-FIVE-
I used to hate playing the piano.
I never wanted to sit down in front of those ivory keys. Not when I was five years old.
I knew it was part of the Evans family claim to fame- everyone was successful, everyone was human, and everyone was good with music. I remember watching my older brother practice his violin, already a teenager, already talked about by nosy reporters. I was, too. Talked about by the nosy reporters. But not like Wes. All they ever did was gush about how great a musician he was, and how much they doubted I'd ever be as attractive, intelligent, athletic, musically talented as my brother. It was impossible. Wes Evans was a prodigy.
So one day, at four and a half, I'd been drumming my fingers on the table, remembering in my head a song Wes had played only that morning. One finger up towards my pinky if a note was higher than the last, and one finger towards my thumb if it was lower. At first, my mother almost told me to stop fooling around at the dinner table. But then she noticed exactly what I was doing, and it was decided then that I was to be a pianist like my grandfather.
My mother played the harp, and my father sang opera. My mother was slight, my father was morbidly obese. How stereotypical. Fortunately for my brother and I, we'd inherited Mother's body type.
I hated piano practice, in the beginning. I was one of those children who liked to sit by themselves, coloring or playing with the family dog. Lessons were at first only an hour per day, but once the prodigy in me was discovered, all else took a back seat. I learned incredibly quickly, and soon I was putting on performances for my own family members. Then I'd get feedback. No applause, just critique. Sit up. Shoulders level. Follow the speed dictated by the sheet music. Try to smile, Soul. Sit up.
After awhile, I didn't want to play for them anymore. They never seemed to enjoy my music. I hated it the most when Wes would be asked to demonstrate a particularly difficult portion of the music, and then my family would clap politely. And when I would try to tell Mother and Father that I'd changed the music on purpose, I would get a lecture on not being jealous of my brother's skill. Work harder.
Work harder.
I didn't have to play, though, at the parties, which were often. I was usually dressed nicely and told to stand by the door and smile at everyone who came. I was an ornament. Famous people hugged me and took pictures with me, and I smiled with no actual enjoyment. After the first time this happened, Mother told me to smile with my lips together so that people couldn't see my abnormal teeth. I had no idea why. I was five.
One of these parties went late into the night, and I was sent up to bed. Angry as I was, I decided to watch television instead. It was eight o'clock, so cartoons were on. I fell asleep in my suit. When I woke up the next morning, the television was still playing. It was the news. A bright-eyed brunette smiled at the camera.
"Here's a little side note- today is Maka Albarn's fifth birthday, and she will now be eligible for the DWMA. Little Maka is the daughter of the current North American Head Deathscythe, and we've been informed that she wants to follow in her mother's footsteps as a meister. I think we were all a little surprised, and maybe disappointed, that she wasn't a weapon like her father, but according to our sources she's excited to be attending the legendary Academy."
I was completely confused. Why on Earth would anyone want to go to school? I had a tutor that came to the mansion, and I hated those sessions every day. They were miserable and my knuckles were permanently sore from being rapped by the ruler.
"It's such a shame to see these kids reeled in by the system- raised to want to serve. Our janitor here was a Shibusen weapon, and he came back immediately after being certified as safe for society."
I understood this part- according to Mother, no one with the last name Evans had ever been a weapon or a meister, and this was a good thing. I couldn't remember why. Something about the word "pureblood". I didn't see anything wrong with weapons. In fact, I thought they were cool. I liked watching stuff get blown up on TV, and I liked watching people fight. My favorites were the meisters who didn't have a weapon, or whose weapon had died, or they quit the DWMA, that fought each other one-on-one every Wednesday night on channel... whatever it was. I couldn't count that high.
The next picture on the screen was of a little girl in a pink dress with wide green eyes and blonde hair in pigtails, clinging to a man in his twenties in casual dress with his red hair tied back into a ponytail. I could tell by the way the news lady was talking that this was still the girl from before. She looked a little afraid of the camera man, and her dad looked angry.
"Actually, she's already been training to be a scythemeister, isn't that right, Mark?"
The male news anchor smiled at the lady.
"Yeah. Twirling batons and stuff. Her parents must be really hard core."
He had no idea what hard core was.
-SIX-
I didn't need the tutor anymore. Not for piano, anyway. I still learned to read and write and count from the old lady with the pointy nose, but I got to practice my music by myself.
It was nice.
I played what I felt like- no more of this music sheet crap.
I'd learned the word "crap" from Wes.
Every time Mother and Father told me to play for them, I refused. I found excuses, I threw up, sometimes I even flat-out told them no. I was tired of being told to follow the original composer. So what? Johann Sebastian Bach is DEAD, Mother. He doesn't give a crap if I play the song how I want to!
Wes got in big trouble when she heard me use the word "crap".
It was awesome.
One day, I was sitting in front of my piano, in the dark room where it was kept, that had checkered tiles and black curtains and a gramophone in the back corner. Until that one day, I thought the dark room was a haven. Me, myself, and I.
I put my fingers on the ivory keys, and played what I felt. I had no idea what notes were coming next, but I hit them when they were meant to be hit. I closed my eyes and smiled, letting my teeth show like Mother had told me never to do. I even laughed.
I was at the climax when I knew something was wrong. I finished the piece and closed the lid, wary. Then her voice came from behind me. Mother.
"Where did you get that music?"
"Me," I said.
"Don't you dare lie to me, Soul Evans. Tell me where you got the music!"
"I wrote it, Mother!"
"Oh, don't be foolish," she replied, her voice lowering. "You know I can see through every little fib of yours."
"Look!" I exclaimed, turning towards her. "I have no music in front of me! I MADE IT UP!"
"Soul, you couldn't compose that if you tried. Wes, maybe, but not you."
"Then tell me who did! You know, like, every song ever, Mother! Wouldn't you be able to tell what it was?"
She looked at me, mouth open like a fish. She slowly walked closer and knelt down, taking my hand. I hated it when she did that. I hated it when people touched me.
"You're going to tell me right now. Did you write that music?"
Something in her eyes made me think she was proud. I was wrong. But I thought, what if she finally thinks I did something right?
"Did you like it?" I asked.
She blinked at me and started crying slightly. She pulled me into her lap and embraced me, briefly, and then left the room.
I got another tutor. I was taught to play Bach.
There was another party two weeks later. But this one was a charity benefit in a small, run-down town. I don't know why we were invited, and I didn't care. I knew the food was good, and that was all I was really interested in. Wes played the violin while the adults ate dinner and chatted. I sipped water, disappointed that it was all Mother would let me have. So when Father left to use the restroom, I looked around to make sure no one was watching, then tasted some of what he was drinking. I thought it was grape juice. That's what it looked like.
It wasn't grape juice.
I spit the vile liquid out of my mouth immediately, coughing and spewing it all over the white tablecloth. And, I was wrong about the other thing. Someone was watching me. Mother, to be specific.
She marched me to the back corner of the hall and mopped my face fiercely with a napkin.
"Stay here. Do not go anywhere. You are to sit in this seat and look like a good little boy, all right?" She demanded.
"Mother, I-"
"Soul!"
I sighed. "Yes, Mother."
"Good." She looked at me with irritation. "And I told you to stop wearing that idiotic headband," she snapped. I reluctantly pulled the black band out of my hair. She marched off to go talk to the group of ladies by the bar. She looked over every little while to see if I was still where she'd left me.
It got old really, really fast.
I waited for her to look once more, then began walking towards her.
"What is it, Soul?" Mother asked.
I motioned for her to listen. She raised an eyebrow and bent down to my level, careful to keep her dress smooth.
"I have to potty. And Wes said he would take me. He knows where it is."
"Fine." Mother stood up again and went back to her conversation. I did a tiny fist pump.
I walked out into the hall and then out the front doors. As soon as I was clear of the building, I slipped my black hairband back on. Ha! I allowed myself a small smirk before making my way down the street. It was then that I realized just how run down this little town was. The first few blocks I walked were relatively nice, but they soon faded to one-story houses with overgrown yards. I looked around, suddenly confused as to where exactly I was. Fortunately, there were two kids my age playing across the street.
"I think we should kill it," said the older boy. He way about nine or ten, and he was tall and lanky. The clothes he wore were supposed to make him look tough, I guess. It worked. Instead of a belt, he had a metal band with rivets around his waist. He had the same odd substance tied around his ankles and wrists. He even had one as a makeshift choker around his neck. His ears were pierced.
"No! It's just a lizard. We can't kill it," said the smaller child. This one was about my age, with hair a faded reddish brown, almost pink. The older brother had the same feature, but his hair was a darker, a deep burgundy, a little more orange, and his eyes were a deeper blue.
"Crona, that's my point. It's just a lizard. No one cares if we kill it." Crona whimpered at this, looking up at the other.
"Ragnarok, I- I don't- I don't- I don't think it's a good idea." Crona finally sputtered out.
"C'mon, if you're gonna be my meister, you'll have to be tougher than this," the one called Ragnarok snarled at his younger sibling.
I let out an involuntary gasp. If Crona was the meister, then Ragnarok must be a...
Human weapon.
The two seemed to hear my reaction, and as one their heads snapped in my direction.
"What do you want?" Ragnarok called across the road, angrily. He stepped in front of Crona, protectively. The worst part about it was, I was right about him being a weapon. Long silver spikes erupted from his arms, and he stood in a fighting stance.
"Stop," said Crona, touching Ragnarok's shoulder. "I don't think he means us any harm. Look at him." There was a pause. "If you attack somebody for no reason... ooh, I don't think I can deal with that."
The older brother turned and said something quietly to Crona, who just nodded fearfully, and took Ragnarok's hand. Suddenly, in his place was a silver greatsword with the same rivets tied around the hilt. Crona began to tear up, but spoke out in a squeaky voice.
"Please go away."
I was frozen in fear. All my life, my mother had told me just how dangerous weapons could be. I saw that Crona's eyes had lightened to a silvery color, and had begun to glow. "Look, Rags. He's human. We don't have to do this. Please. Please?"
"PUT THE SWORD DOWN!"
Crona practically collapsed from fear at something behind me. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Now back away from my son."
Ragnarok returned to human form, and stood beside his younger sibling. I looked up. Mother was standing over me, fury in her eyes. The elder brother seemed poised to retort, when a woman opened the door to the house they were standing in front of.
"Dinner time!" She called. She was a little on the short side, with blonde hair cropped short, except for two long tendrils that ran down to her navel. She wore a black hoodie vest and black pants, and she had snakes tattoed up her arms. She surveyed the situation, looking from me to Mother to her two children, over and over and over again.
"Crona!" She finally said. "What did I tell you about scaring people?"
"I didn't—"
"Oh, don't give me that. You think Ragnarok wields himself? Come on. Come inside. Both of you." She ushered the duo inside and sent an apologetic glance in Mother's direction. She walked back into the house, shaking her head.
"Soul Evans," Mother began. I was in trouble now. "You are grounded."
Oh, snap.
"I hope this experience has taught you something. What have you learned?"
"Uh... don't wander off?" I guessed, and she nodded curtly.
"And most of all," she continued. "Stay away from human weapons."
I looked down. Mother sighed. "Crona and Ragnarok. They can't even give their children halfway normal names."
We started walking back. I was surprised the lecture had been so short, but I sensed Mother wanted to get away from the odd family. I looked back at the house we'd just left.
The woman with the snake tattoos was looking out the window. Straight at me.
I think... I think she heard what Mother said.
I locked eyes with the woman. I felt a wrenching in the pit of my stomach. She kept my gaze and lifted one hand, making odd symbols in the air and whispering. My stomach clenched even more. I began to feel shaky and nauseous.
I looked away.
When I looked back, the woman was gone.
"Ragnarok," I heard her call. "Could you come help me with something? I want to try a little... experiment."
SEVEN
I had mastered just about every piece of music that was floating around the house. I could play them with my eyes closed. Most of the time, I did. After I'd scared Mother with my improvised music a year before, I'd never been allowed to play alone. Maybe she thought I wouldn't have the dark music inside of me if I didn't play it. Either way, I resorted to playing it out with my fingers on the kitchen table.
Just after my brother turned seventeen, he had his first concert. Not just playing before a bigger act, but a Wes Evans solo performance. Seats were expensive. Suits were expensive. The wine they served was even more expensive. Yes, I now knew the difference between wine and grape juice. And even though I knew there was a difference, I hadn't drank any more of either.
My family sat in the front row of the old-style theatre. There were maybe four hundred seats in the house. Very exclusive. The chatter stopped the moment Wes stepped up to the stage. His hair was long now, but he kept it loose. Somehow he made long hair look put together. I was confused, because Mother always told me to keep my hair relatively short so it didn't look sloppy.
Wes cleared his throat slightly and sat his violin on his shoulder. He brought the bow up to the strings and pulled, producing a sweet sound that rang through the auditorium without the aid of a microphone. It was beautiful. I can always give him that much. No matter how mad I was at him, no matter where he played, his music always took my breath away.
He played for half and hour. That was all. Then, the host of the theatre stepped out and shook my brother's hand. They smiled at each other, and the audience applauded. Not whoops and shrieks like you hear at a rock concert, but the poised, polite clapping of the upper class.
I just sat with my hands folded.
"How about that, huh?" The host asked the audience after the applause had died down. There was a few more seconds of quiet praise. "Another great musician from the Evans family."
Mother looked down at me.
"Speaking of which," he continued. "Wes's little brother is here with us today. Isn't that right, Soul?" He looked straight at me, and so did the rest of the audience. "I wonder if we could persuade the youngest Evans to give us a little show."
No.
No.
No no no no no no no no no.
The host smiled at me.
Mother leaned down and whispered in my ear. "We thought you might like to play in front of people who aren't your family." She smiled at me too. "How about Beethoven? The rendition you've been practicing?"
"Do I have to?" I asked.
Immediately Mother's expression lost its warmth. "I would greatly appreciate it if you did."
That wasn't a request.
I looked up at the stage and shakily made my way up the steps. I smiled at everyone, remembering at the last moment to keep my teeth hidden behind my lips.
I sat down at the piano, and put my fingers on the ivory keys. I began the song, and tried to forget my audience. It didn't really work. I made it through without mistake, though, and that was good. I was just afraid, not to mention the fact that I really, really had to pee.
I stood during the applause, smiling that same emotionless smile. I hoped they couldn't tell that I hated every last one of them.
"Wow! Wasn't that amazing!" The host cried. "Only seven years old, and already as good as his brother."
Was this guy tone deaf?
Of course I wasn't as good as Wes. I heard it in every note. He poured his heart into his music, and I might as well have been a robot with as much emotion as I put into that piece.
So why did no one see it?
Never mind. I could see that someone did.
Mother.
Her expression was that of pride- but she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Wes. Thinking, no doubt, about what a good job she did when she raised him. She wasn't even paying attention to her other son.
When the audience started to leave, I made my way back to my parents. They didn't know I was there.
"That went well," said Father.
"I agree. Soul's performance at the end is going to make them feel too guilty to criticize any hiccups. No one will say anything bad about a seven-year-old," Mother replied.
What?
All of this was for Wes?
I should have known.
We got back into the limo and started home. Mother and Father congratulated me on my first public appearance.
That was the first time I "helped" my brother.
EIGHT
I did twelve more shows before it happened. Each time, I played after Wes, and each time, it was made to look like they hadn't come up with it beforehand. I taught myself not to notice.
I think it really did help. Everyone loved seeing a kid play the piano.
One day, I asked Father if I could play something I made up. The show was the next day. He almost said yes, I could see it in his eyes. But Mother stepped in at the last moment.
"No."
That was it.
"Soul, this is your brother's performance. He's getting paid for this."
"Yeah!" I cried. "He gets paid, and I play for free! Can't I play something... ooh, I dunno, original? Or maybe something other than the three songs I play EVERY SINGLE TIME?!"
"Listen!" Mother warned, stepping closer to make our considerable difference in height even more obvious. "I've heard your music. It's dark, and it sounds like... like pain. Do we want our audience to feel pain? No. We want them to leave feeling happy."
"Narcissa..." Father said gently, putting one hand on Mother's shoulder.
"Hmm." She visibly relaxed. Her brow furrowed, trying to find a solution. "All right. You want to play something else? How about you and Wes play a duet tomorrow? Melody of the Soul. That's a good one."
Ooh, yay. Another song I've played too many times to count.
I walked away.
The next day, I was told one more time to take off the headband.
"Mother, I like it. It keeps my hair out of my eyes. And it looks cool." I was at the point where I really was just trying to avoid an argument. So I tried to talk to her about my feelings.
Ha.
"Cool? COOL, Soul? Let me tell you something about 'cool.' 'Cool' guys walk around wearing leather jackets and riding motorcycles. 'Cool' guys are, in reality, nothing you want to be. Aim for sophisticated. And sophisticated that hair tie is not." She took it off my head and put it in the garbage.
That was the last straw.
I kept my cool(See, Mother? Cool!) until it was my turn to go up on stage. I sat at the piano, and Wes sat across the stage. We looked at each other.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The duet began. We passed the melody back and forth. One day, I would use this technique in a completely music-unrelated way, and it would save my life. My life and many others. But at this point, all that mattered was me.
First came the longer violin solo. Wes played alone for sixteen measures. I counted them out even though I knew the song by heart.
After that, we did the back and forth thing three more times, and it was my turn to play alone.
I began the solo as it was written. Three measures in, I morphed it, so that the upper and lower harmony got farther and farther apart. Wes raised an eyebrow at me, but I ignored him.
I changed the song completely. No longer could it be recognized as Melody of the Soul.
I decided to call it The Melody of Soul.
Maybe I'm a little selfish. Sometimes.
After playing for about a minute, I was at the song I'd played for Mother. I didn't look down to see how she reacted. I knew she was furious. Her fury fueled my music. Soon, there was a change. I heard it and felt it, and it almost startled me out of the song.
Wes was playing with me.
He'd sensed the pattern in the melody, and played behind me. At points, he played what I just had, making it sound like a round. I grinned at him. He didn't see me. His eyes were closed.
I took us through the bridge, and I let him finish the song.
We stood together in the center of the stage and bowed. I, just eight years old and four foot three, and my brother, ten years older and almost two feet taller than me.
I began to walk off, but Wes grabbed my arm and shook his head. He waited until our family were the only ones left in the house to let me go.
He was smart.
The moments that came after were like an explosion. Mother screamed at me with tears in her eyes, and I screamed back. When we got into the limo, the argument went on. Just her and I.
"Do you realize what you've done? This was for Wes! And did you see the audience? They loved seeing you two play together! So when he wants to play alone one day, all they'll say is 'No! Why isn't Soul there to play with him?'" Mother cried.
"Just yesterday you said they would hate it! You were wrong this time, why can't you be wrong again?" I yelled back.
"YOU IDIOT!" She screeched. "They thought that was part of the song! Any pain they felt they just assumed was bad song choice! You, on the other hand, had to go play them something... tortured!"
"Mother, stop."
Wes.
Surprisingly, she shut her mouth. Wes was just that way. He could make anyone do just about anything.
"You're treating him like a houseplant. How ironic that you named him Soul when you act like he doesn't even have one. You of all people, Narcissa Evans, should know that music comes from the deepest core of our hearts. And if your son is playing tortured music, then you're the idiot if you think it has nothing to do with you."
We stared at him in shock for a few moments.
"Wes, he's played that song before. He wrote it when he was six. And he played it today because he knows I hate it."
"He wrote it when he was six? Listen to yourself! He composed a respectable piece of music before he could read! That's called prodigy, Mother. Congratulations for suffocating it."
Mother looked at me.
I looked at Mother.
Right then, we arrived home. We all got out of the car. Father whispered in my ear that now would be an excellent time to go up to bed.
Mother kissed me on the forehead before I left to go get clean, and Wes gave me a pat on the shoulder.
But as soon as I'd turned off the shower water, I heard that the argument was still on downstairs. Still between Mother and Wes. I got into my pajamas, and crawled into bed. I heard my brother stomp down the hallway and slam the door to his room behind him.
The fight didn't stop there. Mother and Father screamed at each other for what felt like forever about whose fault it was exactly that I'd turned out so screwed up. They finally stopped, resolving to talk to me about it in the morning.
They didn't get to.
I fell asleep way late. I dreamed of the little black-curtained room I used to play in. A short, red-skinned ogre-like demon sat on my piano and urged me to play. So I sat down and began the sheet music I'd never seen that was sitting on the stand, but every note felt like I was being stabbed. Eventually, I just couldn't take it any more and I had to stop. The little demon told me to keep playing though, and I managed a few more measures before I had to rest again.
"Play, Soul! Do it, come on."
But when I refused, the little demon became a huge monster that walked towards me and tried to engulf me in its shadowy presence. As the massive form began to suffocate me, I slammed my fists into its stomach, feeling like maybe if I could push my hands hard enough in I could do some damage. I began to scream.
I was still screaming when I woke up. I stopped when I saw I was in my room. I looked down at my hands to prove to myself that they hadn't been swallowed by the fat in the demon's stomach.
But what I saw made me start screaming all over again.
I cried the one name I could think of.
"WES! WES! HELP ME!" I sobbed. I knew he was in the room right next to mine, why wasn't he coming?
Suddenly the door opened, and Wes sat on the foot of my bed, clad only in his undershorts.
"Hey, kid. Did you have a nightmare?"
I nodded.
"It's ok. It's ok. It's over now."
"No!"
"Shh. Yeah it is. You're fine," he soothed.
"No! I'm not fine!" I held up what used to be my hands.
I learned some more cuss words that night.
"MOTHER! MOTHER COME HERE NOW!"
Wes turned on the light so he could better see the red and black blades that had replaced everything on my left arm from the elbow down, and the fingers on my right hand.
Mother finally came, her eyes nearly closed and her figure wrapped in a bathrobe.
"Mother?" Wes began shakily. "Soul's a human weapon."
She held me in her arms for the four hours it took to get my arms back to normal.
The next morning, I woke up at ten. It was a Saturday.
"Mornin' Wes."
"Hey." He was looking at me with a concerned expression.
"I had a weird dream. I was a weapon."
"Soul..." I could see in his eyes that I hadn't imagined it, and I started crying all over again.
It would be the last time I ever felt tears run down my face.
Mother did research that morning. I would have to attend the DWMA for as long as it took to be declared able to control my abilities, starting sometime within the next year. The next first day of school was September 1. Three months.
-NINE-
I had just turned nine when I had my second encounter with human weapons before my attendance to Shibusen.
I applauded my family for being so accepting. They'd always prided themselves on being one hundred percent human, and now the waters had been tainted. Someone had peed in their gene pool, and they acted like nothing had happened.
But there was an air of awkwardity that followed them every time they spoke to me. It relaxed, but increased exponentially after we left the opera.
It was rather like Batman.
I hadn't been to an opera before, as I'd usually stayed home with Wes or one of the maids. This was my first time.
It was boring.
Really, fat ladies singing? It should be over.
I'd seen Father perform, but never like this. I had no idea what was going on. I got the hang of it, eventually. I enjoyed the fight scenes the most. I wondered if this was because they were done well or if it was because I was a weapon.
After it was over, everyone crowded the exit to the main hall.
"Father," I said, tugging on his shirt. "There's a separate exit that way." I pointed to the red "EXIT" sign in the far corner. We left through there and found that it led outside the building and into an alleyway.
I got a bad feeling, and clung to Wes.
"It'll be fine," Father said, patting my head. "It was a good idea to take the shortcut out. The limo's just this way."
The feeling didn't go away.
"Someone's coming," I said. "Two someones."
I was right. Two girls popped out of the shadows. One my age, the other about two or three years older. They had blonde hair and blue eyes, and they smiled at us sadistically. The older one was smoking what looked like a cigarette, but didn't smell right.
"C'mon," said the older. "Wallets, phones, you know the drill."
We were all frozen for a few moments.
"Now!" The older shouted. When we were still in shock, she turned to her sister and said "Patty, catch!" and promptly glowed pink before transforming into a standard pistol.
The one called Patty caught the gun and spun it in her hands for a few seconds, then steadied it and aimed at Father.
"Stop!" I cried, stepping between them. I held up an arm and snapped my fingers.
My pinky, middle finger, and index fingernail transformed.
Crap.
I shook my arm out. I snapped my fingers. I made punching motions. By the time I had shifted to weapon form up to my elbow, the older sister was looking at me through the sights of an identical pistol while nearly dying of laughter.
"Wow. Patty, are you seeing this? The kid thinks he's some sort of vigilante, or what."
"Ha-ha," came the reply without a face. "Sis, just take their stuff."
"Yeah, yeah. 'Kay, guys. Money, jewelry. Chop, chop." They switched again, so Patty was wielding. Somehow it was a little scarier to see a little girl aiming a gun at you than a teenager.
My parents dug around in their pockets and dumped their contents on the ground while I concentrated on trying to get my hands back.
"Yeah, kiddo. You should work on that." The older sister was suddenly standing over me, lazily gripping the Eagle in one hand, halfway aiming at Father.
"How'd you learn? Did you go to Shibusen?" I asked. Maybe now wasn't the best time, but it was certainly the best opportunity I had.
"Shit no. Do I, Liz Thompson, Brooklyn Devil Number One, look like a Shibusen student? Ha! You must be crazy, little dude." She motioned to her skimpy clothes, her cigarette that definitely wasn't a cigarette, and tiny marks on the inside of her elbow.
How was I supposed to know what a Shibusen student looks like? I was going in two weeks, I hadn't been there yet.
Liz picked up the fallen items from my family and put them on the inside of her dingy faux fur jacket.
We looked at her.
"Whatcha lookin' at? C'mon, skedaddle!"
We hightailed it out of there. I hoped I would never see Liz and Patty Thompson again.
Two weeks after the incident in New York, we flew into Nevada International Airport. We drove across the Nevada desert in complete silence. We were worried we'd never make it when an oddly shaped... hill, I guess, grew in the distance.
There were no signs, but we knew we were at the right place as soon as we pulled in. Skull-themed nicknacks were sold in shop windows, and most walked in pairs, wearing matching outfits. The atmosphere was generally quite friendly, even though some walked alone with giant crossbows, swords, and battleaxes tucked under their arms.
Once we reached the center of the city, however, we had to turn around. The only way to the Academy was a giant staircase that started about half a block past city limits.
What?
Sure enough, a brochure left in a sign at the base of the path explained that pupils of the Death Weapon Meister Academy, aka Shibusen, were expected to be extremely fit, and taking the 2.5 mile staircase every morning was just part of their training.
"What the hell," Father said. "If a bunch of kids can do it, I certainly can!" He then proceeded to haul his two-hundred-and-sixty-pound-self up the massive stairway. The rest of us followed suit, somewhat reluctantly.
It was summer in the Nevada desert, and a family of musicians was walking two and a half miles up a staircase to a school for shape shifters and witch hunters, some of whom were both.
It didn't take too long for Father to pull his shirt off. I averted my eyes. Blood or not, the man was FAT.
While we were walking, I transformed my arm, up and down and back up again. I was still a little slow, but I at least I could do it. I'd heard that some couldn't even control it for weeks, months, or years after they found out, usually from the family physician.
We were a little past halfway when two kids my age ran past us up the stairs.
"I'm gonna beat you!" Screamed the girl. All I could see was a uniform black hoodie dress with black tights, and a set of ash-blonde pigtails.
"No, you're not! No one's faster than me!" The boy replied, the wind nearly taking away his words. He was wearing white shorts and, like my father, had his shirt balled up in one hand. His hair was the approximate color of the sky.
The two were gone almost as soon as they'd appeared. I noticed they ran silently, their feet making contact with the pavement without making any noise.
"Whoa, they're tough." Father said. "When you pick a meister, try to get one of them."
"It's not like that," Wes explained. "Each person's only compatible with certain other people. Or something."
I was glad one of us was paying attention during that presentation they sent us.
We made it.
We finally made it.
The sun was still laughing, but it seemed to be laughing at us particularly that day, sweaty and disgusting and tired. Not to mention that my family would be returning sometime in the next hour or so.
"Name?" Asked the woman at the top of the stairs. Ok, maybe "woman" isn't the right term. She looked to be about nineteen. She was short, black, and had her hair tied in cornrows that met in a ponytail at the back of her head. She was wearing camouflage cargo pants and a somewhat fitted black shirt.
"Soul Evans," I muttered.
"You're gonna have to speak up."
"Soul Evans," I said, louder this time.
"Mmm..." She scanned the list for my name.
Over her shoulder, I saw the boy and the girl that had been running ahead of us earlier. The girl had one knee on the ground and the other on the boy's chest, punching him repeatedly in the face. Suddenly, the boy grabbed her by the knee and flipped up onto his feet, so that she was dangling upside down. Somehow she flipped up, backwards, so that she landed sitting on his shoulders. She hooked her legs under his armpits and reached up, grabbing a tree branch over their heads and swinging the both of them in tandem.
"YOU! CHEATING! BASTARD!" She screamed. "YOU TRIPPED ME!" Just then, the branch she was holding broke and they came crashing to the ground. She held the branch horizontally in front of her, crouching while the boy took a running leap straight at her. She was about to swing the stick when the woman in front of us called out to her.
"Meister Maka!" The girl looked up. "It would be greatly appreciated if you didn't kill my son on the first official day of school."
Son? This girl couldn't be over twenty, and the boy she called her son looked the same age as me. Not to mention the fact that she was dark-skinned, and the boy was pale and clearly Asian.
The girl called Maka grumbled something to herself and dropped the stick, making a rude face at the boy. The woman's comment seemed to do little, though, because her supposed "son" seemed to take this expression to offense, and the fight started up again.
"Aah, a new recruit," came the voice of another woman in her older twenties. She was the spitting image of Maka, down to the pigtails and fringey bangs. Behind her was a man with blue eyes and dark red hair, talking into... a hand mirror.
"That sounds like a plan. Yeah. Yep. Glad it worked out. Ok, bye. Yep. Bye, Marie. Bye," the man said into his mirror. He then snapped it shut and looked up.
"What was it this time," the Maka carbon copy sighed.
"Her coffee maker," replied the man.
"Hmph. Go figure. She changes her affections so often it's no wonder you two are so close." The man's eyes widened, and was about to reply when the woman turned to us. "Hi. I'm Kami Albarn, and this is my husband, Spirit." She gestured to the man behind her, who smiled and waved, all apparent insult suddenly forgotten. "I believe you've already met my daughter."
Yep. The boy with the blue hair was now standing with one foot on a seemingly unconscious Maka's chest while waving a fist in the air. Suddenly, the girl in question swept his feet from under him and the whole process started again.
"And that's my adopted son, Blackstar," said the younger woman. "I'm Nygus, by the way."
Aah, adopted. I still didn't get why she had adopted a kid at suck a young age, but whatever.
Mother made a face at the ever more odd names being thrown around. "Narcissa Evans," she said, extending her hand to each of the adults in turn. "This is my older son, Wes, and my hunband, Dominic. My youngest, Soul, will be staying here when we leave." She waved a jeweled hand to each of us as our names came up.
"Sounds like a plan," said the man named Spirit, smiling. "And what are you?" He asked me.
"A scythe," I told him, extending a half-arm.
Spirit and Kami blinked at me for a moment.
"Don't tell her. Please," Spirit whispered to his wife.
"I don't know if we can avoid it. You of all people know how rare scythes are," Kami muttered back.
"The longer we wait, the more likely a better choice will show up," he replied.
They then turned and looked at me again, Spirit concerned and Kami smiling.
"Well, you're the first scythe we have," said the man. "In this class, anyways." He took Kami's hand and promptly shifted to a giant, black-bladed demonscythe. It was pretty cool.
I had no idea that in a matter of days, this guy and I would become lifelong rivals.
Mother and Father took an involuntary step back.
"You know, most parents don't come to drop their kids off," Nygus told Mother. "Your visit wasn't necessary."
"We know, we just wanted to make sure that Soul gets settled in. We didn't want to force him to come now if he wants to start next semester."
Right.
She just wanted to see how freaky the people her son would be spending the next several years with were.
Behind the three adults, the boy named Blackstar was attempting to... electrocute his pigtailed frenemy. This was met with Maka beating him over the head with what looked like an encyclopedia.
Maybe Mother was right. They were all pretty freaky.
"Is everyone here?" Called the man at the front of the classroom. He was tall, black, had his hair in dreadlocks, and was wearing a basketball uniform. By the way I'd seen him talking to Nygus earlier, I'd have to say she was his weapon. Or the other way around.
"How are we supposed to know?" Called back a girl with bright green eyes and brighter, long pink hair. Her tag read "MEISTER".
"Paying attention to your surroundings is one of the most important skills to have, Meister Kimial," the man said levelly. "Sixteen students admitted per class per semester, you know. It would have been easy to count." He turned to the rest of the class. "All right, everyone. My name is Sid Barrett, most of you have already met my weapon, Mira Nygus." He gestured to the young woman in question.
"I want to make something clear to you all. This is the N.O.T. Class, or Normally Overcome Target. You will not be hunting for evil creatures, if you would like to you must join the combat class, E.A.T. Class, which stands for Extraordinarily Advanced Talent. That is because it required extraordinarily advanced talent to qualify, and only fifteen percent of students are even recommended. This is where all of you must start out, as none of you will even be allowed to go back to your homes until you have proven that you have the ability to control the weapons inside of you."
A few of the students looked scared, but a few looked bored. It was easy to tell whose parents were members of the DWMA and whose weren't.
"Your first priority is finding a partner. Weapons with meisters only, as meisters lack the ability to transform and are therefore useless if paired with another meister. A few can train to fight without a weapon-" Blackstar looked up at this- "But for now everyone must find someone of the opposite species to pair up with.
"This is no small matter. Your partner will be your best friend, your roommate, your everything. You will be expected to know the whereabouts of your partner, and in time this will become easier as you will be able to know their location instinctively. Partner choice is especially important for weapons- you will be expected to protect your meister at all costs." He looked at each of us weapons in turn.
"Even if the cost is your own life."
There was distressed murmuring at this. We'd all known that living weapons held a lower place in society than any other civilized species, but not everyone seemed to know the exact weight that particular position held.
"Meisters, in turn, your weapon is your responsibility. Any harm done unto it will reflect badly on you as it belongs to you. This is not my choice, this it the way it works. Weapons do not wield themselves, that is what you are for.
"However, this does not mean that some of you will be left powerless while others laugh at their blundering partners. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. It is rather impossible to end up with a partner that you are incapable of getting along with; in fact, each meister or weapon is only compatible with a few other people on Earth. Like all rules in our world, there are a few exceptions, but the point is that you really can only end up with the right person." Sid sighed and sat down in a rolling chair, then got back up again. He decided to sit on his desk instead.
"How are we supposed to know who our partner is?" Came the voice of a tall Chinese girl with her hair in a bun.
Sid sighed again and reached for his teacup before looking out the window for a moment. He turned back to the young weapon again and spoke directly. "I guess you just know. A lot of people call it the 'click'. When you come into contact with someone you know you can match wavelengths with. Yeah, I think 'click' is the right word. That's just the kind of feeling it is."
So that was orientation. Only one partnership was formed that day, an obnoxious, painfully thin lad with giant glasses and two pillars of hair above each ear, and an expressionless French boy who pulled his hair back into a ponytail. He wore a visor much like Mr. LaForge from Star Trek. As they left together, the loud one, presumably the meister, skipped alongside his partner, jabbering on and on about how he would now be known as the "Lightning King".
I was glad I didn't "click" with that guy.
That night, I dragged my few belongings into the room I shared with two other boys. I didn't know who they were, but I was a bit nervous as to who I would end up spending the rest of my stay at Shibusen with, at least until I'd found a meister. I had spoken to some of the other students, but no such "click" had occurred. I'd had the... pleasure of speaking with Mr. Lighting King, and hadn't even gotten his name because I was so not interested in how he had once won the science fair in first grade, luring flies into a jar by beating one end with elastic from his Grandmother's sweatpants. Kilik Rung was nice enough, but he said he was looking for elemental weapons only. I understood. For someone fully intending on making E.A.T. Class, weapon type selection was vital.
Meister Kimial Deihl, or "Kim" for short, had charged me twenty bucks just to talk to her.
At this rate, I'd never have a partner.
There was a ball the next night meant for meeting partners, and I intended to go. If there was anything I knew how to do, it was stand around at a social gathering. No matter how much I hated them, the ball would at least be something familiar.
As if to demonstrate the lack of suitable meisters my class had to offer, I had stopped in the courtyard on the way to the dormitory to observe the boy named Blackstar, who was standing on one of the decorative spokes that jutted from the school while yelling to a group of watchers about what a big star he was. It got annoying rather quickly, and I left. Several of the others did the same.
So I'd arrived at the room with my bags and set up in the back corner, hoping my roommates would be at least tolerable. Just then, I noticed a sign on the door. I hadn't needed to look at the list when I'd entered as I already knew my room number, but this sheet of paper held the names of the occupants.
Room 564:
Soul Evans
Kilik Rung
Blackstar Barrett
Nnnnnoooooooooooo...
As I said, Kilik was a cool guy, but I had come to realize that the boy with the blue hair was the most irritating creature I had ever come into contact with. I was surprised Sid and Nygus could tolerate the boy, let alone raise him.
Kilik arrived about ten minutes later. He was about a year younger than I, and my height. He was mixed, and had half of his head cornrowed, but you couldn't really tell because his hair was covered by a sideways baseball cap with DC and a skull on it. His green t-shirt sported the same logo, as did his shoes. We sat and talked for a little while, but soon I left to go get cleaned up before bed. I hadn't eaten dinner, but I was told we had to buy food at the cafeteria, and I had no money.
Luckily, Blackstar came with food. Sandwiches. The little ones with the toothpicks in them. We ate the whole plate, as Nygus, the sender, had assumed we would eat a lot and got the 5-7 party size. Smart woman.
"So, what kind of weapon are you?" The blue-haired boy asked me with his mouth full.
"Bladed," I said, remembering Spirit and Kami Albarn's odd reaction to my weapon type. I wasn't sure how anyone else would react.
"Oh. Yeah, those are pretty useful." No way. Two thirds of all weapons were bladed. His own adopted mother was a knife. Seriously. "Once I got in a fight with a bladed autonomous weapon. I won, of course. I ALWAYS win."
"Mmm hmm," I said, keeping myself from dozing off while shoving another sandwich in my face.
I hoped this guy wouldn't ask me to be his weapon. I'd had no such "click" occur. Fortunately, Blackstar had already found his click this afternoon, in an eleven-year-old Japanese girl whose name was too long for me to remember. I didn't really care; whoever his partner was, if she was anywhere close to how annoying her meister could be, I hoped to never, ever meet her.
"Ya know," he said after I mentioned that I was still without a partner, "Don't always go by the click. That just means you're compatible, that they can even wield you. Maka's dad, he used to have a meister that could wield any weapon at all. He found out after being his partner for four years that the guy was doing science experiments on him in his sleep. FOUR YEARS. Ha! What a moron."
"Really? Why didn't he notice?" I asked, concerned.
"I dunno. Creep drugged him, I guess."
"Hey," I said, something just occurring to me. "If her dad's a scythe, why isn't she?"
"I dunno," Blackstar replied. "When we were four, we were gonna be partners, but she didn't have her powers yet. Then this super tall dude in a lab coat came one day, and he had stitches all over his face or somethin', and he looked at Maka and said she was a meister. She still had the weapon gene, but it was dormant. Or somethin'."
Blackstar huffed. "Stupid Maka. She's been looking for a partner for FOREVER, but she only trained with one type of weapon. She'll probably have to wait for the rest of her life."
I was about to ask what kind of weapon she'd trained with, but I was interrupted.
"Lucky for me, I found Tsubaki. She can turn into anything. I mean, whatever weapon she kills, she could turn into whatever they could turn into."
And all conversation about Maka Albarn was forgotten.
The three of us talked long into the night, about just about everything. Kilik was trained in boxing, but he was willing to learn anything else. Blackstar came from a long line of assassins. They got into all of the other teams they'd met.
"And this one girl, she was a demon mailbox. I mean, really. What use is-" Kilik was interrupted by a sound at the window. It was raining hard, so the sound was faint.
All of us were short, so Kilik had to sit on my shoulders to reach the latch.
"Aww, a kitty," he said, smiling at the small black bundle. It was odd to see him melt into the cutesy expression he now sported.
The cat was small, and had a black hat on her head. I rolled my eyes. I always thought it was so weird when people dressed up their pets.
We agreed to keep her until the morning, when we would put a sign up saying we'd found her.
The last sandwich was tuna. She helped herself to it, surprisingly.
When we went to sleep, it was nearly one. Not the latest I'd ever been up, but pretty close. Sometime in the night, the little black cat curled up on my chest and began snoring.
When we all woke up to go to school, she was gone.
I slept through class the next day. Something about the difference between Kishins and normal humans or something like that that didn't really matter.
I was still sleeping when Sid left the room for some unknown reason.
An argument broke out between Maka Albarn and Ox Ford, the supposed Lightning King.
"No, Ox, stupid. There's no such thing as love at first sight. It's a myth," she sighed, wanting to get back to the book she was reading.
"But it happens between weapons and meisters! Why not people and people?" He insisted, really getting on the pigtailed technician's nerves.
"That's a reaction of the soul. Love is a chemical reaction that occurs primarily in the pituitary gland, which is located at the center of the brain, almost directly behind the nose." She pointedly paid attention to her book.
"C'mon. It's not like that. It's an emotion, a feeling, it's-"
"Would you shut up? I'm trying to read! I don't care about you and your stupid mystery Valentine! You won't even say who she is, but you keep talking to me like I give a bag of raw fish!" Maka exclaimed, exasperated.
"You don't need to know! But she's so... so..." Ox officially looked ridiculous.
"Ha. She's probably nothing special, and you're afraid to admit she's a nobody." Maka stuck her nose in her book one last time, only to be interrupted by an Ox Ford explosion.
"WHY DON'T YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE?!" He yelled, reaching for his weapon and suddenly holding a golden-colored lance with electricity crackling at the end.
"Oh, you want to duel?" She asked, reaching for her bookmark.
"C'mon! Arm yourself!" He cried.
Maka stood on the desk as he was, only to realize that she was hopelessly outgunned. "Is anyone here a scythe?" She called to the class, and everyone shook their heads. Everyone but the creepy albino dude in the back of the room who was still asleep.
There were a few offers to partner just for this fight. "No, no," she said. "I can only wield scythes. Can't even touch anything else."
"Ah, I'm a kusarigama," came a quiet voice. "It's almost the same thing."
"Well, let's see it, Tsubaki," Maka replied, and she was suddenly holding two handscythes connected by a chain. She assumed a fighting stance, but it was obvious she'd never wielded a kusarigama before.
"Here, I'll step in for you."
"No, Blackstar! It's my duel!"
"That's what you get for only training with scythes. And, you're holding my weapon."
Maka sighed. "I can't-"
"Remember that one time when we were little and I stole your Pokemon cards?" The blueberry asked.
"Yes, I remember," she said tersely.
"Well, I gave them back, remember? I was so nice. You should be nice now, and let me substitute."
"Fine." She stepped off of the desk and handed Tsubaki to her meister. "I'm sorry," she said to Ox. As an afterthought, she added an "I'm sorry" to Tsubaki as well.
Blackstar won. Obviously.
The ball. I'd found out that it wasn't a "wear a nice suit" occasion only after I'd arrived, but there was really no way for me to go home and change out of my black pinstripe getup. Kilik and Blackstar walked with me. They were in button down shirts and jeans. Blackstar was only there to make sure I didn't end up like Spirit. I suspected his reasoning was actually just the food.
"What are you looking for?" I asked a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy with a half-unbuttoned shirt and purple tie. He had a scary amount of piercings, but I was getting a little desperate.
"A sword," said the boy, Hiro.
I grumbled at this.
"How come no one wants a scythe?" I asked my companions rhetorically. They both stopped in their tracks.
"You're a scythe?" Kilik asked, surprised.
"Well, yeah," I said, creeped out that the second time I'd told anyone, they had reacted oddly.
"We'll be back," Blackstar said quickly, pulling Kilik along with him into the crowd of hundreds of students of every age and classification.
I didn't know that I wasn't the only one that thought the ball was formal.
I asked a few more people, and I got answers of everything from crossbows to brass knuckles. No scythemeisters, though. I eventually stumbled across an abandoned room with empty picture frames all over the walls. In the back corner was a beautiful grand piano. When I sat at the bench, I faced the door.
Now was my one opportunity to express myself through music. I didn't know if I'd ever be able to get into this room again.
So I played.
Just that morning, nine-year-old Maka Albarn had found out the full meaning of the word "unfaithful", and had now put together exactly why her mother was always so angry with her father. So when Spirit had sat her down before the gathering and told her he wanted her to find a female weapon only, she had every intention of doing just the opposite.
She waded through the crowd of people, losing hope. Tsubaki walked with her, asking as they went along if they had seen a scythe. Head after head shook side to side.
Sometime in the night, Maka began to hear music. The sound of a piano, playing a dark song.
"Do you hear that?" She asked the raven-haired shadow arm.
"Hear what?"
"The music."
Tsubaki looked at her, concerned. "No, no I don't."
So they continued their search.
There were forty-five minutes left in the party when Kilik and Blackstar ran up to them. The two meisters panted for a moment.
"Who are you?" Maka asked Kilik.
"Kilik. Meister." He looked at her. "Nice dress, " he said, eyeing her black getup, complete with high heels, unheard of for the slight scythe tech.
"Blackstar, what are you doing here? Unless you've spontaneously discovered you're a-"
"Our roommate," he said, and panted more. "Where were you? We were- oh, hey, Tsubaki."
"FOCUS!" Kilik yelled at him. He looked at Maka. "Our roommate's a..." He, too was tired from running around looking for her.
"He's a..." Blackstar tried to finish.
"A what?" She asked.
Blackstar made color guard-style twirling motions with his hands.
Maka stared slackjawed for a moment. "WHO?" She demanded.
"Soul Evans," Kilik told her.
"The albino piano player guy." Blackstar finished.
"The piano player?" She asked, hoping these boys were sane.
They nodded.
She gave them each a passionate kiss on the cheek before running off to find the source of the music that played in her head.
Most of the attendees had already left.
I kept playing. I had given up hope on finding a meister, and was a-ok with waiting another year. If it came down to it, I could claim to be autonomous. That could work. This one guy, Justin Law, wielded himself, and he was almost finished with the 99 soul quota. Not that I really cared. Music was all that mattered, wasn't it?
I didn't need anyone else. I could go on by myself.
No one could understand me anyways. I'd scared my own mother away with my creepy music.
Maybe it was growing up in Death City that made Maka Albarn not afraid of the dark tune that rang in her ears. Somehow, watching wars pass by around you did that.
So she ran. She tried to remember. Where was there a piano?
If I scared away anyone else, I'd probably go mad.
That's why I was so startled when I saw that someone was standing in the doorway when I finished my song.
She was slight, and was wearing a black formal gown, with black gloves and skull-themed hairbands tying up her usual pigtails.
She'd heard my music.
"This is who I am," I told her.
"That was beautiful," was all she said.
Click.
Twenty-six pages. Holy crappola.
A lot of what happened here was based off of Soul Eater: N.O.T.!. Maka said she once wore the same uniform as Tsugumi Halberd, so I just described what she was wearing.
I may write a sequel, about life at the DWMA. It will have some of Maka's perspective, too. I want to put in how Soul changed his name. I'm thinking some "birds and the bees" talk from Sid and Nygus. Maybe a little help from Excalibur.
If you think I should write another chapter, say so in your review!