Love Beyond the Ashes

Birth of Civilization

Kiara pov: The recent events in the world made me forget that it had just passed 12:00, so now it was August 4th, meaning Mumei was born today. I knew we were going to see her soon, but I just wished we
could wish her a happy birthday right now.

"Reine, what do you think Mumei is doing right now?" I asked.

"She's probably asleep." Reine said, yawning a bit. Usually she tries to go to sleep at this time.

I pulled out the sheet of paper Zeta gave us, listing off the coordinates, realizing that we weren't far from there. In fact, they led us into the woods behind the movie theater.

I shifted into bird form to get an aerial view, and sure enough, I saw smoke in the nearby distance.

"Let's check it out," I said.

"But Kiara, didn't Zeta say we should wait until at least tomorrow?" Calli asked. I shook my head.

Calli could tell how much I missed Mumei and broke, "Alright, we can go." She sighed.
We looked back, noticing we were clearly being followed. Sure enough, we were as Moona, Pekora, and Marine walked towards us from the shadows.

"Zeta gave us the okay anyway, since they have a change of plans now," Moona informed us.

We quickly went into the forest to find the source of the fire. It was Mumei, Zeta, and Kaela. They had Astel dangling on a chain over the fire.

"Happy Birthday, Mumei!" I cheered.

Reine and I hugged our sister tightly since we missed her. "We thought you were dead!" We were furious that she would pretend to die while reliving that she was still alive.

"Zeta is really smart; she used a body double to trick Temma," mumei said.

I began to think about that more. That meant that Mumei and Zeta murdered someone in order to make the body double but I was willing to ignore that since Mumei was spared because of the idea.

"So are we going to ignore the fact that Mumei killed an innocent person?" Calli asked.

"Ironic coming from death herself..." Mumei said

Calli had nothing to say about that. She was right. Calli had no place to judge her for killing people when that is her job. Even if she is on hiatus currently, that doesn't mean she hasn't killed in the past.

"So who did you kill for the body double?" Ollie asked.

"Oh some boy named Minase Rio" Mumei said she told us that he struggled so much before his death and how she loved his screams

"You are a fucking psychopath!" Callis shouted. Mumei just nodded, taking that as a compliment.

"Well, he did come back as a ghost," Zeta said.

"You didn't tell me about this..." Kaela said she sounded upset. Zeta just shrugged it off.

"Sorry babe, I don't have to tell you everything." Zeta laughed.

"Anyway, I am happy I get to see you again on this special occasion too!" Mumei cheered

"Since we're all here, I just want to say we are all moving to the council, that's our new base of operation," Zeta said.

Sana created a portal to the council and we began to step in. Ollie suddenly realised her brother was the one hanging over the fire. Zeta lowered his head, kicking him into the portal roughly.

Calli and I entered. The last one to go in was Mumei. As soon as we got to the other side, Mumei was tackled by Fauna and Kronii.

"We missed you so much!" The two girls cried, kissing Mumei continuously.
Mumei moved out of the way and the two girls' faces collided as they had no choice but to kiss now.

"So cute," Mumei said as she watched both her soon-to-be wives kiss.

"Council was chaotic without you, Mumei," Bae admitted, sighing.

Mumei glared at Bae and sighed, "Well, that's your fault." Mumei said sarcastically, waving to Irys.

Kronii and Fauna broke their kiss in a fit of rage, immediately clinging to their fiance.
Mumei rolled her eyes with a tiny grin on her face,

"You two are cute. Try to get along though." Mumei said they both nodded.

At first, the two of them got along if Mumei said she wanted them to, so that was the only way to stop their constant arguments. At some point, Mumei was going to have to humble them.

"Bae, just a quick FYI, I'm not working today," Mumei said.

"Of course you aren't." Bae groaned, knowing Mumei left a huge mess for the rest of them to deal with.

"Look, we can go one more day without a guardian of civilization," Mumei said.
I began to look around the room. "Where's Flare, Noel, and Marine?" I asked.

"Oh Pekora and those three went to look around the council room," Moona said.

"Humph... someone needs to check on that," Mumei said, glaring at Gura.

"Alright, I will go!" Gura groaned, running to locate the four girls.

"Speaking of those four, we still need to find Uruha Rushia," I said.

"That's fine, we'll find her at some point," Calli said.

We didn't even know when our next underworld expedition was going to be and it wouldn't be a good thing to split up at this point, so we had no way to locate her.
All we could do right now was interrogate Astel for info.

"Ollie, we may have to resort to violence to get info. Is that alright?" Mumei asked. She nodded.

"Please be soft on him though," Ollie said, since it is still her brother.

"Wait, I want to personally talk to him..." Reine said.

Mumei and I saw the sure determination on her face and gave her the okay since she seemed to know what to do about him. This was personal, so Reine would be a bit rough but also soft.

"But first let's celebrate your birthday, Mumei!" Reine said, grabbing her hand.

Ollie and I followed, dragging Astel behind us. Later today, we were going to figure out if Astel was friend or foe.