Disclaimer and Notes: Soul Eater does not belong to me and I seek no profit from this. I have only seen the anime – I read a little bit about the manga (thank you, TV Tropes), but, as of now, I only really know the anime version of the story and am writing for that. I just had this stupid idea about the wielding of guillotines that bothered me to write. If this turns out poorly, I'll toddle back off to my beloved Legend of Zelda fandom.

LET THEM EAT CAKE

The teaching staff of the Death Weapons Meister Academy was gathered in the Death Room on a clear morning for a momentous occasion. It was not every day that one of their students made the rank of DeathScythe. It was even rarer for someone to make the rank at an age at which most people were barely graduating from middle-school to high school classes. Lord Death had suspended classes for the morning in order to conduct a graduation and celebration for the young genius-warrior among the adults and higher ranks of the DWMA. Today's gathering would have also been a celebration for the boy's meister, but he did not have one. The graduate was a first of his kind in many ways.

Justin Law entered into the Death Room with awe. He stared up at the hall of blades he passed under, feeling a strange comfort in them. He was expecting an audience with Lord Death and didn't even notice the others waiting for him. The soundtrack of his life thrummed in his ears, echoing in his head and heart. The boy was the strongest he'd ever been in his life – his soul charged and his blades sharpened, but he felt small here – like anyone should feel in the presence of his beloved deity.

"How is he not deaf?" Spirit Albarn complained to the woman with the eye patch standing next to him. "I could hear his player as he was walking in."

"Oh, don't be so hard on him," Marie responded, "The kid just likes his music. I'm sure your little Maka has something she's into."

"Books," Spirit replied. "Nice, quiet books that aren't going to damage her adorable little ears."

Justin gaped in surprise upon seeing the teaching staff. They clapped for him to the beat of the drummer that was playing through his headphones. His attention turned immediately to Lord Death, who loomed up before him.

"My Lord!" he said with a graceful bow, and then got up again.

"I'm sure you know why I have called you in here, Justin," the Reaper said. "Uh, Justin?"

Spirit stormed up to the kid and unceremoniously yanked his ear-buds out by the cord.

"Hey!" Justin protested.

"I'm keeping them!" Spirit said, stuffing the confiscated items into his pants pocket.

"I am sorry about this, Justin," Lord Death said gently, "but I really do need you to listen to me. I've gathered the staff here to acknowledge you on your achievement. Congratulations."

Young Justin smiled and then looked around confusedly.

"It's a party, dear," Marie said warmly. "We're so happy to have you join our ranks."

The boy looked a little lost, beyond his general introversion and awkwardness around other people. "What's a party without music?" he asked forlornly.

"Oh, there will be music," Lord Death announced with a clap of his massive hands. On cue, Sid came in rolling a huge boom box on wheel cart. Justin stared at it and Death got his attention again. "But first, to make your graduation to official DeathScythe complete, I must test you."

"A test, Lord?"

"I must wield you," Lord Death said bluntly. "I must get a feel for the weight and spirit of all of my weapons."

"But great Lord!" the teen began, "I have always wielded myself!"

"Yes, and you've done an excellent job – unprecedented! However, you are of a unique type, Justin, which is why I have devised a special test for you. Now, can you transform yourself into your full-weapon form, please?"

Without a word, the boy named Justin Law melded into his full form for dispensing law and justice. The gathered staff gasped at the rather large black scaffold with white cross designs augmented with Lord Death's skull-mask sigil. Lord Death was secretly glad that his son was off in one of the parks today in the care of Maka's mother. The child was supposed to be playing, but was probably trying to redesign the playground equipment. Justin's asymmetrical blade (heavy on one end, light on the other) would have driven poor Kid crazy and the last thing the Lord of Death needed was his child trying to forcibly re-arrange one of his DeathScythes.

"Are you ready, Justin?" Death Asked.

Justin's "pure" human form, messy hair without a cap, a scrawny thirteen-year-old's chest without his robes, replied from a reflection in the vicious-looking blade. "Yes, my Lord!"

Death hopped with one of his strange spring noises. "Excellent, then! Professor Stein – go fetch the test-subjects!"

"Test subjects?" Justin asked. He watched as Stein left the Death Room. He felt Lord Death give the side of his scaffold a gentle pat, but couldn't enjoy the touch of his Lord because he was too busy being confounded. Did Professor Stein have twisted science experiments in mind? The man was known for his predilection for dissection. Did he need some random animals beheaded? Perhaps he had some experiments gone wrong that needed mercy-killing. Justin knew "his own history," as it were. He was the only magical-weapon human guillotine in the world that he knew of, but he knew the non-magical version of what he was owed its invention to people looking for a more humane way of dispatching capital criminals.

Perhaps Stein was to bring in some captured kishin or criminals that the DWMA had in its keeping for him to execute. It wasn't that he wasn't ready and willing to do that, but Justin thought it a strange way to celebrate a graduation. He'd already taken the requisite number of souls from the wicked to make the cut as a DeathScythe and he was sure to see plenty of action in the field – wherever he was assigned to protect.

Stein returned pushing a wheelbarrow full of … fruit? There were watermelons, cantaloupes, pineapples – just about any fruit imaginable that was roughly the size and shape of a human head.

Lord Death placed a huge crystal bowl beneath Justin's neck-shackle. He bounced with a happy boing. Justin tried not to roll his eyes in his blade-reflection. He remained staring ahead, dignified and respectful. Everyone else, however, let their eyes spin and uttered groans.

Ah, yes, this was the usual way to test the calibration on a guillotine – or to cast fear into the heart of the condemned… let them watch the chopping of melons.

"Attention everyone!" Death proclaimed, "The refreshments for the graduation celebration for our dear Justin Law shall be a lovely fruit salad – provided by the graduate himself!"

Everyone cheered. Spirit Albarn, however, grumbled a little bit as he loaded the first watermelon. Lord Death pulled Justin's switch and his blade came down decisively.

"Wonderful!" the Reaper said cheerily. "And let's see to the rest…"

While the testing was going on, the boom box was switched on. The kitchen staff wheeled in a large cake.

"Are we done now, my Lord?" Justin asked innocently when the great bowl was filled with dismembered melons and the floor ran pink with juice.

"Not quiet yet," Lord Death replied. "I have one more mission for you. I need you to cut the cake!"

The celebration went on with everyone getting a piece of cake and coming up, in turn, to congratulate Justin in his human-form as he sat in a chair by the boom-box with his headphones hooked directly into it, despite the fact that it was vibrating the entire Death Room. Everyone, even Spirit, decided to let the boy have this – it was what he was accustomed to and it was rumored that he was probably half-deaf, anyway.

What he wasn't accustomed to, however, was having fruit juice soaked into his clothing and frosting dripping from his hair.

Marie knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Aw, honey…" she said to the younger DeathScythe, knowing that he could read her lips.

"Lord Death forgot to clean my blade," Justin sighed. "When I changed back… well..."

"Would you like to leave for a bit to clean up? It's your party, but you can come back…"

"It's okay," Justin said with a smile. "Lord Death said I was magnificent! Isn't that great news!"

"You're covered in juice and cake!"

"It isn't like me to question the will of my Lord."

END.

I can't believe I wrote this. I really don't know how "graduations" as it were would go in the SE universe. As I've said, I haven't yet read the manga (though I do know of certain face-heel turns in it due to the Great Timesink, aka TV Tropes), so this is anime based only. This is one of those stupid ideas that niggled at me until I wrote it because, um, I dunno – guillotines. I hope this was serviceable. If not, don't take my soul. I may delete it. In any case, I should just probably stick to my videogame fan-writing work.