After the meeting between Lord Death and the Death Scythes had ended, Stein turned to Spirit, who despite being let off the hook, still had his head down. "Aren't you happy that you get to stay here, Spirit?" he said, noticing his former partner's glum mood. "It's not that," Spirit replied, "if Azusa was mad about us….She'll be after the students who went with us next!" he started trembling. "And if that's the case….I may never see my Maka again!" he shrieked, crying profusely.

"Don't worry about it," Stein said, patting the Death Scythe on the shoulder, "Lord Death wouldn't expel his own son. Even if Azusa insists upon it, there's no way he could actually go through with it."

"I hope you're right," said Spirit, getting up. "Because if she does insist upon it, Maka would really get the worst punishment ever!"

Meanwhile, back in the Death Room, Azusa had yet to leave. "Something on your mind, Azusa?" Lord Death asked, wondering why she had to wait for the others to leave. "Sir," Azusa said, kneeling to the Shinigami, "It concerns the three that accompanied Stein and Spirit on the failed mission. Surely the costs of their failure are too big for you to simply ignore their mistakes?"

Lord Death thought about this. "Hmmm," he said, "I suppose this event has indeed led to some trouble that we would all rather avoid, but I don't think it's fair to blame them for it. True, they did ultimately fail to prevent the revival of Asura, but they did save many lives that day, and captured a budding Kishin for the purpose of turning his powers to constructive ends. Besides, those three Meisters you speak of and their respective weapons happen to be among the top of their class."

"But sir—" Azusa shouted, but the grim reaper cut her off. "Azusa," he said, "the DWMA is founded upon principles of love, friendship, honor, and justice. It would be wrong to expel a few students just because they made a mistake or two, even though this particular mistake was quite costly for us all. Mistakes are the first step to progress, and you need to respect that. Besides, with Ashura loose we need all the help we can get."

Azusa walked out of the room, cursing under her breath. Of course she knew Stein's ability full well—she was his weapon when Kami traded her for Spirit—but even though she was perfectly willing to put up with their antics back in the day, she had little patience for students like Soul and Black*Star. Of course, she wouldn't want to just expel Kid—after all, she babysat him part-time once—but these Meisters either needed to be shaped up or shipped out, in her opinion.

Aargh! she thought, there's no way I can convince Lord Death to expel some of his favorite students! If only there were some way I could introduce some real Meisters into this school!

She paused for a minute, remembering something. If her memory didn't fail her, there were several other Death Weapon Meister Academy branches abroad where other Meisters studied. Normally they wouldn't be able to transfer in the middle of the year, but… she smiled. She instantly went into the school records, hoping to find what she wanted.

Some time later, in Death Weapon Meister Academy East, a shadowy figure stood over a defeated man. This was no ordinary Meister team—it was the Death Scythe Rip Midnight and his Three-Star Meister partner, the elderly scythemeister Nicholas Clock. Nobody had ever been able to beat their time-warping abilities before this young Meister. Nicholas suddenly got to his feet, waking his partner. "Congratulations," he said, "You've passed the test beyond my expectations." The shadowy figure rested his weapon over his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said, "I knew I would beat an old geezer like you, even if you did have that whole time control trick."

In Death Weapon Meister Academy North, Stein himself was there, wielding the Death Scythe Siegfried Krieg Donnerschlag, the original weapon of Lord Death before Spirit, who could turn into several types of guns (in this case a pistol), against a Meister whose face was obscured by shadows.

Stein moved to attack the Meister, but the figure dodged, and sent his Soul Wavelength into Stein. Stein coughed up blood. How? he thought, I was so sure I had his wavelength read….How could that have hurt me?

"Look out, mein student!" Siegfried shouted, already moving Stein's arm to intercept the Meister's strike. The Meister's weapon clashed against Siegfried's pistol form, and Stein was pushed back quite far.

Stein grimaced. "Listen, Sensei, this isn't going to work!" he shouted, "Your ability to control your Meister's movements may be a lifesaver, but you need to be farther away to attack because you're no good at close combat!"

He jumped back, had Siegfried turn into a machine gun, and fired several rounds at the Meister. The shadowy figure smirked, as all of the shots went straight through him.

"Annihilation complete," the figure said as his smile disappeared, and he leaped into the air and brought his weapon down on Stein. It was so fast that nobody could see it happening, but Stein was already knocked out on the floor….and Siegfried was dead. Several of the teachers were in a great commotion about this. Of course, it was true that Siegfried Krieg Donnerschlag welcomed the chance to die, and it wasn't against the rules here to kill a faculty member (after all, Stein once killed Sid), but….. it would take incredible talent to do that!

Stein got up, although everyone could tell it was taking him difficulty to stand up. "Very excellent performance," he said, "You not only knocked me out, the strongest Meister to ever come from the Academy, but you also killed Donnerschlag. Well done." The student smiled at this.

"What are you saying, sir?" someone shot out from the audience. "Shouldn't we punish him for killing a Death Scythe?"

"The fact is, Death Scythes are nothing more than tools," Stein said, adjusting his glasses, "Donnerschlag knew this, and willingly accepted his death. If anything, this team should be given extremely high praise for being strong enough to do that to Donnerschlag." He smiled, and then coughed up a river of blood and fainted.

In Death Weapon Meister Academy West, several Death Scythes lay on the floor, not moving at all. "I-Incredible!" a teacher said, "You not only defeated all those Death Scythes in fifteen seconds, you successfully managed to dual-wield two weapons at the same time! Only Death the Kid's ever done that!"

"Well, I'm the second one, then." The Meister emotionlessly replied, looking up.

"Still, you defeated all of your enemies like it was nothing!" Spirit said, overseeing the matter

"Worse than nothing. It was boring." The Meister said, turning away.

Sid smiled at the three unknown Meisters. "The three of you have proven to be the best Meisters to have ever graduated from classes," he said to them, "Even the great Meisters like Maka Albarn and Death the Kid can't reach up to your level. As such, I'm immediately putting you three on a mission to Alaska, where…."

"Wrong! They're going straight to the Academy's main site immediately!" Azusa shouted, barging into the room. "They'll be put in the EAT class!"

"That won't be necessary, Azusa," Sid said, looking at his clipboard, "Or….even possible. We already have twenty-five students or so in the EAT class, and we don't have room for any more!"

"I know that," Azusa smiled, "That's why they'll be taking the place of three of the worst students ever!"

"Worst…?" Sid folded a page back in his clipboard, "I'm sorry, Azusa, but most of the students in EAT have gotten excellent grades over the year. There's no real reason to get rid of any of them."

"What if we held an elimination?" Azusa said, adjusting her glasses in the usual "anime" manner. "If some of the students were to be beaten, that would be grounds for punishment, wouldn't it? If we held a competition, we might be able to weed out the ranks, hmm?"

"I'm up for it," one of the Meisters said, "I'll crush them all!"

"It would be illogical to deny the request of a Death Scythe," another said.

The third Meister said nothing.

"Hold on! Mind if I join the party?" someone called from the back. Azusa whirled around to find another Meister walking in. "Are you the student from the Southern DWMA branch?" she said. "Yep, that's me," the new Meister said. Azusa grimaced, but then figured that since Crona usually associated with the particular group of Meisters she wanted out of the academy, she could include him too. "Alright," she said.

Sid turned another page in his clipboard. His eyes widened. "These are the seven Meisters you've pegged for the competition? But they're the top students in the Academy!" He turned to Azusa. "I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to let this happen! I would never punish students that didn't deserve punishment! That's not the kind of man I was!"

Azusa smiled. "If these four teams prove themselves stronger than the ones we have, replacing them shouldn't be any skin off our teeth."

"Even so, there aren't enough people matching!" Sid said, "I had received word that the Western representative was a dual-wielder, but he seems to only have one weapon now! Even a new Weapon/Meister pair wouldn't balance it out!"

"Look at the student register," Azusa said, "Crona and Ragnarok are counted as one student rather than two, so if we add him we get eight students on both sides."

Sid grimaced. What was Azusa thinking…?

Meanwhile, Maka and Soul were walking down the hallway. "So, what do you think this assembly is gonna be about?" Soul asked, quite annoyed that a guy as cool as him had to attend a useless assembly.

"Shut up, Soul," Maka said, "I really don't know what it's going to be about, nobody told anyone the details. And unlike you, I was paying attention."

Soon, they came to the assembly. Azusa stood at the podium, and had a microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, "After recent events, I have seen fit to introduce the finest Meisters and Weapons outside of Central DWMA to this school!" She motioned to eight people to come to the stage.

"Eight new students!" Kid said, "This is perfect!"

"However, they won't be joining just yet!" Azusa said, "Before being officially sworn in, they'll have to fight eight of the most irresponsible Meisters in the Academy's history!"

"Wow!" Liz said, "Those are really high stakes!"

"I wonder who these eight students are?" Tsubaki asked, looking around.

"There's no way I could be one of them! I'm way too much of a big star here!" Black Star said, his voice loud enough for most people to hear, "And I'm not just whistling through my teeth, either, I took down Masamune! But I betcha Soul's gonna be one of them! After all, he did mess up with Crona!"

"What, are you stupid?" Soul asked, "I was the one who brought Crona in! And I beat Free once too!"

"You're right! Then we're both in the clear!" Black Star said, his arm around Soul, "And there's no way it's Maka, either, 'cause she passed the super written exam!"

"Yeah, it's probably Kid!" Soul said, "He's such a spoiled brat!"

"If you'll recall, I once beat both of you before I surrendered the fight we had when we first met," Kid said, "Even so…..I'm a worthless asymmetrical piece of dirt! It's probably me! Even if she isn't having me fight, I wish she was so I could just die already!"

"You don't need to worry about that, Kid!" Azusa said, pointing at the entire group, "You, plus Maka Albarn, Black Star, Crona, and your respective weapon partners, are the eight who're going to fight the new breed!"

"What?" Maka asked, "If this is because of…."

"The seven of you may be excellent in combat, but outside of combat, you're complete failures!" Azusa shouted, "Except for Maka and Tsubaki, none of you exhibit any passing grades in non-athletic classes, and worst of all, you screwed up and allowed the original Kishin to be reborn into this world!"

"Well….what about Crona?" Maka asked, "He's only a new student here! He doesn't deserve any punishment!"

Crona looked at her. "Actually, I found out about this and asked to be put into the competition," he said, "I don't know how to deal with new students or you leaving."

"If you ask me, it was a very illogical thing to do," one of the new Meisters said. He had brown hair combed back, and wore a blue coat with gold zippers and those shoulder….things (with the frills like tassels, they're on generals' coats). "Purposely putting oneself in a position that allows a possibility for failure and punishment is a meaningless act."

"Aw, c'mon, Vergil, it's an act of friendship," another Meister said. His jet-black hair was greased back, and he wore blue cargo shorts and a pink T-shirt under a red plaid button-up shirt, "He doesn't want his friends to lose, so he's helping them out. I think it's something you guys should really pick up on."

"Hmph. Friends are nothing but a detail that leaves life too complicated and stressful," a third Meister spoke up. His hair and eyes were purple, and like Vergil, he wore mostly gold, although he seemed to favor maroon-colored vests and white shirts. "You're just too soft, Jason."

"Does it matter?" a Weapon asked. He wore a cloak and a white mask that made it look as though he was constantly smiling. "They're all gonna lose anyway."

Azusa cleared her throat. "Anyway, these will be the rules of the conflict," she said, pulling down a map. "The battles will take place on Fortress Island, an abandoned base of ancient Meisters and Weapons. The rules to the conflict are simple enough. Teams will eliminate each other's members until one representative from either team remains!"

"What? That's an easy challenge!" Black Star jumped onto the stage. "Sure, Maka might get beat, and so could Kid, but if I stay until the end and beat everyone, that's all I need!"

"I'm afraid it's not really that simple," Kid said, also jumping onto the stage, "There's a good chance that all of us might get eliminated."

"Better make that a perfect chance, loser!" a spiky-haired teenager who wore sunglasses shouted, "There's no way any of you can beat any of us!"

"That is enough, Dante," Vergil said, his hands together, "It isn't logical to belittle our opponents before the match. Besides, there is also no guarantee that we will win."

"That's right! This is strictly about determining the best candidates for the job!" Azusa said, speaking up, "It's no secret that I badly want the new breed to win, but combat has a way of reshaping Meisters and bringing out the best in the worst of them! So it's possible that the old team of Meisters has some fight left in them!"

The assembly concluded, and everyone felt down about themselves. How could they have gotten themselves into this kind of mess…? Even Maka seemed down, and she gulped hard. She wasn't even sure she would make it against these new Meisters!

Mr. 96: Hoo boy! That was my longest first chapter of a story yet! Anyway, forgot to say this at the beginning: I don't own anything! As if anyone needed to say that….