After Thanatos and Camilla celebrated Camilla's birthday together, the two returned to the Gravestone estate. Where they were already expected.
Helene and Areus were preparing a feast for Helene's birthday while Thanatos and Camilla were away.
Thanatos and Camilla entered the dining room and were greeted by a huge banquet.
At an enormous long table. There was French, Italian, and Korean cuisine. All prepared by a master chef.
Reapers ate the same as humans, so they simply took the humans' dishes and added ingredients and spices from Memento.
"Happy birthday, Camilla! Everyone shouted and congratulated Camilla. Helene, Areus, and even Morgana, Haruka, and Taro wished her a happy birthday.
Helene jumped to her feet and gave Camilla a big hug, the way she always did with Thanatos. Camilla tried to pull away from the warm embrace at first. But after a while, she gave in and returned the hug. The two of them looked as if they were mother and daughter. They could also go as two sisters hugging each other. Helene looked so young despite her age that she could go on as Camilla's sister.
"Happy Birthday, Cami. For a second time." Thanatos also used the opportunity to hug Camilla. When the three of them were done. Haruka, Morgana, and Taro also came and congratulated her. At first, they were sad that they had no presents, but Camilla said that she had already received her present and that she would need nothing more. When everybody looked at the neckless that hung on her, they understood what she meant, and so they ate and talked until the end of the day.
---
On the next day, Taro and Haruka sat in a room studying for grim school.
They weren't sure how long it would take Taro to transform, but they knew they were deeply in debt to the people around them. Everything could have gone so much worse than it did.
They had even been fed, showered, sheltered, and given full rations. They wanted to pay back this debt as soon as they could, in particular Haruka. Taro helped his master as much as he could and studied with her as well. But he had other worries that were more on his mind: worries about his body.
During the night, his left hind leg underwent an astonishing transformation. Mobility became a challenge as his hind limbs were now imbalanced, with the left one protruding 10 cm longer and larger than its right counterpart. Additionally, a curious alteration occurred in his front paws, which was the transformation to hands covered in fur. He saw how the form resembled a human. His black skin on his palms was still the same as before. But whether that still changed, he also did not know.
The nights were cruel and agonizing; he felt the pain of his bones breaking apart and growing back together. The most painful thing now was the change from his front paws to his hands. He felt the balls of his toes becoming fingers and the ball of his paw growing larger. How his cartilage and joints formed. He felt every single change in them.
Haruka and Taro, on the advice of Morgana, were going over some old reaper vocabulary. Morgana warned them that they would have to take an entrance exam in order to take the exam.
The reason was that they never went to Grim School. There are no records of them, so they had to take an entrance test. So they had to take an entrance test to decide if they were qualified to take the exam.
He was aware that his transformation was a natural process and that he would no longer be a dog but a grim reaper. But he didn't feel comfortable with it.
"Okay, you should know this one, Taro. Translate this word: fronga." Harika spent much time teaching Taro vocabulary, history, and everything else they needed. With generosity, no teacher in this world would do, despite having to study on her own.
Taro searched through his mind to find an answer. He had the last two questions right; if he managed to get this last one, he would for the first time have a three-question winning streak.
'Words in this language are composed more of logic. So this word must be a compound of two or more words.' He searched his mind and then got it.
"It means danger. Fron means that you warn someone, and ga is the word for danger itself. It is a warning from someone that you are in danger." Taro waved his tail and waited for Haruka's answer.
"I am sorry, Taro, that's wrong. You forgot this rule here, so in that case, the last letter is spoken longer, and so the meaning of the word changes too."
Taro looked in a book where the rule stood, and it was true: the latter is spoken longer, and so the meaning changes. It is not a warning now. It was a scream from someone that he was in danger.
Taro looked disappointed to the ground, took the book with his new hands, and started to read the rules again.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Taro, are you in there? Someone wants to speak with you. You need to come." Thanatos knocked on the door and took Taro with him. Taro needed help when he wanted to move or get carried. In this state, walking was exhausting and unpleasing. Haruka promised to take care of this problem, and since the morning, she has carried him from one place to another. Taro detested this at first, but in the end, he had to surrender. After several attempts to go straight ahead.
Haruka walked to Taro, picked his heavy body up, and walked with him out the door.
"What's the matter, Thanatos? Who wants to see Taro?" Haruka couldn't think of many people, aside from Helene or Areus. She knew that Morgana or Camilla were not interested in Taro.
"Isaiah, the leader of the dog clan, he somehow heard that a new grim reaper from the country side walked in and out of the Gravestone clan. Together with me and two unknown female grim reapers."
Haruka was so shocked by this statement that she lost the strength in her arms and almost dropped Taro as a resonance. At the last moment before Haruka dropped Taro, she caught herself again and held him normally in her arms as if he were a princess.
Haruka wanted to protest, but before she could voice her protest, Taro barked in the middle of her sentence and said that Thanatos should explain himself first.
"The reason is this. Isaiah feels responsible for all the grim reapers who are like him. He is aware that his genes have spread over three thousand years and that grim reapers are now born like him. Just because they share his blood. Therefore, he collects all the reapers who are like him and wants to recruit them for his clan."
Thanatos knew that Taro was almost 100 percent likely to refuse. But there were facts against which he could do nothing.
Factor 1 was that it was Isaiah himself who was waiting for Taro in their mansion, and secondly, it was only almost a 100 percent probability. Maybe he wanted to come along and find out more about himself.
"Tell him to go away. I am not in the slightest interested in becoming a member of his clan." Taro was too long separated from his master, and he would never let that happen again. He didn't know much about the grim reaper clans. But he knew that at any moment he would decide to go there; he wouldn't come here then and see Haruka again.
He felt how the bond between master and soul vanished the moment he realized that he was a grim reaper. But she still meant the world to him, and he knew that Haruka thought about that in this way too.
"I can't; he is not a normal member of the dog clan. He is Isaiah, the leader of it, the grim reaper who alone built a clan this big. We can't send him away even if we were more powerful than he is."
"Then does that mean he is stronger than your father, mother, and grandfather?"
"I don't know; he and the people you just mentioned are in a league I can't even grasp how powerful they truly are."
Taro didn't know Thanatos well, but he knew that he would never say something out loud if he didn't mean it. He saw that Thanatos was an honest man who lied only if it was necessary.
Taro and Haruka admitted defeat and agreed to cooperate.