Hiya, peeps! I'm Dictator4Life, a little kid with an ego problem. Please enjoy my first fanfic!
Okay, I know that many of you want to know why the hell I haven't shipped Black Star with Tsubaki. Two reasons: She's too mature and a little thing I like to call Mifune. Besides, he obviously has a crush on Maka because he went ballistic when she got hurt. Soul's previous injury was much more serious, but Black Star didn't hunt Medusa down.
Disclaimer: Look at my story. I hope you're not too stupid to realize that that is not the work of a successful mangaka.
"Shinigami-sama? You asked to see me?"
The speaker was a girl who looked to be about fourteen years old. She was wearing a decidedly odd looking cloak that trailed to the floor. It was a bleached shade of gray, the color of old asphalt.
"Ah, Maka-chan! Thank you for coming over!"
If the first person was strange, this man was the stuff of nightmares- or at least one of those dreams that are so ridiculous you feel vaguely embarrassed for even having them. He wore an angular skull mask, and his body was a mess of pointy black shapes. His voice was that of a character on a toddler's TV show.
"No problem. So, what do you need me to do?"
The eye sockets crinkled. Perhaps he was grinning?
"Well, Maka-chan, I knew that you were getting bored without any souls to reap, so I decided to give you a job."
The girl smiled, embarrassedly rubbing the back of her neck. "Gomen, Shinigami-sama, but the whole grim reaper thing gets boring during times of world peace."
His voice turned grim. "That might not last for long."
The girl's green eyes widened. "Eh? What do you mean?"
"I'm searching for my successor, Maka-chan, but so are our enemies."
"Wait, what?"
He sighed exasperatedly. "Gomen. I forgot that you didn't know."
"You're getting a successor? How? Why?"
He rubbed his brow with an oversized hand. "I used to be an ordinary human, too. I was selected many eons ago, by the previous shinigami, allowing him to pass on."
She quirked a brow at the frowning man. "'Pass on?' What does that mean?"
"Everyone does eventually," he said firmly. "Didn't you ever wonder why you became a grim reaper, instead of going to heaven or wherever it is souls go?"
The girl bit her lip, staring at the floor. "A little…"
"Wonder why you can't remember when you were alive? Why you keep maturing, instead of staying the same as when you died?"
She stared at him expectantly.
"Death is a ruthless thing, Maka-chan. It needs new blood, so it uses the souls of children. It takes indiscriminately, so its reapers must be indiscriminate. That's why your memories are gone.
"But this job isn't easy. When souls burn out, they're sent where they were originally bound. This happens to both the shinigami and the reapers. My time is upon me; that's why I need to find my successor. I need you to buy me some time."
She blanched. "H-how do I do that?"
He chuckled. "I've narrowed it down to three adolescents with extremely powerful souls. They all live in the same area, due to my tweaking in some psyches. You need to fend off anyone who wants to consume their souls, which would be inconvenient. Can you handle it?"
She nodded determinedly.
"Okay!" He clapped his hands together. "By the way, you're gonna have to masquerade as a teenager in order to keep your physical form, which you need to fight these things. Bye~!"
"Huh? But-"
A trap door opened underneath her feet. She fell with a startled scream.
"Those things are really convenient," the shinigami mused.