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Part 1: The Infection
A Severed Connection
Death City, Nevada
11:52 PM
Below the endless sea of dazzling stars is a silent city bathed in darkness. High walls surround the circle shaped city, with huge statues of comical looking skulls decorating it. There's a sprawling, near skyscraper building found on the highest point of the city. That is the DWMA. Death Meister Weapon Academy. Only weapons and meisters can attend the prestigious academy.
The duty of weapons, humans that could turn into weapons, is to obtain 99 Kishin souls, and one witch soul. The weapon, whether a scythe or not, becomes one of Lord Death's Death Scythe's. Meisters wield weapons, and use their soul wavelength in battle. A soul wavelength is like an extension of the soul itself. When Meisters use them in battle, they differ depending on the soul of the person. Seeing how wavelengths almost have their own personality, finding a person whose wavelength matches prove difficult for some.
For the meisters that can find a weapon's matching wavelength, they soon find themselves with a partner. It becomes the weapon's duty to protect the meister in battle, and the duty of the meister to make the weapon stronger. There's no such thing as a Death Meister, but talented meisters do work for Lord Death as an instructor in the academy.
When a weapon/meister pair have known each other for a long time, they are able to do a soul resonance- a powerful, stronger connection where the two souls merge partially, and allows the resonance users to do special, more dangerous moves. A battle against a more powerful enemy makes soul resonance so much more helpful. Especially against evil souls named Kishins. Kishins are monsters infected with madness-a disease of the soul, mind, and body that corrupts good. Madness is often found in the black blood of Kishin monsters.
The evil souls of Kishins spawn from one madness made being called the Kishin. It's the center of all madness and evil related things.
Suddenly, a noise disrupts the silence. A small pebble bounces across the street, before it rolls to a stop. A foot pulls back, and rests against a wall.
"You sure about this?" Soul grumbles from a darkened street corner, hands in pockets. His crimson eyes literally glow in the dark, and are slanted slightly in what seems to be contained frustration. The flourescent sting of a lampost illuminates his unusual colored hair-stark white. His hair literally defies gravity, spiky strands sticking straight up. The teenager's rogue locks are contained only slightly by a small black headband.
The girl he is speaking to is only five yards away, eyes scrunched up in concentration. Her ash blonde pigtails rise slightly in a breeze, then rest just below her shoulder blades. At the sound of Soul's voice, her eyes snap open.
"Of course Soul, when have I ever not been?"
Earlier that day...
It's just one of those days, where time stands still, and the hard sun softens its golden glare. Stress ceases to exist, and time passes through in a thick haze. One can find themselves smiling without realizing it. A lazy Friday is what one can call it. And laziness has struck the students of Dr. Stein's Crescent Moon Class.
"And if you cut into the abdomen…" Stein shows no emotion as he begins cutting into the helpless, unrecognizable bird. Halfway in, he stops to look up at the students. No one flinches at his cold stare, as they usually do. His students pay him no attention, not even Ox or Maka. The students are all immersed in their own worlds.
Liz, expectantly, is carefully applying an even layer of blue nail polish on her long fingers. She frowns whenever the brush goes astray, and wipes it away with a handy Q-tip. Her straight blonde hair rests over her shoulders, and a small sailor hat rests on top of her head. She smiles at Patti's origami giraffes.
The younger Thompson sister is wearing the exact same outfit, only different with her short auburn hair and spirited face. Patti is animatedly attacking her lesson with paper giraffes, ripping the lesson up to shreds. She laughs insanely, and throws the scraps of paper into the air like confetti. It showers those around her with small bits of paper. They glare at her, but meekly turn around when Liz glares at them. Completely unaware of his weapons havoc-causing is Kid.
Kid stares cryptically at two, eight inch apart pencils with a look of both distrust and slight longing. Tamed locks of silky black hair cover his gold lion eyes, and a portion of his bangs are cut across with three white stripes. Carefully, oh so carefully, he moves one pencil just a hair inch to the left. A wide, triumphant smile spreads across his face. He sits back on his chair and folds his arms, satisfied with his detailed work. Suddenly a well aimed rubber band flies down from above, and snaps the tip off of one of the pencils.
His face freezes into a look of disbelief, then falls down onto the desk. His sniffles of distress can be heard from across the room.
The launcher of the band, as expected, is none other than Black Star, who is sniggering loudly. Tsubaki shakes her head for poor Kid, and resumes reading the book she's borrowed from Maka. Unaware of his partner's disapproval, Black Star calls across the room for his crime cohort, Soul.
The white haired teen holds a paper ball only inches from Maka's neck. He waves a hand behind him without turning around, paper ball moving even closer to the base of his meister's neck. It looks like he is planning to drop it down the back of Maka's shirt. Black Star's persistent jabbering makes Soul turn around, and glare at him.
What? He mouths. Black Star points at Kid, and laughs pompously. Soul rolls his eyes, but a small smile finds its way across his face. Maka notices Soul's shark tooth grin, and reaches into her coat. Without looking up from her worksheet, she lays a thick encyclopedia on the desk. She taps the cover twice, giving a clear warning: Try that again and you'll get Maka-chopped.
Soul's hand retreats immediately, and he diverts his attention to anywhere but Maka. She smiles slightly at Soul's fear of the Maka Chop, then tunes her attention back to the assignment at hand. A paper with a diagram of a bird (she's pretty sure it's on the endangered list) is in the center, with a few questions on the back. She has already labled all the body parts without being told to, and answered the questions at the bottom. Now she is finishing the essay assigned for a project that is due in two weeks. In between that time, she's sure that she can find an extra credit assignment to do in between then. She would probably have to help Soul with his project so he wouldn't fail. She sighs, and scans over what she has just written.
With that thought in mind, I conclude that there are no after effects to the madness of the Kishin.
Maka smiles. The assignment is-was, a piece of cake. The assignment is to write an arguementive paper on the madness effects of a strong Kishin, debating whether any effects exist or not. She has been through madness with THE Kishin, and can safely say she's safe. Her courage doesn't allow madness…
What is that, doubt? Since when do I doubt myself? If there is no madness, then there is no madness. She has the facts to prove it, and even threw in a few facts of her own. Everything was is okay.
When was the last time I checked on Soul? She thinks worriedly. He looks, at the moment, carefree, as he plays paper football with Ox. Oh! He just frowned!
Maka mentally slaps herself. Baka. He frowned because he missed the goal. She is going to sound like a worried old woman if she keeps this up.
Click. The unmistakable noise comes from the front of the room. She turns her attention to Stein, and stiffens when she realizes that he is staring at her and her friends. Soul notices her frozen stature, and follows her line of vision to their teacher. He drops the paper football, and nudges Ox.
"Black Star." Stein says without taking his eye from Soul and Maka. "What is the answer to question two?"
Black Star doesn't take a second to consider the question.
"THE GREAT BLACK STAR IS ABOVE ANSWERING QUESTIONS!"
Seconds later, Black Star finds himself in an all too familiar spot: Outside, staring at the classroom door.
"Damn." He mutters.
Back Inside the Classroom
The final bell rings, loud and clear inside the quiet classroom. Sheepishly, each student hands in their either incorrect or half-finished worksheet to . Their impish faces lighten up the instant they leave the classroom and catch up with their friends.
Maka drops her paper on the stack, and turns to go-
"A word with you Miss Albarn."
A little sweat begins to gather at the base of her neck, as she imagines Stein cutting her liver open with his favorite scalpel. She shudders, putting on a brave face.
"Okay." She notices Soul lingering around. "It's okay Soul you can go ahead without me."
"Actually, I'd like to talk with both of you." Stein pulls out a package of ciggarretes, and puts one in his mouth without lighting it. He grinds the mud-colored tobbacco leaves underneath his teeth.
Soul nods and takes his place near Maka. He stuffs his hands inside his pockets, and waits for Stein to continue.
"Soul are you listening..."
Soul shifts his intense gaze from the ground to the mad man.
"Good," Stein says before the teen can answer. "Because what I'm about to tell you is very important."
Maka's ears perk up.
"It seems as if after the destruction of the Kishin Asura, his wavelgnth produced a very large explosion," he pauses. Both of the students are listening to him attentively.
"And within the explosion were the last eggs of his wavelength." Stein pulls at one of his drawers, moving things aside, and pulls out a thin sheet of wrinkly paper.
"This is an accurate illustration of the new threat."
Maka takes the paper in her hands. Her voice stays silent, but her eyes speak a thousand words. Even a quick scan of the page gets a reaction from her. Maka's delicate, yet strong hands begin trembling. Her fingers curl tightly around the edges.
Soul gently prods the paper from her hands, and looks at it for himself. Surprise etches his face before he reels his emotions back in.
The Kishin appears to look like the evil 99th soul he and Maka had collected. A long, thin body, and a white bony face. The nose, however, is long and shaped similar to an elephant's. Maka can only imagine what terrible purposes it's used for. Its fangs, bared in the picture, seem much longer.
"This looks very familiar. Is there any difference between the normal Kishins?"
Stein lights his cigarrette.
"This Kishin seems to have adapted to the regular meister weapon pair, and is by default, much more intelligent..." His eyes suddenly dim, and he breaks the tobbacco scented stick in half.
"Dr. Stein?" she asks timidly.
"It also seems to take on the form of a snake,"
Maka's eyes ignite with fury.
"We aren't yet sure why it does this." Stein seems to be finished, and leans back on his chair. "We need an experienced weapon meister pair to go undercover, and lure one out. When the Kishin comes, we will have a Death Scythe deal with it."
Maka speaks up at once.
"We'll take the job." she declares, folding the picture up and placing it in her coat.
Soul stifles a grunt, and looks at Maka in surprise. What was the point of him being here if Maka just makes all the descicions.
"Good. Report at this location tonight at ten. I expect Soul to stay in his human form the entire time, unless you must defend yourself, don't be exposed." He warns.
"Hai." Maka says, waving a gloved hand at Stein. She turns on her heel, and strides out the door. Soul, however, lingers behind for a second. Stein notices him, and acknowledges him.
"Yes Soul?"
"How much does this soul count for?"
"Count for?"
"Is it a regular soul or a witch's soul?"
Stein puffs out smoke. "I imagine this will make you a death scythe, Soul Eater. Now leave before I dissect you."
The evil gleam reflected in Stein's glasses makes Soul leave the room quickly. He quickly backs out of the room, and jogs to catch up to Maka.
She turns in surprise.
"What's gotten into you?" She's asked this because his hands aren't in his pockets.
"I'm-" Soul pauses. How would she react to him becoming a death scythe? Should he even tell her?
That's crazy, all she wants is to make you a death scythe.
"I'm just thinking how cool I am." he boasts, stuffing his hands in his pockets and smirking. The slight smile on her face vanishes, replaced by a scowl.
"Whatever. Let's get home already." The pair, weapon and meister walk out of the hallway, the echoes of their footsteps in perfect unison.
Bonjour all, Mae here with my third SE fanfic! This one, unlike my first, centers around the main characters, and features mainly SoMa. A few other secondary pairings will be mentioned, mainly MariexStein and a little NygusxSid. The next chapter might take a while, considering this is my first really long SE fanfic. Au revoir for now! :)