns.

"What about it?" Calliope crossed her arms.

"I'm sorry about what I said, ok? It wasn't right for me to insult you like that in that situation." Amelia looked down at the floor, feeling at least partially responsible for the chaos that had gotten Kiara killed.

"I shouldn't have lashed out at you in retaliation. We were so close and I ruined it by trying to force you. I could have just waited a few minutes." Calliope also felt responsible, so they did have a middle ground to stand on.

"Emotions are a tricky thing." Calliope seemed to flinch at that statement. It was extremely uncommon for her to be phased by words, especially flinch. "What's wrong?" Amelia asked.

"N-nothing. Just a personal issue," Calliope dodged around the question. Amelia, feeling it would be best to avoid confrontation for now, changed topics.

"Sorry, I won't pry into it." Calliope heard the undertones in Amelia's voice.

"Alright, I'm sorry for calling you a liar."

"Unfortunately, you weren't wrong." Calliope would have enjoyed being right in her deduction, but she was too busy feeling like shit. "But it was still none of your business."

"I understand. We all have things we want to keep to ourselves and those we trust." Calliope and Amelia finally reached the shadow wall. Calliope stuck her hand out to the side and summoned her scythe from the shadows. She then cut through the wall in one swing, opening up a hole for them to pass through. She stepped in and gestured for Amelia to follow.

"Wow, this place…" Amelia finally got to see what the Underworld was truly like. A massive, misty field that stretched on for what seemed like forever was in front of them. It seemed so peaceful, like it was calling to her.

"That's where souls go to be cleansed. It shows them visions of their past life, a life they wish they had, a new life entirely. They know it's fake of course, don't think that you're dead now or something, but it helps them deal with being at the end of life's journey." Calliope explained what they were looking at.

"So that's where Kiara is, I assume?" Calliope nodded.

"You assume correctly. Let's move." They both set off down the trail that led to the Field of Souls. After a few minutes of silent walking, Amelia finally got another question out.

"Why are we going to get Kiara? Shouldn't she be fine just rebirthing on her own?" Calliope's walking pace slowed slightly. Amelia was glad because the Reaper's longer legs made her normal walking pace extremely fast for her.

"You are correct that she can just rebirth on her own. In fact, she can rebirth into our timeline again no problem. However, her memory will not be very good for a while. We are going to grab her soul before her memory gets too bad," Calliope explained.

"How nice of you," Amelia commented. Calliope shrugged, picking her walking pace back up again.

"It's what friends do for each other."

"You consider her your friend? I didn't know you were capable of such things." Amelia made sure her tone of voice was obviously playful. Calliope didn't seem to mind.

"Yes, I do and she feels the same."

"Are you sure it's not something more?" Amelia had noticed the closeness between Kiara and Calliope. It was something she'd seen before. Between an old best friend and an old crush…

"What are you talking about, Watson? Kiara might be a little bit more friendly, but there is nothing else there." Amelia doubted every word that came out of the Reaper's mouth. She had heard that tone of voice before. Her own from nearly three years ago.

"I understand keeping your true feelings from people you don't trust, but don't keep them from yourself, too." Even if she didn't tell anyone about her crush on Gura, she wouldn't lie to herself and say that it didn't exist.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Calliope tried to cut off the topic. Amelia wasn't going to be as nice as she had been before.

"Come on, at least tell me that you notice her," Amelia pushed. Calliope frowned, slowing in pace.

"If you are going to keep things from me, then I have the right to keep things from you," she answered with a voice that was quieter than her normal one. It sounded like she wanted to tell Amelia, but didn't know how to with their current relationship.

Amelia stopped walking entirely and looked around. She looked up at the purple haze above them and down and the red dirt path below them. It wasn't because she was looking for anyone who might be listening in, but because she needed to choose her next words carefully.

She had never told anyone about what really caused her previous timeline to nearly collapse. Should she- no- Could she tell Calliope about it? If they wanted to succeed in their mission to reclaim Kiara's memories, they might have to be honest with each other.

That thought honestly terrified her. The only reason she was friends with this timeline's Gura and Ina was because they didn't know what she had done before. If they knew the true reason, they would hate her. Amelia felt her breathing rate increase. Calliope walked over to her and crouched down. When had Amelia lowered herself to the ground?

"You're ok, Watson. Just breathe," the Reaper offered the few words she could to try and help. Amelia blinked rapidly to try and ground herself. All that shit she had just spouted about being honest with yourself, and she couldn't even think about her past for longer than a few moments without having a panic attack.

"I'm fine, Calli. Thanks." Amelia allowed her breathing to slow back to its normal rate.

"Are you avoiding telling others about your past because they would hate you for it, or because you would hate yourself?" Amelia clenched her hands into fists, not to fight, but because she needed some outlet for her anger. Her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood. Her lip quivered as she tried not to break down crying.

Of course the socially inept Reaper would hit the nail on the head. She hated herself for what she had done. Abusing a power she didn't fully understand without thinking for something as stupid as trying to get with a crush. She was pathetic. She didn't deserve to be around her friends or live a happy life.

"It's all my fault…" Amelia felt the first tears start to pour down her face. She raised a fist up into the air and punched the ground. It reminded her of the last action she'd taken in her timeline, smashing the Droplet in a last resort attempt to fix everything.

"I'm not going after the Crystal just for Kiara, you know," Calliope said, breaking through Amelia's foggy mind. The time traveler looked up at the Reaper who was walking a short distance away from her. "The reason I was so persistent with you is that I was trying to hide my own selfish motivations."

"A person always looks for their own flaws in others…" Amelia said quietly. She felt her heart rate stabilize and the dark thoughts flow into the back of her mind. For now, she would listen to Calliope.

"I need the Crystal for something that I want. It isn't for Kiara or anyone else, just myself." Calliope turned back around and walked over to Amelia again. She crouched down and stared her in the eyes. "Let's not hide anything now, for both our sake and our friends."

"Alright, no more secrets." Amelia slowly got to her feet. The two began to walk down the path again, but at a much slower pace than before.

"I know that Kiara has feelings for me. I know that they are more than just friendly feelings. But I can't reciprocate them." Calliope started her side of the conversation first.

"You don't feel the same way about her." Amelia knew that feeling. For some reason, she always felt that her timeline's Gura would never reciprocate her feelings. That was why she left her to Ina in the end.

"No, it is more complicated than that. I want to love her back, but I can't." Amelia laughed dryly.

"Tsundere." Calliope shook her head in frustration.

"No, Watson. It's not that I'm denying her my feelings out of pride or some other sick reason. I can't love her because I don't know how to love." Amelia took a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever Calliope was going to say next.

"I'm different from you Mortals, all Reapers are. Our souls are fundamentally different. Mine is incapable of experiencing emotions. No immortal soul can truly feel love or depression. We can feel light emotions, however, like happiness or sadness. It still allows us to function as autonomous beings, but contains us to our jobs."

"I-I'm so sorry." Amelia felt incredibly bad for Calliope. She couldn't imagine a life in which she couldn't feel anything besides the slightest of emotions. It would be torture of the highest degree.

"I want to use the Crystal to change that." Calliope finally revealed her motive. Amelia furrowed her brow out of confusion.

"How would you get emotions by messing with time? Plus, that is very dangerous, Calli." The Reaper nodded.

"I understand the risks, but I wouldn't be altering any timelines, just the way my soul travels through time."

"Does that have to do with how you can bypass my Destabilization?" Calliope nodded once again.

"Yes, us Reapers do not follow the normal splitting of time. We still split along with timelines, but we make the same decisions in every timeline that needs that decision made. Immortal souls are incapable of splitting a timeline with a decision." Amelia's eyes suddenly went wide. A horrific realization dawned on her.

"Calli, do you have free will?" The Reaper seemed to be expecting this question and laughed slightly.

"Yes, I do. My actions are my own, they aren't set in stone beforehand. It just so happens that whatever decision I make is the one I make in every timeline." Amelia scratched her head. It was a weird middle ground she had never really thought about. Being able to make a decision, but whatever you choose is what happens in every timeline.

"Huh," was all she could manage. Calliope continued her explanation.

"The Crystal should let me change this, though. I have done decades, if not centuries of research on this topic. No Reaper has tried because no Reaper has spent as much time in the Overworld as me." Amelia knew that Kiara was the sole reason Calliope had spent so much time with mortals. It was a nice thought.

"So if you change the way your soul travels through time, you hope to trick it into allowing you to feel emotions?" Amelia filled in the gaps. Calliope sighed and put her hands behind her head.

"Transfiguring my soul is only the first part. I have made a mortal body to reside in as well." This really surprised Amelia.

"Oh wow, I mean I knew that your current body wasn't mortal, but that must have taken a long time to make," she said.

"Not really. The body isn't anything special, but I can't use it if I don't have a mortal soul."

"So with a combination of a mortal soul and mortal body, you hope to gain the benefits of emotions without losing your Reaper powers?"

"That's the idea. Theoretically I should be able to keep my job as a Reaper, but I would lose my regeneration and a bit of my magical potential. It will all be worth it, though," Calliope was steadfast on her goal of gaining emotions.

"Well, not to burst your bubble or anything like that, but emotions aren't all they're cracked up to be," Amelia knew it was time to explain her side of the conversation now. Calliope listened for her to start.

"My parents were not the reason I went back in time and fucked everything up. I went back because I had a crush on…" she hesitated, debating on whether or not she should name Gura as the girl or not. Calliope didn't give her the chance to make a decision.

"It was Gura or Ina, wasn't it?" she assumed correctly. Amelia gritted her teeth and took a deep breath.

"Yes, it was Gura. Ina was my best friend and they ended up in a secret relationship. I was just overwhelmed by the thought of losing both my best friend and crush that I broke down and used my watch. It was so stupid and childish."

"I don't think your parents didn't play a role in it." Amelia snapped her head over to look at Calliope.

"Why would you think that?!" she asked a little too frantically for her liking.

"The story you told us before was too real to not be true. Maybe it wasn't the whole truth, but it was true." Amelia lowered her eyes from the Reaper and nodded slowly.

"Yeah, it was all true. The only part I left out was my crush on Gura."

"Your parents most certainly influence your decision to go back. You wanted to see if you could save them, no matter how far that reasoning was buried."

"You're right…" Amelia felt like she didn't really know who she was or what she wanted now. Was she really as bad of a person as she painted herself? Would they all really hate her as much as she thought they would? Why was she hiding it from them? It was because,

"I want them to hate me." Amelia saw what she had really been planning. "I want them to hate me so that I can leave this timeline with no guilt. If they hate me because of what I did, I can go back to my previous timeline and not look back at this one."

"But is that what you really want?" Amelia felt the Reaper's words tear right through her heart.

"N-no… O-of course I-I don't…" Amelia felt the hiccups starting to rise up from her throat. That also meant her emotions were starting to unravel again.

"I've tried that whole making them hate you think before," Calliope changed the topic to save Amelia's emotions yet again. Amelia took a few deep breaths to control herself before nodding to Calliope to continue.

"What do you mean you've tried it before?"

"I was still a new and naive Reaper when I first met Kiara. She was the Phoenix that I was trying to hunt to impress Death-sensei. Never would I have imagined that I would fail and end up with a friend for 'life', I guess." Amelia couldn't help but laugh a little at Calliope's cheeky attempt at humor.

"I can imagine that she played you like a fiddle in that fight." Calliope sighed and shook her head with a light smile on her face.

"Of course she did. Like I said, I was new and naive, so I got my ass handed to me. But she never killed me to make me leave. It was like she was really enjoying herself," Calliope's smile fell off of her face, replaced by a sad frown, "But then her memory loss started to rear its ugly head." Amelia's own smile faded.

"She doesn't remember that, does she?"

"She does, but only if I remind her after every rebirth. It doesn't seem like much of a problem, but whenever you have multiple millennia of memories it becomes an impossible task." Amelia nodded sadly.

"And you started to push her away because of that." Calliope also nodded.

"Yeah, I couldn't bear to see her just latch onto me but not know why. It made me sick to see her become dependent on me for her memories and emotional needs. And then she told me that she loved me for the first time, which she also doesn't remember now." Calliope tensed her whole body and closed her eyes for a moment before continuing, "She loved me but didn't know why. Even if I could feel love back for her, I wouldn't want to. It is wrong for her to love me without knowing why. So, I started to really push her away."

"That's terrible…" Amelia didn't know what else to say. She couldn't even begin to fathom the amount of time Calliope and Kiara had spent with each other, let alone the pain it would cause.

"The first time I wasn't there for her rebirth, she cried for days. She of course didn't know why, but an uncontrollable sadness tore at her. I wanted so badly to help her, but I didn't. For the next hundred and forty years, I avoided her. She rebirthed over seventy times, and those are just the ones I know of. Because I wasn't there for her, Kiara can't remember this time at all."

"Why did you go back for her?"

"There is another way for a Phoenix to die, besides a Reaper's scythe. If they choose to die, they will stay dead forever. Their ashes will turn into something else after a few months and they won't have any way to return to the Overworld." Calliope took a massive breath, trying to calm herself enough to finish. Even with her limited feelings, the sadness she was feeling was starting to really weigh on her. "Kiara chose this. I didn't even recognize her soul when I bumped into her down here, but she did. She felt a strange attraction to me and followed me around. When I finally realized that it was her, she'd been dead for over three months. Her memories were becoming foggy and her ashes were nearly gone. I couldn't just let her choose death like that."

"You are a great friend Calliope. I hope you don't blame yourself for her choice."

"I try not to, but she did it because she couldn't find something to fill the hole I left in her heart. I have to be there for her, but it is hard. When she shows me affection, I can't help but feel sick. Feelings that she doesn't know the source of and ones that I can't reciprocate." Amelia saw something she liked in that statement.

"It looks like you are the same as me in that regard as well." Calliope tilted her head in confusion.

"What?" Amelia smiled slightly and pointed at the Reaper.

"You think that your mission to gain emotions is only for your sake, but it's not. You want to reciprocate Kiara's feelings and make her happy!" Amelia smiled the widest she had in a long time. Calliope frowned and pouted.

"We will see about that," she complained.

"Tsundere," Amelia poked her in the side while laughing slightly.

"You won't admit your feelings to Gura either," Calliope refuted. Amelia stopped laughing and pulled herself back into a smaller figure.

"I don't even know how I feel about this Gura. She is a lot older for starters and with a lot more teeth."

"But is her heart the same?" Amelia thought about it, trying her best to fight off any negative thoughts that swam her way.

"I guess it is. I don't know, I haven't really allowed myself to think about her like that. It would be too painful-"

'Ame, you aren't running,' Ina's words broke through the negative ones. It was the beginning of Ina's final speech that spurred Amelia on to go through with their last resort. She had thought she was running by smashing the Droplet, but Ina convinced her she wasn't. And truthfully, she still believed her words.

So why was she going to revert back to running away from what was painful now?

"I'll think about it," Amelia said to Calliope once she broke out of her trance. Calliope smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "As long as you promise to give Kiara a fair shot at you, too," Amelia clarified.

"I was going to anyways, Watson. I wasn't going to become what I hated." Amelia finally understood why Calliope had been so aggressive with her.

"So you hated me, not just for lying, but because I was throwing away my feelings for Gura?" Calliope nodded.

"You were taking for granted the thing I don't have. It would be as if I refused to regenerate while you were injured. You obviously weren't doing it to spite me, but I was still jealous."

"I'll try my best not to anymore." Calliope smiled and looked over at her.

"I am looking forward to our new working relationship, Watson," she said and held out a hand for Amelia to shake. Amelia scoffed.

"How about, I'm glad we're friends now, Calli," Amelia changed the wording and held out her own hand, not shaking Calliope's.

"Sure, Wa-" she stopped, thinking for a moment, "Amelia." They shook hands, smiling.

They walked for another few hours, deep into the Field of Souls. After another hour of searching, Calliope finally caught wind of Kiara's soul. They found her three and a half days after she had died.

Kiara's soul was brighter than those around her and more orange. Of course a Phoenix's soul would look like flame. Amelia enjoyed the irony.

"I was wondering when you'd come and get me, Calli," she playfully complained. Calliope rolled her eyes.

"Humans are slow to transport," she stuck a thumb in Amelia's direction. The time traveler held up her arms in fake protest.

"I'll forgive you this time," Kiara said and charged at Calliope. The punch she threw passed straight through her, though. Her ghostly orange form wasn't technically solid.

"Here." Calliope opened her palm and created a shadow in it. From the shadow arrived some of Kiara's ashes. Kiara laughed before putting her hand into Calliope's.

"Look, we're holding hands!" she said before bursting into a bright light. Amelia felt the heat radiating from a few dozen feet away. Good thing Calliope had told her to stand back here. She didn't want any more burns.

After a minute, the light and heat's intensity began to fall. Kiara's solid form emerged.

Without any clothes.

"Oh…" Amelia muttered before quickly averting her eyes. Of course Kiara wouldn't rebirth with her clothes.

"Put these on before you make everyone around here uncomfortable," Calliope said, probably summoning Kiara's clothes.

"I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?" Kiara teased. Amelia heard the sounds of clothes ruffling, indicating that Kiara was indeed putting on her clothes.

"I've seen this many times, you know it doesn't phase me," Calliope replied matter of factly. "Amelia, you can turn back around." The time traveler trusted her newest friend and turned to see Kiara had snuck up on her.

"AH! Hi, Kiara!" she yelped from surprise. Kiara laughed at her fright.

"On a first name basis now, Calli?"

"She was calling me by my first name for a while now," the Reaper played it off. Kiara smiled wide and skipped back over to her.

"Welp, I guess it's time to leave this place." Amelia wasn't entirely certain how Kiara was so happy after what she'd seen at the Hatchery. Her memory couldn't be that volatile after rebirthing. Maybe it just wasn't the right time or place to talk about it yet, not that she was complaining.

"It is. Amelia, come over here. We've got quite the walk ahead of us." Amelia dropped her shoulders in faux-tiredness. In reality, all the walking hadn't taken an ounce of energy out of her. The Underworld was certainly a weird place.

"How long exactly." Amelia had to ask, but didn't really want an answer.

"No time at all!" Kiara scooped her up and began to fly away with her. Amelia of course screamed. Calliope waved goodbye to her before Shadow Walking to follow them.

"I SAID TO NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!" Amelia yelled her gripes at the Phoenix, who only laughed at her complaints. Around a half an hour later, they were far out and away from anything. Kiara put her down nicer this time and Calliope greeted her upon landing.

"Kiara couldn't help herself." Amelia brushed herself off and fixed her clothes, huffing her displeasure.

"You didn't exactly help." Kiara landed next to them and walked over.

"Do your thing, Calli!" she cheered. Calliope shrugged and summoned her scythe in her hand. Amelia watched as the Reaper swung the large blade into the ground, ripping it open. Just under the red dirt surface was the same shadow material that she'd seen in Death-sensei's chamber. It tore open, letting a more liquidy substance seep onto the surface.

"So that's what I sank into at the Hatchery," Amelia commented, looking into the almost oil-like substance.

"Let's go swimming!" Kiara said before jumping into it. She turned to shadow as soon as she touched it. Amelia shivered a little after seeing it.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine, if a little cold." Amelia put one foot into the oily substance and also turned to shadow. She felt herself become colder and colder, nearly to freezing. But as soon as it began, she was reemerging on the other side. Kiara was looking around them, trying to figure out where they had gone. Calliope appeared very soon after Amelia.

They were in a decently dense forest just as the sun was setting. Amelia really did not want to be in the forest once it got dark. It seemed like flying was the lesser of two evils here.

"I think I know where HQ is," Kiara said to them.

"Then let's get moving," Amelia replied while also bracing herself for the Phoenix to pick her up. Kiara did exactly as expected, grabbing both Amelia and Calliope and flying into the sky.

Amelia looked down at the trees and small buildings. The sunset was painting them a beautiful golden color. The sky itself was going from a dark blue to an orange-red as you came closer to the horizon. The few clouds in the sky were also painted gold.

For the first time, Amelia yelled, not out of fright, but out of enjoyment while they flew. Calliope didn't enjoy the noise, but tolerated it until they landed a few short minutes later. She had just barely messed up the teleportation by a few yards. At least Amelia had fun.

The trio landed on the street in front of Hololive English HQ. They had been gone for nearly four days by this point. The rest of the girls and Emersyn were surely back by now. A commotion from inside confirmed that.

"Ame!"

"Ame!"

Gura and Ina burst out of the door and scrambled to hug their friend. Amelia was pushed to the ground by their combined weights.

It was good to be back.

Author's Note: I doubt I'll be able to top this chapter for a while. It might not be the spectacle that last chapter was, but it paid off one of the main conflicts of this part. Calliope and Amelia might finally start to get along after this.

I had been thinking about how their conversation would go for months before I actually wrote it. I went through so many different ideas, different paces, different tones, until I finally found the one I was most happy with. I don't think it could ever live up to what I had imagined, but this is damn close.

Amelia's secret (even from herself) intentions surrounding her lies about her previous time travel are finally revealed. She is absolutely not a saint. She is very confused and scared, trying to revert back to her old habit of running away. However, it seems like she has been able to shake her nerves for the time being. Hopefully she can maintain that for a while.

Calliope and Kiara's "relationship" is certainly a doozy. I didn't really know how to approach their interactions in a new light. The one I see time and time again is that Calliope and Kiara are two sides of a coin, Romeo and Juliet style. I didn't want to do that again, so I looked for any new reason that I could use and I found one. Calliope's complete lack of emotions means that she would hate not being able to reciprocate her Phoenix's feelings of love. Kiara's memory loss causing her to forget why she even loved Calliope just makes the situation worse. I wanted some nuance and I got some.

There's also a couple lore drops from Death-sensei that are going to be important later on. You will find out what the Forgotten Times truly are.

Also, there is only one more chapter left in this arc. I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but I take breaks in between arcs to write out the next one. Once the next arc is fully written out, I will resume the weekly chapter releases. I don't expect the break to be very long, one or two weeks extra most likely, so don't worry about an extended drought of chapters. If something does come up, I will post something to tell you guys.

The next arc might not have much fighting in it, but it is going to be a lot of fun, trust me :)

Next Chapter: Healing

Any feedback/criticism is appreciated!