The Takamori Story

Rebirth

-"Hi!"

-"Oh good lord..."

Calliope's death mark was placed upon the same creature, and even though she was the one supposed to reach her, Kiara was the one to approach first.

-"So, yeah, I figured it out!"

-"What?"

Calli was incredibly tired, it had been a long day of reaping and harvesting souls, and now she had to get the answers from the most annoying thing she could think of.

-"Every time you kill me, I come back! I'm reborn! I start over!"

Kiara said with a happy voice.
Calliope slowly laid her palm on her face.

-"I already knew that!"

She sat down on the ground. All of this nonesense was getting to her, if she kept being so enraged from all of her encounters with the... Thing, she'd end up affected by it.

-"Hey, don't be sad! I have something to show you!"

Calliope looked back up.

-"What is it?"

She asked in a tone that scram "leave me alone"

Kiara snickered. Calli only noticed Kiara was standing on one claw when she brought out her other one, which was closed, hiding what it was holding, yet leaking.

"Hm? What is that?"

She opened it, and from it fell a huge pile of black and gray dust like old pulverized embers left from a fire that put itself out.

Calliope had a troubled look on her face, wondering if she was playing a prank on her by giving her some sort of sick gift

"What is that?"

-"It's the past me!"

After that almost absurd statement, there was a long awkward silence.

-"Was your corpse cremated?"

Despite the fact that Calliope lived in the underworld, because of her job she wasn't that much of a stranger to anything death-related back at the surface.

-"Nope!"

Kiara said.

"Apparently, Every time I die, my body combusts, and then I'm reborn from my own ashes with a sort of different body, and this is what's left of my past body!"

Calliope stared deeper into the ashes, loosing every bit of feeling she had in her eyes, whether it was good or bad. Then she looked back at the ground, as empty as her.

"What's wrong?"

-"It's just..."

She got back up.

"Why are you so excited about dying?"

-"hm?"

Then she looked directly into her black bird eyes.

-"Every time you see me you act the same disgustingly positive way! many people cry, run or beg for me to spare them, but not you. So why?"

Kiara hopped back in shock, and not so long after she spoke again.

-"I guess it's nice having someone to talk to"

The excitement in her voice started slowly draining.

"Every time I try to communicate with anyone, they just run away, like I'm some sort of monster..."

Calliope took a long good look at her.

• giant bird
• hawk-like claws
• Pretty sharp beak

-"..."

• menacing aura!

"(She sort of is though... I see why someone would run away from her...)"

-"... So I can only ever talk to those of my kind, but I rarely ever see them now... It's been too long since I talked to someone other than you..."

Calliope looked at the ashes that were now in the ground, another sign that "Takanashi Kiara" might just be a phoenix, or a clownish variation of a phoenix, one that looked like a human-sized plover. But Phoenixes didn't change their body. When she thought about that she came up with something so crazy it might just work.

-"then..."

She got up.

"How about you change your body to look human?"

-"Eh?"

Kiara was surprised, but in a certain way, she already liked the way that sounded.

-"You said you're reborn every time you die, and your body changes, therefore you should be able to change your body to look like a human, right?"

Calliope didn't actually know how to properly describe her idea, but if it worked, and Kiara finally got a friend, it'd mean peace at last.

Kiara was amused by the mere concept.

-"but... But can I? H-how do I.."

-"It's worth a shot, I think you can control it if you try"

-"I... Alright..."

Calliope brought out her giant scythe and came up with a somewhat weird method. She didn't know how giant birds worked, so she improvised.

-"Just close your eyes..."

Kiara followed.

"Imagine yourself as a human, as clear as you can"

Kiara imagined herself getting along with all the humans. She imagined not being alone anymore, and she liked it.

"Keep that image in your head, visualize it"

Despite not being able to show it, she was loving Calliope's somewhat soothing voice so much she felt like she was falling asleep.

"And now..."

-"Wait!"

Right when the blade was about to touch her head, Kiara startled her, and the blade drifted its way to the floor.

"I told you my name long ago, can you at least tell me yours?"

Calliope looked away. She lifted her scythe up again.

-"Calliope Mori"

She answered with a concise and serious tone. And then she violently sliced her in half, vertically.

She stared at the corpse, waiting for something to happen.

-"...( I guess it takes more than I expected... I do lose the notion of time with all these people I have to...) Oh right, my job"

After realizing she had just lost a lot of time, she swung her scythe in the air to create a portal leading to the next person with a death mark laid on them, thinking whether her time was wasted or not. But she concluded she'd find out next time.