"Come on Soul! Dress with some class today, I know you know how!" My scythe just rolled his eyes at me, shoving his hands into the pockets of his wrinkled old jacket. "I don't see the why I should have to change such a cool outfit just because some old scientist lady's coming to the academy." Then it was my turn to roll my eyes, tapping my foot impatiently on the living room floor. "You're almost as sloppy as Black Star sometimes..." He just gave a lazy, lopsided grin and walked towards the door, ignoring my earlier command. "We are best friends after all." I'd like to push further, but the negative first impression of being late seems like it would be worse than that of my partner's grungy cloths so I reluctantly followed him out, ready to face the day to come.
It was announced by Lord Death at the begining of the week that DWMA would be having a guest. She was described as a ferily powerful miester and influential researcher, famous for her work with kishin eggs, and after a bit of research of my own, I found out that her name pops up in one place or another in almost all of our textbooks. Kaila Everwaking. She made ground-breaking discoveries about the fine details of a soul's transformation from human to Kishin, and now she was comming to teach a class at the acdamy for a semester. It was extremely exclusive and almost impossible to get into, not only did you have to send in an aplication and all of your information ahead of time, but today she was visiting to give a presentation and sit in on our usuol school day in order to hand pick pairs that she thought were adequate. My stomach was fluttering with butterflies the entire trip on the back of the motorcycle and by the time we arrived I was about ready to throw up. If I had to see Ox's smug, giant-glassed face as he told me he made the class and I didn't, I was going to smash it with a textbook.
The whole classroom was filled with a quiet buzz as we entered and you could see the rigid, strained expressions on many of the higher level miester's faces as they went through the same mental stress spiral I currently was. We slid down the isles into our seats and settled in, or, at least I tried. The nausea was still prevalent and sat like a slimy creature in my gut that occasionally tried to push its way towards my throat, I couldn't help but constantly figited with my cloths, trying to make sure everything was straight and perfect. 'Geez... I was as bad as Kid.' It didnt deter me though. Kaila Everwaking was rarely one to dole out her knowledge to just anyone if it wasn't in a research paper, and since she worked so independently, this may very well be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I could see Soul lounging in his seat like nothing was wrong, ever the cool guy. I couldnt tell if it calmed me down, or just worked me up more so I forced myself to look away, this was too big of a deal for me to start piling on uneccissary worrying about my partner's behavior's effect on me. Tsubaki eyed me nervously, keeping her usuol friendly greeting to herself, she probobly sensed that was on a hair trigger right now. However she did reach over and give my hand a reassuring squeeze and encouraging smile when she drummed up the courage, and though I almost leapt out of my skin, I was grateful for it.
I was about ready to burst by the time Stein walked in, a young women in a neat blouse and dress pants entering confidently just behind him, and a much shorter girl in giant untied boots and a hoodie trailing behind her. I forced myself to calm down and sat at attention, hiding my raging nerves behind a mask of determined alertness. They stood at the center of the room in front of the singular teacher's desk before the students, Stien's glass covered eyes scanning each of our faces from right to left until the entire room had fallen deadly silent. He cleared his throat and gestured to the guest with his hand. "This is Ms. Everwaking, I expect every single one of you to be as quiet as a corpse while she speaks or I'll have a special consiquence sorted out just for you." He said with a hint of a sadistic smile. A few of my classmates shuttered but I wasn't fazed. I'd gotten used to our professor's eccentricities since we first fought him for our remedial lesson and it barely even fazed me now. Not to mention I had yet to and didn't plan to feel it first hand. Stien quickly made his way back and reclaimed his perch on his desk chair and the, surprisingly young, Kaila Everwaking stepped up to speak.
I feel a bit guilty, but admittedly, I had planned on seeing an old woman here to speak to us today, and I was cought a bit off guard. She looked to be in her early to mid twenties, with dark, wavy brown hair that hung down past her shoulders. She was dressed rather officially but stood with a slightly relaxed air about her that could only be given off by a person who was still in their confident, youthful prime. 'How had she made so many brilliant discoveries at such a young age? Where did she get all the time, and more importantly, the informational resources?' It only took me one quick glance at her soul though to know without a shadow of a doubt that she was the real deal. Extreme strength and bravery, backed up with confident intelligence. The shorter one on the other hand was very different. She shifted from one foot to the other beside her counterpart, as if unsure of how to stand properly. Her dark brown eyes darted from face to face from behind her hood and the straight brown hair that stuck out of it in all directions. Our gazes locked momentarily and she gave me an unsure but friendly smile witch I returned with a quick nod of greeting. I wondered what such a shabily dressed character was doing with someone like Ms. Everwaking but her soul was what gave me real pause. At first I thought there was a kishin egg nearby, even almost instinctively bolting up from my chair to find the threat, however, apon further examination it seemed to be coming from her, and as soon as I would begin to grow suspicious of her, I would sense the soul of a normal, sensible human. It was the most bizarre thing I'd ever felt before in my life. Like two souls were twisting around in one body and fighting for a place in my soul perception. My analasis of the soul was cut short by Kaila, who's words immediately snapped me to attention.
"Good morning everyone, as Professor Stien said, I am Kaila Everwaking and this," she nodded to the girl beside her. "is my younger sister Cinder Everwaking." I instantly filed the name away in my memory. 'Cinder Everwaking. I never read anything about her having a sister in my crash coarse through her history, and what was wrong with her soul?' I left the questions in my head to the side to continue listening intently, hoping if she noticed it would earn me points in her favor. A dumb thought I know, but in a class this prestigious, I was scrounging for any possotive impression I could give. Cinder smiled shyly again, more openly this time meant to greet everyone in the room. She quickly ducked back though, allowing her sister to take back the attention. The was a moment of silence, as if Kaila wanted to say something to her, but she quickly picked back up on her presentation. "As you all probobly know, I will be teaching a class here for your next semester based around my research with Kishin eggs. It is a very special class, that will only be offered to very special students. I've received all of your applications and I've read them all thuroughly, so I have a pretty good idea of all of your skill sets and academic abilities, however, that isn't all that I need to know, and I'll be sitting in on all of your classes today in order to get the last bit. I'm looking forward to seeing all of you work, and those of you who are future students of mine, I'm looking forward to working alongside you." She gave a slight bow and turned, stepping down to allow Stien to once again take his position at the center of the class. The two sisters sat down on the edge of the room, their eyes trained on us curiously, and proved to be a nagging distraction to me the rest of the lesson. Between Cinder's crazy wavelength and Kaila's relaxed yet calculating gaze, I started to wonder if this was a test to see if we could still pay attention. By the next couple though I finally started to calm down and managed to tune out the pressure as best I could to focus on being a good student for it.
Lunch time was a relief, and I had to sigh audibly as I left the classroom, feeling like someone just lifted an anvil off my shoulders. Soul just rolled his eyes at me, grumbling something under his breath about me witch I easily inferred to be derogatory and met it with a swift and customary "Maka chop."
The cafeteria was as packed as ever, however it seemed to be a lot quieter than usuol and it only took me a few seconds of crowd scanning to figure out why. One of the tables sat empty in the far corner, aside from a measly five people. Death the Kid, Patty, Liz, and the Everwaking sisters. I couldnt help but tense a bit. Sure I was good at being presentable all the time but I'd have liked to at least be able to relax a little bit away from the judgmental eyes of my hopefully future professor. Kid seemed to be chatting rather comfortably with her witch I slightly envied. He was the son of Lord Death so not only did he have the rank to be able to speak to her freely but he got accepted into her class by default. 'Lucky bastard.' I tried to keep from staring at them as I got my food but couldnt help my curiosity, and it wasnt long after the rest of us have settled over at our usuol table that Patty's and I's eyes met. She gave a big grin and started waving at me enthusiasticly, quickly atracting the attention of the rest of our respective tablemates as well. Black Star immediately jumped to his selfish conclusion and stood up from the bench. "So Kid's trying to steal my spotlight in the eyes of the new professor when I'm not around to defend it huh!? Well skrew that!" He grabbed his tray and began to hurry over to their table, much to Tsubaki's dismay as she followed clumsily behind, trying in vein to convince him that he really shouldn't intrude. The tables and benches in our cafatiria are long, giving plenty of room for five students to sit in one side, bit that didn't stop Blackstar from giving Kid a hard shove to the side as he sat down. Now it was only Soul and I left at our normal spot and Patty continued to wave to us, gesturing extravagantly with her arms for us to come over and join them. I felt like I wanted to just disappear into a hole in the ground like Sid, hide away from this embarassment. Soul just cocked an eyebrow, shockingly similar to that of Kaila , who was now turned around looking at me as well. Cinder craned her neck to see past the edge of her dark hood and offered an encouraging smile and gestured with her own sleeve-covered hand for me to come sit. I looked down, letting my bangs fall over my eyes and slowly stood up, grabbed my lunch and made my way over, hearing Soul do the same just behind me. I managed to regain my composure as best I could by the time our death-row-feeling march ended and we took our seats at the table. I ensured that my posture was flawless, despite my intense desire to slouch and hide, and looked the esteemed researcher straight in the eyes. She smiled openly and I found myself returning it, shaking the hand she had held out to me in greeting. "And your name is?" She asked expectantly, proving to me that my inner stress monologue had made me a bit late on my response. "Maka Albern." I answered. "Ah, the scythe master, daughter of the academy's death scythe. I admit, your aplication was quite impressive." Heat rose a bit in my face at the fact she remembered me so well from just some paper but I smiled and gave a confirmatory nod. "I didn't get to see any of the aplications but hi anyway!" Cinder chimed in with a nervous chuckle. She didn't offered her hand for me to shake like her sister but instead keapt the both buried in her hoodie pocket, opting to give the table a friendly smile instead. "So how have things been here at the acadamy?" Kaila asked casuolly, and from there we went for the rest of the lunch period. My jitters went away surprisingly quickly as the conversation went on, drawn in by Kaila's outgoing, approachable domener. It was kind of weird, I hadnt expected her to be nearly so freindly and down to earth, despite her accomplishments, her age shined through very easily. She and her sister had atended normal puplic school for many years when they were younger so we had plenty of stories to swap. Soul even ended up getting dragged in, despite his feigned indifference. The only thing keeping me the slightest bit on edge was Cinder. After her inicial greeting she sort of shrank back into the background and whatched us all quietly, chiming in here and there but seeming all around awkward and skittish. It made me rather uncomfortable but I didn't really say anything, she didn't seem to be too bothered and was making an effort to join in the fun, but I could sense somewhere in her eratic little soul that she was frustrated and just about as uncomfortable as me. By the time the second lunch bell rang and we departed the cafiteria for our next class, the group of us were chatting like good friends, Cinder trotting along quitely beside us obve coarse. "And we're just sitting back whatching the whole time this is happening and just thinking like "what the heck...?"!" Kiala laphed, earning an echoed reaction from Liz, Tsubaki, Patty, and Black Star. Soul tries to hide his chuckle.
Nearing the classroom, Cinder, closest to the door, quickly ducked inside, followed by Black Star and Tsubaki, then by Kid and the Thomson sisters. Kaila, last to enter, turned to me and looked me straight in the eye with a sincere smile. "Well, it was a pleasure to meet you Maka, and I look forward to having you and your friends in my class this semester." It takes her words a few seconds to sink in, by which time she's gone, thankfully, because I just about squeal in exitement, barely managing to maintain my composure. 'I made it in! I'm not sure I should trust it completely until I check the official list tomorow morning but right now I'm almost too exited to care! At least I know I made a good impression!' The rest of the day goes by quickly, and I cant wait to get back tomorow.