Once ten minutes had passed, Mark stepped through the front door with Doro and Gorgo in tow. It looked like he’d run all the way there, but Doro’d just taken a portal back. Too bad he couldn’t have just used that to get to the inn in the first place.

“Hello Lawrence, been a while.”

“Yes, it HAAA-”

“Friend!”

Gorgo ran past Doro and put Lawrence in a very tight bear hug, practically pushing all the air out of his body. But they were all here. Even Seph was willing, strange after having gotten dragged to the inn unconscious. After Lawrence retrieved Hato’s cage, they began. Elaine had found a large sheet of paper, which Jeremiah had drawn some sort of ritual circle on and Seph, Oku and Doro stood at each of the three points of the triangle. In the middle was a circle where The cage was placed, along with a few feathers and the string of her mask. With that, Seph, arrogantly, raised his sword, Oku put her hands on the ground, and Doro clapped. At once, the floor under the cage began to glow. Lawrence stepped into the middle and took Hato out of the cage, tossing it to Mark. Holding her, he began to utter the words he had heard in Shuryo’s memory, and the string vibrated on the floor. Lawrence picked up the string as well, which he almost dropped because it was hot strangely enough. He’d come too far to mess it up now though, and gritted through the pain, still uttering the words. Hoping that the string wouldn’t be hot to Hato, he touched it to the small dove’s head, and it changed into a very large feather. A slightly smaller version of the spirit dove came out of it, which filled the room, and Lawrence looked at Inari, who was ready with the orb. She mentally reached out to Hato, who she located earlier to get ready for the ritual. The orb turned from crystal to black, and Inari poured a liquid out of it onto the edge of the ritual triangle. The liquid ran up Lawrence’s arm and took shape on the string, turning into her mask. It was Hato’s mask. Full once again. Now all that was left was… Hato.

The large dove turned to the new mask, and transformed into the large feather one last time. Once it had turned around, she was there. Hato was laid carefully down on the floor, and Lawrence quickly put the mask on her, sealing the retrieval.

“Easy as hell!”

This broke the tension as they watched Hato on the floor, and everyone nervously laughed at how he wouldn’t even take this seriously.

“Shut up Seph.”

“Hey I helped you didn’t I?”

One last test. Lawrence put his head down to her breast and tested the most important thing. He’d read that bringing bodies back was a lot simpler than bringing spirit’s back. He needed a pulse. And there it was. It was rising pretty fast actually. Wow it was really-

“Master what are you doing!”

Hato slapped him down on the floor and looked around.

“Wait… I’m back?”

“Hell yeah! Success!”

Mitch and Elaine rubbed their hands together.

“Looks like another worker for the inn!”

The only one who seemed not to be celebrating was Koichi, whom Lawrence approached, cheek still red.

“Still impossible?”

He just looked above the glasses that he barely ever wore and sighed.

“You know not what you do.”

A good dramatic exit line if he didn’t live right upstairs for the time being, and Lawrence let him know it. He just wanted to be a downer anyways, Hato was back! Everyone was surrounding her, but she kind of needed something to wear, and Oku was quick to retrieve some of her stuff from upstairs. Once everything had quieted down and Hato told them she was extremely tired, Elaine set out a futon in Lawrence’s room and they prepared for bed. Though Lawrence wasn’t really sure how he was going to be able to fall asleep with all that had gone on. As it happened, Seph didn’t really live in the cabin he was at, and was poor as hell. It was so strange that someone who regularly gathered thousands of dollars in bounties was so poor, But Mitch offered him the janitorial space for a few nights. He tearfully agreed, much to Oku’s chagrin, and they’d gained two roommates in one night. He couldn’t hate Seph any longer though, after this. Maybe it was just his high spirits, but he practically thought of Seph as a pal.

He woke up once in the night and stumbled to the bathroom. On his way back, he saw Hato looking out a window at the end of the hall. When he approached her she smiled at him and made some room on the bench she was sitting on.

“Sorry about the slapping thing, I was pretty surprised.”

“Yeah I could tell. You didn’t think we could get you back?”

“Honestly? Not really. I don’t think it’s ever been done before. But I should have known, you can do anything after all.”

“Was it lonely, in limbo?”

“Yeah it was pretty lonely. But let me say when I came back in that girl’s body I cried for two days in limbo! You guys were really coming for me! I’m almost more surprised to be back than happy right now. But with a bit of time I’ll be just fine don’t worry.”

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“Well you know telling me you aren’t ok right now makes me worry right?”

“Who knows, maybe I don’t mind it if you worry a bit about me you know?”

It really was her, she was back…

“Hato, I didn’t really know if I should ask this but… before you got stuck in limbo. Right before you…”

“Died?”

“Yeah. You uh… Well you leaned up to me and…”

“Oh you mean when I kissed you?”

“Y-yeah that! I was just wondering… about that…”

“Well doesn’t that usually mean you love someone? Was I wrong?”

“So that means you…”

“Of course I love you master. Was there really any doubt to that?”

“I-”

At that moment they heard some scrambling, and a door shut. Lawrence was knocked back into reality, embarrassed that he’d been physically moving closer to Hato the whole time.

“Ah well, I’d better get back to bed… it was nice talking to you and I’m glad you’re back!”

“I’ll be in in a few minutes, I just haven’t seen the stars in a while.”

As he walked back towards his room he looked towards Hato again. She was so important to him, did he love her too?

He was… really just some sort of player wasn’t he.

The next morning the gang had their first breakfast with everyone. Even Koichi managed to show up somehow, and the only people Seph seemed to be nice to was Elaine and Mitch. Guess that goes to show you what feeding a stray dog can do. Lawrence was worried about how much Elaine had spent on one simple meal, but he was assured that they made more than enough money from the inn, where business was booming. He couldn’t disagree with that statement. They lived in a small house off on the edge of the property, where there was a walkway to the actual inn. Entering that side and business was indeed booming. As he cleaned rooms he realized just how good the inn was doing, so he buried his thoughts of freeloading and did his job. It was nice that he wasn’t making trouble for anyone, and something as simple as cleaning the sheets on a bed was right up his alley. He didn’t love all the cleaning, but it was a simple well-paying job with multiple upsides. There was nothing he could complain about at all. Besides the amazing mood Seph was in every time he started cleaning of course. The guy was a closed book, he cleaned like he was having the time of his life, and in such a ridiculous outfit too. If Lawrence had tried asking him to do anything you could bet that Seph would shoot back something like “I’m wayyy too powerful to be doing something stupid like that!”, but for Mitch and Elaine everything was on the table. It was Friday, but there was some sort of holiday, since the college had it off. A three-day weekend and they’d just gotten Hato back? Hard to beat.

While he was working Inari approached him and cleaned next to him.

“Hey you remember when you said you’d go with me to visit my grandfather? Would you mind going tomorrow since the weather’s supposed to be nice?”

“Oh yeah, no problem. I’m free.”

“Cool, I’ll uh… talk to you about it more after work. Just wanted a yes or no for now. I’ve got to call him too.”

“You can call ghosts?!”

“Yeah he’s a weird one isn’t he?”

Mitch called her over, leaving Lawrence to wonder how calling ghosts was possible, but he decided to gather the details later. Right now the toilet seat needed all of his scrubbing attention…

After work Oku went straight to bed and the rest of them dispersed. Mark had something to do for a class, which left Inari and Lawrence to talk about the next day.

According to Inari, her grandfather lived in a smaller town called Welzheim, which was about a two hour train ride from here. If they left at around nine they’d have more than enough time for Inari to get what she needed. Maybe it wouldn’t take the entire day either. Lawrence and Inari requested the day off, and once Mitch agreed they were free. The rest of the day passed quickly and before he knew it Lawrence was sitting with Inari on a train to Welzheim. Inari had kept somewhat of a distance since joining their merry group, but was always ready to help when it became important. Sometimes she had a sharp tongue, but that might have been due to his ignorance honestly.

“Hey Inari you think of us as friends right?”

“Would I have agreed to live with you otherwise?”

“Who knows, you seemed to hate that roommate of yours quite a bit.”

“Don’t talk about her, I convinced myself I would never think about her again!”

“Looks like it’s too late then, dang.”

She chuckled and the overhead speaker announced that their destination had been reached. Welzheim was definitely small. Not as small as his hometown, but he felt something similar to that place. It was a warm feeling. He liked small towns. Inari motioned for him to follow and he was led through a quaint road which led through the downtown area. Only a couple of restaurants and stores were seen there, with people milling in and out of them. Inari brought him to a small candy store on the end of the street corner, where she then led him upstairs and into the owner’s apartment. There he was greeted by an older woman.

“Inari you never said your guest was a young guy! Is he your husband?”

“Whoa husband?! No way!”

“Engaged? Dating?”

“He’s a friend grandma…”

“Well friends make the best boyfriends, just ask your grandfather! Shu!”

“What!”

“Inari came! Get over here!”

“Oh!”

A few seconds later a man materialized right in front of Lawrence and almost made him yell. No doubt about it, this guy was a ghost.

“Nice to meet you young man! I give you my blessing!”

He stuck out his hand and Lawrence, still dumbfounded, went for it, his hand shooting right through the old man’s. He cackled and wiped a milky tear from his eye.

“Get’s me every time. Hey you wanna know how I do this? Just gotta make sure your body is safe then astrally project yourself while you sleep. Cool right?”

“Wait a second then that means you aren’t dead.”

“Nope! Hey granny get em something to drink will you? I’m gonna have a talk with my future grandson-in-law!”

“I already said he’s just a friend gramps!”

“And granny said friends make great boyfriends! After all, we were friends through most of school and when I finally got the courage to ask her out we only had a few weeks left of high school! Lucky she gave me a chance instead of moving off to the city like she was planning.”

As Lawrence sat there watching them talk, he remembered the little he could about his grandparents. They’d died when he was still really young so there wasn’t much to think about, but they’d had this warm feeling as well.

Yet another thing he loved about small towns, the homeliness.