.

.

It doesn't rain on the day of Chiyuki's funeral; where the sky should be dark and overcast, it is blue and bright, petals of cherry blossoms rising and skirting the air.

Decim stands apart from the others, barely noticing as mourners gather around her tombstone and lay flowers on the wet grass. Words cannot describe his grief. Like any other human, he started to take for granted that she would always be beside him. That he would always hold her as they slept, that he would see her smile and hold her hand.

"Are you okay?" someone says, and Decim turns to see Nona walking up beside him.

"Nona-san," Decim says. He smiles but his eyes are wet. "It is good to see you."

His voice is steady but his hands are shaking. Nona looks at him, quietly.

"You've aged," Nona says, and she turns, looking outward. She motions to the people hugging and crying in front of them. "Are they your children?" she asks. Decim nods.

"Yes," Decim says. "And the little one there is our granddaughter." She hears his throat catch on the possessive, watches as he quietly he wipes his eyes.

"Granddaughter," Nona says, wonderingly. "Time sure flies, huh?"

He has never looked more human. Without even asking him, Nona knows he has spent the night weeping. There is a wetness, a shadow of a tear from the hours before, that seems to make its way to the hollows of Decim's cheek; quietly Nona watches as he brushes it back, an unconscious movement, before he swallows again, blinking his eyes.

"She didn't play any games," Nona says, quietly. She gently touches him on the shoulder. "She will be reincarnated. Your original judgment still stands."

"Thank you very much," Decim says, and his mind goes back to the years before he came to the human world; for all his prodigious memory, he barely remembers that place now, the games or the guests or the emptiness of that tower. But he remembers the void, and the condition on which he came.

"I will never see her again, will I?" Decim says quietly.

"No, you won't," Nona says.

And he closes his eyes, tears spilling over.

xXx

.

"Hey, flower head!" Nona says. Oculus clasps his arms around his back and turns.

"Well if it isn't Nona. I assume you've come to see me about our bet?"

"I won," Nona says. Oculus frowns.

"Our bet was that he'd come back untainted. He has not," Oculus says.

"But he's human now," Nona says.

"What?"

"Look at him," she says, and in the mirror they see it: Decim's soul stepping hesitantly off the elevator.

"If he were still a doll, he would have fallen straight to the void. But he isn't," Nona says. "He's earned the right to judgment just like the rest of them."

"And so he fell to become a lesser being," Oculus says. "This is making my head hurt, and quite frankly, is not worth arguing over. Fine, you've won your bet," Oculus says, and Nona grins. "But just know that particular arbiter is quite ruthless when it comes to sending people to the Void."

"That's not a problem," Nona says.

xXx

.

"SO!" Mayu chirps, staring at Decim and the other guest, waving around her card. "What part of Harada's body does he scratch when he gets nervous? SUDDEN DEATH ANSWER ROUND. You have two seconds to answer!"

"Oh my god," the other guest says, while Decim simply speaks.

"The elbow," Decim says.

"Wron- wait, seriously? No one's ever gotten that right," Mayu says.

("I can't believe you had me recompile Harada's memories for this," Quin says, watching them in the mirror. Nona shrugs.

"Well I don't want him stressing out on his first go around," Nona says. She winks. "He'll have plenty of other chances to freak out, after.")

xXx

.

There are games and there are judgments. The sun rises. Seasons continue to change.

Somewhere, a little girl with dark hair opens her eyes.

And elsewhere, a little boy with blue eyes learns to smile.