Get ready, Shibusen, here comes Soul Evans! Demon scythe extraordinaire, coolest guy in town, ladies' man and -

Ah, who did he think he was kidding? Just like his piano playing was nothing special at home, his weapon abilities were hardly outstanding here. One more place where he wasn't extraordinary. Scuffing the side of his left runner sulkily against the rail of the great grey stairs, Soul took his first steps into the school that would be his second home for the next few years of his life.

What an eyesore. He had expected something prestigious, something grand and old and … and … something that was not … this from the famed weapon-meister academy. A towering castle made from dark grey stone, perhaps, rising ominously from the hillside, surrounded by a black spiked fence, turrets and all that jazz. Yeah. After all, this was the school built by Death himself, used for training elite forces to combat evil – it should look threatening, it should look menacing, it should look cool…

Really, the whole thing just looked stupid.

The red spikes could have looked intimidating, yet they were far too bright in colour to be scary, managing to resemble red crayons rather than … whatever it was they were meant to resemble. The candles, sure, he could understand that maybe they looked good at night, but in the bright sun, flames transparent in the light and great globs of wax dripping sluggishly onto the giant skulls that marked the entrance … yeah, not so much. Actually, speaking of skulls, Soul was starting to tire of the motif very quickly. All over the acceptance letter, the textbooks, the suggested uniforms, the city gates, the shops, the houses – skulls skulls skulls skulls skulls. It was overkill.

Not cool.

Well, better than staying at home with his genius brother and disappointed parents (they were disappointed in him, of course, not Wes. No one was ever disappointed in Wes). Fresh start and all that jazz. Hunching his shoulders and fixing his face into an intimidating scowl (or, at least, he thought it was intimidating) he entered the school's antechamber, completely ignoring the blue-haired boy standing atop one of the huge red spikes (crayons), spruiking himself for all he was worth.

A plump woman with blonde ringlets and a clipboard ambushed him the moment he stepped through the door.

'Name?'

Soul blanched and stared dumbly at her for a moment before answering.

'Soul.'

The lady tutted and shook her head 'Full name.'

'Oh. Soul Ev-' a thought struck him just as he was speaking. What if people here had heard of his family? They weren't celebrity famous or anything, but they were well known. Once people found out who his brother was, everything would turn to shit. First, the expectations, then the disappointment and lastly – and worst of all – the sympathy. He didn't need that. You know. Fresh start and all that jazz. '-ater'

'What?'

'Soul Eater.'

Black eyebrows (Ah. She must dye her hair. He knew that a colour that bright couldn't be natural) disappeared under a blonde fringe 'You don't seem too certain about that.'

'Well, it's my name.' Shoulder's hunched even more, Soul tried to push past the interfering woman to join the growing crowd of students he could see over her cardiganed shoulder.

'Sorry.' She held an arm out to stop him, displaying an alarming speed. 'I can't seem to find your name on my list.'

'It should be there.' Unfortunately, the lady also possessed an alarming strength, something which Soul discovered as he tried to remove her arm from his path.

'Your name isn't here.' She told him once more, as he sat dazed on the cold floor, where she had pushed him down a moment ago. How embarrassing. 'But,' her eyes acquired a sort of triumphant glint as she flipped through the pages of her clipboard 'I do have a Soul Evans, a demon scythe. That wouldn't happen to be you?'

Sheepishly picking himself off the floor, Soul could only mutter his assent and mumble something about 'Typos'.

'Of course.' She smiled sweetly 'Now, I see you've requested a residence here in Death City?'

Soul wanted to reply with something incredibly witty along the lines of 'What's it to you?' but was wary of this woman's attacking power.

'Yes.'

'Excellent. You will be living with this young lady over here. You will also be serving as her weapon.'

Seemingly out of nowhere, she plucked a small figure with dirty blonde hair out of the crowd by the arm. Large green eyes blinked at him surprisedly, and a delicate mouth hung agape.

There was an awkward pause as the two stared at each other.

'Look, lady, no offence, but I wanted a house to myself,' said Soul, once he regained his composure.

'Um, I also requested a single residence,' the girl chimed in. Her voice was surprisingly … deep. Not deep deep, like Soul's own voice (because his voice was ridiculous), just … deeper than he expected. She didn't sound unfeminine or anything, she just … whatever. He didn't care. He wasn't staying with her.

'Death City is suffering a housing crisis at the moment. It comes from packing a city onto a mountain in the middle of the desert. Anyone requesting residencies must share with at least one other student. Sorry.' The woman didn't seem particularly sorry, but before Soul had the chance to express his views on her apology, she was off to harass a girl with short pink hair who had just entered the room.

Fuming inside, Soul cast his eyes over the milling body of students, some talking and laughing happily, others standing uncomfortably by themselves, trying not to draw attention to their isolation. This was not a good start; this was not a good start at all. If the rest of his time here was going to be as shitty as this, he was leaving, that was it, no way was he sticking round here, no –

'Hi. My name's Maka Albarn.'

Startled, Soul once more faced the girl he was to be paired with. Too late, he realised that she was holding out a hand for him to shake. He held out his hand, but she had already begun to retract her hand. She changed her hand's direction, but not quickly enough, because Soul had pulled his hand away and –

And it was all very awkward.

'I'm Soul. Soul Eater.'

'Oh. Nice to meet you.'

'Nice to meet you too.'

There was really nothing more to say.

The girl – Maka – looked determinedly down at the floor, giving Soul the chance to fully examine her. She was very skinny, flat-chested and looked weak. How she was going to pick him up in his weapon form, let alone fight with him, he did not know. Her dark blonde hair (natural, he suspected, because if you were going to dye your hair, you certainly wouldn't be dying it that colour) was drawn up into pigtails, for God's sake. She looked about seven. Nice eyes though. Nice colour.

'So,' Maka said, after around a millennia of silence 'what do you think we should do?'

About what? Soul thought. About having to share a house even though we're strangers? About you being too weak to be an effective meister? About global warming? Be more specific.

'I dunno,' seemed a pretty safe answer.

'Well, I don't think anyone's giving us a speech or a tour, so we may as well do something.' She gestured to a girl with dark, shoulder-length hair and an almost bald boy with glasses who were walking past, seemingly to explore the school 'Walk around the academy for a bit, maybe?'

Soul shrugged 'Sure.'

They turned and walked through a doorway into a cream-coloured corridor silently together. Other students seemed to have realised that they weren't being called to do anything and were similarly breaking off to look around, some chatting animatedly with their new partners, others, like Soul and Maka, using this exercise as an excuse to look everywhere except at each other.

The weapon and his new meister's footsteps echoed loudly on the floor as they walked. They were the only ones to have chosen this corridor, so there was no chance of being distracted by others. Fabulous. All Soul had wanted was to get away from his family and have a fresh start (and all that jazz) somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere different, somewhere he could actually be good at something. Instead, he now had to share a house (how big would the house be? Would they have to share a room? He hoped not) with a girl he had only just met with whom he could barely keep up a civil amount of conversation and who didn't look like she couldn't fight off a mild breeze, rendering all chances of him actually succeeding in doing something like, oh, let's say, becoming a friggin' death scythe close to zero and -

And then, he saw it. Through the glass pane of a door, his eyes rested on the very object of his dreams. It was beautiful, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, shining from the reflected sunlight streaming in through the classroom window. Black as night and absolutely magical, it called to him, begging to be used, imploring him to run his hands down its spine, coax out beautiful melodies, draw forth from it enchanting songs and –

'Do you play piano?' Soul had unknowingly stopped in his tracks to stare at the instrument, and Maka had noticed.

'Yes,' he replied automatically. Then he caught himself. 'I mean, no I don't, I don't play piano.' He wanted to leave who he had been in the past in the past. Fresh start and all that jazz. Maka looked confused. Soul swore inwardly. 'I mean, I don't play well. I'm a very bad player.'

Oh, smooth. Not suspicious at all. Sign him for the FBI right away, he was so good at covering his tracks.

'Well, I don't play period.' Maka dropped her eyes to the floor for a second before asking 'Would you play something for me?'

Aw crap. 'No. I'm not good enough.'

Maka laughed – she had a sweet laugh. 'You'll be better than me. Go on, I probably won't be able to tell if you're terrible or not anyway.'

Maybe it was because doing so meant that they wouldn't have to suffer silently together for at least a few minutes, or maybe it was because Maka had actually laughed and diffused some of the previous awkwardness, or maybe it was even because that girl had nice eyes, but Soul gave in and found himself seated down in front of the grand piano. Whipped already.

'This is the kind of guy I am.' He took a deep breath and played a song of his own creation.

It was in a minor key, very dark but not slow. Soul had quick fingers and he put them to good use, running up and down the octaves, never stumbling over the strange intervals, always moving, moving, moving. Crescendos were built and then deconstructed, discordant harmonies rang out and twisted notes flew from the black instrument.

When he was finished, he could hear Maka applauding. He smiled to himself. At least he'd found someone who liked his playing. He swivelled around in his chair to find Maka positively beaming. Wow. She really mustn't know anything about music.

Grinning, he held out his hand to meet Maka's for the first time. This was getting interesting. Maybe he would stick around for a bit, just to see how things would turn out.

Besides, she did have nice eyes.