Cana stared at the bottom of the barrel and fought off the urge to ask for another for the millionth time. Juvia wouldn’t have wanted her sinking back into alcoholism after all and honoring those memories of her was all that Cana had left of her.

‘The world had more to remember Juvia by of course’ she thought as she looked out the Guild Hall’s window, positioned right at the edge of the island that Magnolia sat on which in turn sat upon the boughs of a tree that extended from the ocean well over a mile below. ‘but those memories are mine’.

Cana sighed and head out of the Guild Hall – easier to deal with the temptation to drink when the drink wasn’t right in front of you. Magnolia was finally calming down after the months of frantic work reestablishing communication and trade with the rest of the world. Despite the apocalyptic scale of the battle, it turned out that there was shockingly few deaths and little property damage besides the partitioning and rearrangement of the continent. A thin film of water over everything after the battle gave ample explanation as to why.

Not that there weren’t issues of course. There were islands of Boravian flesh alchemists and dens of monsters placed not far from islands with the farms of Fioran farmers and other such arrangements that caused a lot of problems. On top of that however, were the issues caused by old boundaries meaning nothing and the disappearance of the Gods.

Cana glanced at the spire of verdant plant matter, twisted flesh, and flowing water off in the horizon. Well, anybody who was paying attention knew what happened to the Gods.

Cana sighed again and thought back to the message Juvia sent her. It wasn’t much, just an explanation of her plan and her reasoning, as well as how sorry she was that she couldn’t think of anything else and that she loved her and wished she led a happy life.

Cana held back a tear and tried not to punch a wall. It wasn’t fair!

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Another heaving breath to calm herself down, after all, even what little she did get was a lot more than she should reasonably have expected from Juvia in the middle of the fight.

Cana continued walking along the streets of Magnolia, trying to lose herself in the sense of normalcy – the old normalcy anyway. There was another part of Juvia’s message that Cana had been puzzling over once she could think past the grief.

Cana thought she’d figured it out, and if she was right, nothing would ever be the same again.

Her walk carried her all around Magnolia and she thought about how everything around her was going to change. She didn’t know how exactly, but she had guesses based on the stories Juvia told her – the ones Cana had used for ideas when improving her Card Magic and becoming a Saint.

Eventually, she made it to the other end of Magnolia Island and sat on the grass, her feet dangling over the edge.

Her dad eventually found her like that, idly shuffling cards and staring down at the ocean far below.

“Watcha’ thinking about?” he asked as her plopped down beside her.

“Juvia.”

Gildarts winced.

“Not like that” Cana said. “Just thinking about what she left behind.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. She did her best to save everyone and try to keep the Gods War from affecting us too much.”

Gildarts nodded at her to continue.

“I think that we need to look to the future after something like that. Things have changed so much that trying to rebuild the old might be a waste. Juvia even told me she agrees with me.”

Gildarts raised an eyebrow “Oh?”

“’Think outside the box’ she told me.”

“And how’s that mean she wants things to change even more?”

“Well,” Cana said as she stopped shuffling her cards. “She knows me, and we’ve been working on improving our magics together, so I think she meant this.”

Cana reached out to her old Cards and watched as they dissolved into small motes, dissipating into the air.

A moment later, something appeared in front of Gildarts interrupting his panicked reply. It appeared to Cana as well, and to everyone else in the world.

“In with the new” Cana breathed with a small smile as she read the words on the little blue box.

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