The Takamori Story

Shape

-"Heeeey!"

Calliope called out.

"You know you can't hide! You're just making my job more difficult!"

Still, Kiara didn't show herself. This time, her portal lead her to the entry of a deep cave, and Calliope could have just opened another portal to find out exactly where she was, but after spending way too much time trying to help her get her body shape right, they both knew they had to put their mind into both roles: Killing and dying, and they couldn't get it right if Calliope had to take her by surprise.

"... We can get it right this time! Don't be shy!"

Calliope's face immediately scrunched.

"(Wait, no, that didn't come out as I imagined)...Ugh! Would you just come out already, stupid bird?!"

Her steps got heavier the deeper she went into the cave.

"Why am I even helping her?"

She quietly grumbled staring at the ground.

"So she gets friends, right, when she gets friends I won't have to deal with her anymore"

She started slowing down the more she thought about it.

"And then she... She won't talk to me anymore..."

She fully stopped walking when she saw an orange feather floating on a tiny pond in front of her feet.  She crouched and picked it up to have a long look at it.

"She won't... And I can go back to..."

-"Mori-san!"

Calliope got startled. Even though now she had been called like that a bunch of times, she couldn't get used to it.

-"(still better than "Death Lady" though...) Shitbird?"

She stood still and hid the feather in her pocket.

"Where are you?

-"hold on! This'll blow your mind!"

The strangely shaped walls of the cave made the sound echo in such way she couldn't tell where it was coming from.
Calliope sighed.

-"Okay, what?"

-"Close your eyes for a bit"

-"Huh?"

-"Just do it!"

She was getting tired and already felt like killing her again, but she complied, if it got her job done faster, it would be great.

-"Alright, they're closed"

Calliope then heard footsteps getting louder and louder, closer and closer to her until they were right in front.
She grasped her scythe with force, ready to slice the Stupid Bird again.

-"Okay, you can open them now"

What she saw she could have imagined, but chose not to. She looked way more refined after a painstaking process of fail and repeat, trying to get her shape right, sometimes just getting some limbs, sometimes the face, but never like this. Calliope could believe it. Kiara now looked almost exactly like a human.

-"Ah..."

She loosened her grip and stared at her in shock.
Despite her poor sense of difference between pretty or ugly, she knew what she was seeing was beautiful no matter how much layers of denial her thoughts went through.

-"Pretty isn't it?"

Calliope didn't answer that question for her own good. Instead, she just segued her way out.

-"...So I guess we got it right now?"

-"I still have some feathers on me..."

Kiara said as she showed off the ones stuck on her arms, and some on her long shiny hair.

"But I'm sure I'll be able to make friends now!"

-"Huh..."

She thought about going back to her everyday cycle. Working eternally, taking pointless brakes, then going back to work. It all clicked together, or so she thought.

-"Mori-chan?"

She snapped out of her overthinking.
When she stopped facing the ceiling and turned back at Kiara, her back was facing her.

"You can kill me now, I'm ready!"

-"Oh, yeah"

She grasped her scythe again and lifted it over her head.

But this time, instead of violently ripping her whole body apart in one swing, she extended the blade beyond her neck and pulled back, cleanly decapitating her.

This time the corpse left behind didn't look as messed up as the other times she killed her, but that didn't matter, she was going to come back anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~

When Calliope Finally got to her house, she dropped on her bed and took a deep breath to relax.
With only one thing on her mind, she pulled out what she had saved in her pocket.

-"... Back to normal"

She said as she stared at the shiny feather. With a lot of things to think about, she saved it on a drawer close to her bed.

On her casual breaks, she didn't have much to do. Most of the time she'd either sharpen and clean her weapons or drink from her endless wine stash. But this time, she couldn't get any of her thoughts together, so she decided to try her best to sleep.

"... That stupid bird..."