“Neila, are you really going to follow me”?

  “Yea”?

  A winding stone path led up a grassy hill where a lone, modest gravestone sat beneath a blooming cherry tree.

  Yuki stood before it, a worn backpack slung over one shoulder, her school blazer unbuttoned and her hair a bit windswept. In her hands, she held a small convenience store strawberry shortcake, slightly squished from the walk.

  She knelt down and placed it in front of the headstone with a sigh.

  “Well auntie, Neila’s here with me and apparently mom’s been unsealed too. By the way didn’t you like cake too? I brought some”.

  The gravestone was simple, her name scribbled in cursive on the stone.

  Yuki smiled faintly at the inscription, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

  From behind her, footsteps crunched in the grass.

  “Anastasia won’t reply back, y’know”? Neila said, holding bottles of soda in his hand. “Well she’s…..”.

  “That’s kind of rude, I’m in mourning”. Yuki didn’t turn around, staring at the grave.

  Neila sighed as he stared at the grassy field.

  “I-I have a weird relationship with death, after seeing so many people die in front of my eyes, I can’t see those that have died as ‘once alive’, they’re all more or less just objects”.

  Yuki slowly cranked her head like an old and rusty machine staring directly at him. “So, are you some kind of sociopath”?

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  “No, I still see humans as humans, I just can’t see dead bodies as other people”.

  “Well that’s interesting”. Yuki sighed as she stared back at the grave with a soft expression. “Neila, you want some soda”?

  “Yeah”. Neila cracked open a 500 ml bottle of coke as it fizzed open with a snap of his wrist. “Y’know? I used to think your aunt was hot”.

  “That’s really really insensitive of you to say during this situation”. Yuki snapped open a bottle of soda for herself.

  “I didn’t know what to say to break the ice, I’m really awkward in these conversations talks”.

  Neila grabbed the cap of the soda bottle and started to fiddle around with it in his hands.

  “She’ll probably come back and haunt me now, probably throwing marshmallows at me as a spirit for saying that”.

  “That’s seems like something she’d do”. Yuki chuckled. “I really do miss her, the kind of missing where you laugh more than cry, y’know?”

  “I think she’d like that”.

  Neila grumbled, then leaned closer to the grave.

  “Hey, Anastasia. Wherever you are… thanks for not haunting Yuki. Yet. I hear she still listens to emo rock songs at 2 a.m.”

  “So what!? That’s the only genre of music that is good nowadays, it’s all just annoying pop and rap”.

  Neila smirked. “Whatever Yuki”.

  They both sat in peaceful silence as the sun began to dip lower in the sky. The light began to recede as night started to loom over the two of them.

  “Excuse me”?

  His eyes glowed blue as his black hair draped down like a cape on his head.

  “So where is Athena”?

  He had no sign of living, no breath, no sign of presence at the slightest.

  Yuki calmly looked back at the man.

  “Oh you’re the crackhead from this morning, your video is all over the school group chat”.

  Neila jumped backwards at the sight of the mysterious man.

  “Phane, what are you doing here”!?

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’ll lend my helping hand for the fight against Erebus”. He spoke in a deep yet relaxed tone. “He’s verry dangerous after all, at least that’s what I heard”.

  “What do you want, Phanes? Why are you so hell bent on helping us”?

  “You need not worry about that, I have personal reasons on why I need to help you”. Phanes adjusted his collar as he stared back at Neila.

  So where is she? Where is the Association master Athena”?

  “She’s not here”. Yuki looked at him and kept drinking her soda. “Who even are you? I know that you Primordials are stronger and older than normal Gods but I still can’t tell the difference”.

  Phane stood proudly like he had been preparing for this speech the entire time.

  “I was created at the dawn of the very universe by the hands of Khaos herself, primordial Gods are the strongest and oldest version of the Gods. That’s more or less what our race boils down to, the strongest beings alive”.

  Yuki squinted her eyes. “And said strongest beings get bullied by a bunch of teenagers”.

  “T-They’re such violent creatures, what ability do I have in such a situation”? A feeling went down his spine. “Anyways I-I need to see Athena”.

  Yuki stood up and started to stretch. “She said something about a mission in a couple days, you know that you can just go up to the association and ask for a meeting with my mother, right”?

  Phanes’s eyes lit up. “I could do that? Then what was the point of asking you”? His smile immediately dropped. “I-I shall get going then”.

  He jumped from the hill as he disappeared with a flash of light.

  Neila collapsed to the ground, sweat pouring down from his head.

  “I don’t like that guy at all, he’s terrifying geez”.