Thanatos led the way and brought Haruka to Taro the moment she saw him. She sprinted toward him and embraced him. Taros fur tickled her cheeks, but she ignored him and hugged him tighter. Taro is enjoying the moment and wagging his tail excitedly.
"Hey, by the way, what are your names?" Haruka was a little embarrassed, but she was well aware that she was going to live her life now as a grim reaper. She wanted to know the names of the people who fought for her and risked their lives for her.
"Sure, I am Thanatos Gravestone, the second, and this woman next to me is Morgana. Pleased to meet you,", Wait, Thanatos, isn't that the name of a god from Greek mythology?" Haruka did not know much about Greek mythology. But she once read a book where the name Thanatos was mentioned; it was said that he was a Greek god, and after reading that, she decided to search the internet. Back then, she found out that Thanatos was a god who brought the dead to the god of the underworld, Hades. She had no idea if the name Morgana came from mythology either; she was confused about anything.
"No, you are wrong. The Thanatos you are thinking about is my grandfather, and neither I nor him are gods. Before I forgot it, he told me that most of the stories you humans know about gods and mythologies are wrong too. But he never told me which part was true or not."
Haruka sighed in relief and stood up. She looked at Morgana, who, for some reason, looked at her as if she were sizing her up.
"Oh, excuse me, I didn't want to stare, Morgana. My last name isn't worth mentioning." Morgana was interested in Haruka. She remembers that when she was turned into a grim reaper, she was unconscious for a whole week and wasn't able to move for four days. It was a wonder in her eyes that Haruka could even stand.
"Eh, I'm sorry about that, but I need you to come with me. We have to take care of a few things. Are you able to come with me, or do you need to rest first?" Thanatos scrached his head; he was unconfortable about this. But he still had to do his duty. He had compassion for their situation but still had to do his duty. His father has already used much of his influence to ensure that the report went directly to the chief and not first to the relevant agency, which would then trumpet it to the entire world.
Haruka nodded and followed Thanatos, who was already on his way. Taro and Morgana also hurried out and followed them. Thanatos led them to the building where they once met Morgana. The building was called Normata. Which meant nothing else than headquarter. Many places and buildings in Memento had names from the ancient grim reaper language. Most of the older grim reapers still used these names; younger grim reapers preferred saying headquater. Learning the language was hard. It was comparable to a student who tried to learn Latin, but far worse. Because of this reason, many young grim reapers speak languages from other races. The most popular languages once were Spanish, French, Greek, German, and Japanese. But that was compared to a trend that changes all the time, and since grim reapers are able to speak, understand, read, and write every single language of beings whose souls would accompany them to heaven or hell, it was also very easy. The old grim reapers didn't like that and fought back with their own weapons. Because these came from a time when this language was used every day. They often spoke in the old grim reaper language.
All four of them walked inside. Thanatos walked towards the counter and said that the chief wanted to speak with all of them. Taro hid behind his master. The woman, who was the same as last time, said the same line she said back then.
Thanatos waved for them to come after him, and so all of them walked up the stairs to the office of the chief. Thanatos knocked and then walked inside.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." Haruka and Taro bowed down, and the old man said that they should sit down and talk. Before everybody could say anything, Haruka sat down and said, "What am I going to do from now on?" She was already aware of the fact that she was going to continue her life as a grim reaper, but she had no idea what that meant.
"I am sure that you are already aware of it, but you will live as a normal grim reaper from now on." Before he continued, the old man thought about what she would do from now on. Haruka was 17 for a grim reaper that was comparable to a newborn. But she already had the body and mind of a young woman. He has already dealt with these cases a few times, and they were no problem. Morgana, as an example, was seven back then; bringing her into grim school was no problem, and in all the other cases, it was similar.
Before the old man could come to a conclusion, Thanatos raised his hand as if he were a student who asked his teacher for permission to speak. The chief gave his permission, and Thanatos spoke out about his idea.
"
Why don't we let her go to grim school? We can only say that she has not yet completed her nine-level exams and now wants to catch up."
The old man felt stupid, asking himself why he hadn't thought of this. It was so obvious.
"Excuse me, but what do you mean with that?" Haruka was a student who was crushed under the crumpled Japanese school system. She had already taken many exams, but she couldn't imagine what kind of exams a grim reaper would have to take.
"We grim reapers go to school for 90 years, and every ten years of that, we sit one of the so-called 9-level exams. It's quite common for people to catch up on these because they didn't make it last time or because they're coming from the countryside." Morgana explained.
'Ninety years ago, I thought that the Japanese school system was torture, but these people are on a different level.' In Haruka's eyes, both of them now looked like geniuses. What the two of them were, but that was a fact she did not yet know.
"You won't take much attention. You must know that we Grim Reapers have pinpoint information about the souls we accompany. But when it comes to knowing each other, it's not uncommon for someone to not even know the name or face of their neighbor who's been living next door for 200 years. As long as you are not a celebrity like this guy over there, nobody will even care about you and your story."
The chief nodded. It was true that if he had to say the names of the people he spent melenias with right now, he wouldn't even be able to know which letter was at the beginning of their name. Thanatos was a bit annoyed about it, but he couldn't deny it either. He also had no idea what the names of the maids were that worked on the estate. With the exception of Camilla, of course, but that was something completely different again.
Haruka again realized how different humans and grim reapers were, but she thought that she would have to get used to it.
"And what is going to happen to Hideo now?" Each time she thought about Hideo, she started to hate him. She didn't want him to be forgiven; she wanted him to pay for his sins.
"I can't promise you much, but we will bring him to a fair trial. We are still deeply indebted to the Shinigami clan; after all, they sacrificed their lives and almost the entire clan for the greater good. That's all we can do."
Haruka had no idea what he meant when he said that they sacrificed their lives and clan for the greater good. But she had to exapt it. She was well aware that only Hideo and the people who were partly responsible for it were bad. She was mature enough to understand that not all Grim Reapers were like him, and neither were the people of this so-called Shinigami clan. Hideo had already told her a little about it, but she didn't know much.
"If that is all you can do, I am pleased as long as he and everyone else who is partly responsible for this are getting a punishment that's big enough to make up for what I've lost."
"Yes, I promise myself that we will punish these puckers as hard as it is possible."
The old man said this while bowing his head lightly. Haruka didn't know why, but for some reason Thanatos and Morgana looked as if their brains had frozen after what they saw. It took them a few seconds to come back to reality, and then they left the room together with Taro and Haruka in a hurry.