Prologue: Katy and Christian
Katy looked around at the foggy darkness that surrounded them that sank into the valley of every hill and shrouded almost all of the trees ahead of them. Her teeth were on the verge of chattering but she wasn't cold. The soles of her shoes stepped as soundlessly as possible on the dusty earth below her while still trying to keep up with his pace. He, of course, was strutting along carelessly, whistling some tune with his hands in the pockets of his dark pants. His boots scuffed along with no discretion, just like the rest of him. She sighed to herself. He wasn't scared of anything. How was this going to work?
He turned around to look at her. "Something wrong?"
He must have heard her sigh. She shook her head. "Nothing. I mean, no."
With his hands still in his pockets, he stopped and waited for her to reach his side before he kept walking. "Cold?"
Katy shook her head again.
"Got the jitters, huh?" He smiled a little bit.
She didn't care for that smile right now. She wasn't a child to be pitied. She wasn't a display for everyone to gather around and say, "Aw, look at her, she's so innocent. She doesn't wanna hurt anybody." Katy threw her chin up a significant amount. "No. Just thinking about commencement."
"Good! What you got?"
"Uhm… Still thinking." Her eyes drifted away from him.
He shrugged. "Okay." The tune that he had previously been whistling continued.
She wanted to ask if they should be quiet. It seemed like that was a bright thing to do at this point. They were about to face a very hungry demon that was just as much after their souls as they were after its soul. But he had been in probably a thousand more battles than she had been. She dare not insinuate that he shut up and do what she says.
He stopped and looked back at her again, this time with a harder expression.
She stopped and looked at him, her eyes going a bit wider with the question: What?
"You're always walking behind me. I'm not your mom at the grocery store."
She giggled politely. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just act like we're partners. Come on." His generous hand motioned her up next to him.
Katy neared his side and walked next to him quietly, her arms by her sides. It took a faster pace to keep up with his stride, his legs being so long. In weapon form he was tall as well and a pang of nervousness struck her again at her lack of experience with a long weapon. Mira, her previous weapon, was a kunai knife who transformed into a manriki gusari with blades. Close range combat really was close range. She was used to that and being able to switch hands in a blink, flip and throw, slash and backslash. . . Before she met Christian, she didn't even know what a naginata was, much less how to use one. It was probably the worst transition one could possibly make when switching weapons. She missed Mira. She was her comfort zone. But Lord Death insisted that she be reassigned and that Katy was limiting herself.
Christian stopped again and looked upward at the low hanging branch of a tree that very much symbolized an entrance. "He's godda be dead ahead. You figure out commencement?"
Her stomach churned. "Sure, yeah. Just um…wait for him to make a move, and go in hot?"
"Sounds good to me!" He closed his hand around his fist to pop his knuckles. "Let's go. Forward march."
Katy didn't step forward just yet.
As if he expected as much, the tall blond young man reached back for her wrist and took it before pulling her under the low hanging branch. "Come on," he coaxed.
She swallowed. "Yeah, yeah. Right here." Katy trotted up by his side again.
The fog grew denser, not only visibly but she could feel it weighing down the air around her, making it harder to breathe even. This would affect the battle, she was sure. She would have to rely more on her hearing than her sight, which wasn't typically a problem. But this also meant that close range combat was going to be more difficult as well. She tried to think of all the possible stances and positions, strikes and moves, turns and twists that she was likely to encounter with this target. Did she practice the 'flip and jab' enough? Oh crap! No! She didn't go over that one yesterday! Oh, and she was bound to need it this time. She was sure of it. It would be her luck anyhow. Great. Just great. This is exactly what she needed. Right now. At this moment. Quickly she tried to think of the movement of her feet, how she was supposed to lean and push herself up and over her opponent.
A flicker of movement caught her eye with a beastly hiss of a breath from behind a tree. Her heart jumped up into her throat. No more time to think.
Christian pulled his hands out of his pockets. "Hey!"
A snarl sounded and echoed through the foggy forest, reverberating off of every tree and bouncing back to her ears. Katy forced her teeth to stop chattering as the adrenaline began to race through her veins, immediately forgetting most of her qualms and discomforts. Most of them.
A gray body stepped out from behind the tree with black liquid dripping from its malicious, long fangs. Dark brown hair shining with oil strung in its face and reacted to its growling breaths and black veins showed through its paper-like skin.
Katy stared at him while holding her breath before Christian elbowed her. She jumped a little and cleared her throat. "I'm Katy the weapon meister and this is my weapon, Christian. And we've come for your soul."
The demon's shoulders began to tremble as its growling breaths got louder, the glowing yellow orbs piercing through its hair and the fog into their faces. Its maw jerked open and emitted an ear-splitting shriek of challenge along with a few dribbles of inky liquid as it stretched out its clawed hands and set its legs apart.
"Sounds like acceptance to me. Rock and roll, Kate." Christian stuck his arm out beside him.
Katy huffed a breath out hard before striking out her own arm and grabbing his forearm. His fingers wrapped to her forearm and swung her around in front of him, bringing her to his opposite side. Her feet slid across the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust that mixed with the fog as his arm suddenly shone a blinding white light and began to shrink in diameter. Her feet stopped sliding in the dirt and her thumb could now reach the rest of her fingers with a firmer grip. Christian stuck straight out from her side now as a five foot long black shaft with a three foot long jagged blade on one end. Her dark brown hair ceased to sway in front of her eyes that were locked on the demon's figure. "Let's go."
A shining black tongue snaked out of the beast's teeth as it let out another disgustingly wet gurgling growl before it lunged forward, throwing its head and slinging its hair.
With swift and light steps, Katy raced forward, twirling Christian back to her right hand and taking the first jab. The demon jumped up above the fog to avoid her strike which Katy reacted to by rolling forward. When the target landed, she slashed at its back only to be deflected by its long black claws that sounded their contact through the trees. She advanced with a parry and another slash. Minutes passed and the demon ducked and dodged, backing away from her and flinging up its claws to deflect again before making a strike of its own. Katy spun Christian around to meet every one of his slashes. When it couldn't step back far enough, it launched itself into the air once more.
"Hrah!" Katy pounded the end of the shaft into the dirt and flung herself up, doing a somersault and twirling Christian next to her, meeting the demon at the same level in the air. "Rah!" Her left hand pushed the shaft forward while her right pulled in the end towards her, slinging the jagged blade at the demon's throat and landing a slice on the side of its neck.
"RAAAGH!" The demon fell back down to the ground, leaving a trail of black blood in the air behind it.
Katy came down on her feet in the dirt and immediately positioned her weapon back in front of her horizontally.
"Hey, nice one!" said Christian's voice that came from the blade, sounding as if it were coming from some kind of invisible speaker.
The demon threw itself back up to its feet in a blind fury and tore across the ground, racing towards her in almost an aimless rage.
"Katy, look out!"
She flung Christian around to her right side where the demon was heading but by the time she had, the beast had vaulted to the tree next to it and ricocheted off of it, now spearing towards her left side, claws first.
"Ah!" As quickly as she could, she flung Christian around to her other side, the shaft meeting the demon's forceful slash. In a blink, her partner slipped out of her grasp and fell to the dirt several feet away.
"Oof!" Christian's voice from the blade again.
The target landed on top of Katy, its tongue shooting out towards her face. Katy kept her foot against its chest and her arms held off the rest of it. "Ah!" She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away from the tongue as some of its foul smelling juices dripped onto her cheek. The demon pressed down harder on her body with a sharp hiss and rolling growl.
"Hold on!" Both the shaft and blade began to glow white until his form changed back to human. Christian raced towards them and sprang up above the fog and the lower branches of the trees around them, immediately glowing white again.
Katy kicked the demon hard in the chest, throwing it back a bit but not long enough to escape. The beast pounced right back into position and opened its teeth around her face. She let out a wail of desperation, her muscles shaking under its weight and force.
Christian dove down at an angle, his blade spearing towards the demon and sticking right into its back with a spray of black.
"RRRAAAGH!" The target jerked backwards and its shriek turned sharp.
Katy jumped at her chance to scurry out from under the beast and put distance between them. The demon continued to thrash about until it successfully flung Christian out of its back and it into a tree. She scrambled to the trunk of the tree and snatched up her partner, her heart thundering as she spun him back into the proper stance.
The demon turned and tore off through the trees, screaming all the way and leaving a cloud of dirt to settle.
Katy panted and entertained the thought of chasing it for a moment before she realized it was moving too fast and there was no possible way they could hope to catch up with it. Her palms were sweating and the rest of her was shaking as she stood in the fog and watched their twelfth soul run away. She lifted Christian closer to her and looked at the shining flat of the blade. "Are you all right?"
His face and naked shoulders appeared as a small reflection on the metal. "Yeah, I'm fine. Are you okay?"
She nodded despite her knees that were close to knocking together. Shortly her chin began to quiver.
He frowned at her. "Oh—now come on… Don't—don't do that,"
With a squeak, Katy plopped down in the dust with her weapon in her arms and began to cry, bowing her head so that her face wasn't visible to him.
"Hey… Hey now… It's okay! We'll go grab another mission, no big deal! We're okay!" he said in a bright, happy tone.
Tears rolled from her eyes as she leaned her head back. "I'm a terrible meister!"
"No you're not, you're a great meister! This was a bit of a setback, but it's just one soul! We'll get the next one, okay?"
Sniffling, she looked down at him. "Christian, I don't think I can be your partner. This is all wrong, it's just wrong."
His brow furrowed in the blade before it glowed white. She set him down on the ground and used her glove to wipe some tears from her face as he changed back into his human form, sitting in front of her. "Now, why would you go and say something like that?" he asked gently.
Along with a few tears, she removed the black liquid on her cheek as well. "You deserve someone who can handle you better than I can. If you had someone else besides me, you could be a Death Scythe in no time."
"I don't think that's what it's about."
She looked at him with moist and reddened eyes.
Christian shrugged. "Yeah, it'd be cool. But this is just as much your time to shine as it is mine. And I definitely can't shine by myself. Just like you can't by yourself. Not in this business!" he chuckled.
Katy sniffled again. "But…you could find someone better than me."
"Listen to what I'm saying. I don't want anyone else."
She blinked away another tear, her eyes shining up at him.
"I want us to do this together, all right?" He put a hand on her shoulder. "You're gonna get better. I know you will. That was really good! He just caught you off guard, it happens."
With yet another sniffle, she wiped her eyes again. "Yeah, caught off guard… Except it could have gotten us killed."
He smiled. "But it didn't. Not this time!"
She couldn't help but crack a smile of her own and giggle.
"We've got time to practice. We'll go grab another mission and get right back to work, okay? Everything will be fine." He stood up and reached for her hand.
Katy blinked at his hand before taking it, letting him pull her up to her feet. "Thanks," she smiled.
Christian winked and put his hands back in his pockets as he did before, walking back the way they had come. "That was a pretty sweet slice, though. Very cool."
She laughed a little. "I doubt that's going to count for anything once we get back to the academy."
"Hey, don't worry about it. It's all good."
She looked up at him. "Is there anything you ever worry about?"
"Yeah, actually. We're gonna miss supper and I am starving."
Katy giggled again and walked on beside him out of the foggy woods.