The next day I put on some leggings and another jumper but this time I didn't bother with the beanie. I skated to school at seven and Kid went at eight. I was called to the Death Room as soon as I got to school. I walked up to the Death room and saw Black*Star, Tsubaki, Soul and Maka. I walked in and asked "Why are we here?" Father said "We need to send you on an extra-curricular lesson." Maka nodded and asked "Where?" Shinigami made a random hand gesture as he said "Italy." Soul and I fist punched the air and yelled "Yes! Italy!" Father nodded and said "There are a few assassins there, they're murdering innocent humans and consuming their souls. Black*Star and Tsubaki will go after one. Maka and Soul after another and then you, Hotaru can go after the other and get your first soul." I smiled and said "I won't disappoint you father." He nodded and said "I know you won't." I smiled and nodded. I've never really travelled outside of Death City, so to go to Italy. I don't know what to say except 'WOOHOO!"

****Time Skip****

I had been skateboarding through Italy. It was my first day here and I was hungry. All the assassins we were hunting only came out at night so I had time. I stopped at a pasta place and had lunch. I walked outside. I saw a gang of men. I walked over and tapped one on the shoulder. I asked "Excuse me, where is the local library?" The guy cracked his knuckle and said "This is our turf, don't cross us." Another member of the gang said "I don't think we should pick on her; remember what happened earlier with that other kid." I grinned, it was probably Soul. I feigned terror and said "But I'm just a little girl." The leader walked up and tried to size me up. I grinned and made sure to leave them all in a neat pile, leaking blood. I patted the leader on the head and said "Next time, think twice about trying to beat on an innocent young girl." I got a moan in reply. Happy, I walked away to the library using senrigan to find it.

I read books until it got dark. When I was ready I walked outside. Even though it was dark it was very hot. I walked around the now empty streets. I heard footsteps behind me. I whirled around and saw the assassin. He was called 'the black shadow' because he stayed in the shadows and pursued the victim. I saw his sharp teeth and blood-thirsty eyes. I grinned and ran at him. My arm transformed into a blade. His eyes widened in terror. He went to go and jump away. I made a force field in front of him so he bounced off and back down to the floor. I made a force field box around us so that he couldn't get out. He circled me and I circled him, each waiting for the other to make a move. Suddenly he lunged at me. I gasped and jumped back. He grinned and growled "Your soul is mine!" I grinned and said "Likewise." Suddenly I ran at him at full speed, my arm was a blade. I stabbed him right through the middle, and twisted. He coughed up a lot of blood onto my face before dying. His soul floated upwards. I grabbed it. It was orange and had almost like scales in some places. It glowed and pulsed.

I sighed and mumbled "My first soul." I slipped it down my throat. It had no taste but it felt AMAZING going down. The texture was silky, and at the same time was just soothing. I swallowed it and sighed. "That was nice. I wonder how Tsubaki and Black*Star are doing." I used senrigan to look through the town. I got to a building; it looked like an old church. I gasped. In there was a lot of humans but there was a meister and weapon in the middle. They weren't normal though. I could feel the madness flooding out of them, it was sickening. I let down the force field and ran to the building. I heard a motor cycle. I turned around. It was Maka and Soul. I said worriedly "You saw them, the soul's right?!" She nodded frightfully. She asked "How many are in th-" She got no further. We both gasped and went closer to the big wooden door. Soul frowned and asked "What, you guys are creeping me out now?" Maka stuttered "A...a...all the souls...they're" She gulped. I finished off "They're gone." Soul walked up and said "Really?" We nodded. I growled and said "The weapon and meister are still in there, I bet they took the souls. We kill them. Now." Maka and Soul nodded fiercely.

Maka pushed open the door. We entered. Standing in the middle, slightly lop-sided was a girl, about our age. She was on her own and had her hand on her arm. She was twitching slightly and had a look in her eye that screamed madness. I growled and took a fighting stance. I looked around the room, trying to find somewhere to use in the fight, I fight best in the shadows and up high. She said in a sad and tired voice "See, the doors only open one way, inwards." I snarled and got ready for any sort of attack. The girl looked at us directly. Her eyes were black and gray; she looked sleep-deprived and starved. She was wearing a long black dress down to her ankles and was swaying from side to side. She had short pink hair with longer strands, it was pink. Soul frowned and asked "But there's only one, where's the weapon?" I studied the girl before saying "It looks like, I can't believe it, the weapon is-"Maka sighed angrily and said "The weapon is inside her body." Soul took a step back. I said to Maka quickly "I'll call Shibusen, you fight. Soul, transform now." He nodded and jumped into the air. He glowed a blue colour before landing in Maka's hand as a weapon. I pulled open the door and hopped outside. I wrote on the hand mirror I always had "forty two, forty two, five sixty four, whenever you need him, knock on death's door." The mirror shimmered and rippled like a pool of water before focusing in on the death room and my father. He asked "What is it Hotaru?" I frowned and said "There is a very powerful sword, we need Stein, I think that only he can defeat this weapon. We're at the church in the centre of town. No questions send him, NOW. No waiting."Father nodded and said to Spirit "Go and get Stein." Spirit nodded and walked out of the death room. I adde
d on the end "This weapon and meister, they're on the verge of becoming a Kishin."Father nodded and hung up.

I waited for a while outside before seeing Stein and Spirit ride up in a small car. I ran over and said "Quickly, in there." I pointed to the door. Spirit walked up and tried to open the door. He snarled and said "Damnit, it's locked." Stain walked over calmly and said "Spirit. Transform." Spirit nodded and transformed into a scythe in Stein's hands. Stein walked over to the door and stabbed through it. He took his blade back out. It was covered in black blood." I walked over after them and kicked the door. It broke inwards. I kicked someone in the chest. I panicked for a moment thinking that it was Maka or Soul. I grinned as I saw it was the girl. She slid into the wall. The wall erupted in a shower of broken rock and dust. I coughed away he dust. While she was down I looked back. Soul was on the floor, bleeding, Stein's lab coat was covering him. Maka looked up and yelled through tears "LOOK!" I turned around. The girl was charging at me. I put up a shield in front of me. Her black sword pushed against it and threatened to shatter it. "Stein! Quick! I can't hold it against her!" He nodded and ran over. As soon as he got there my shield shattered in front of me. Stein jumped in and used Spirit as his weapon. I ran over to Maka and Soul. Soul was bleeding. I knelt down and cupped my hand over my mouth "Oh my god, Soul. I could have helped, I, I." I erupted in sobs. Maka smiled and put her hand on my shoulder "It's alright, go and help Stein and my dad." I nodded. I wiped the tears from my face and stormed out of the building. I had probably the most fierce and determined face on at that moment.

When I got outside I saw Stein and Spirit fighting. They were holding their own against the meister and weapon. I felt something. I looked up in the sky. There was a woman, she was on a broom. A witch?! But no, she had a sort of blue ring around her soul. I saw her smirk down on the fight. I looked around. Crona had knocked Stein down to the floor and was closing in, fast. I growled and jumped in front of the two adults. My arms formed the shape of an X in front of me. A shield appeared. She ran and slashed at the shield with her sword. I was being pushed back. An image of Soul, bleeding, swept through my mind. I hissed "NO! You won't hurt my friends again!" Something happened, something that has never happened before. The invisible shield started to glow a gold colour, the same colour as my eyes. I pushed her back this time using my newfound strength. I smirked and said "It's bad to mess with a Shinigami." When she looked tired my arm transformed into a blade. I let down the shield and stabbed her through her stomach. I twisted sharply. She fell to the ground but she was still alive.

I brushed myself off and turned back to Stein. I pointed directly at the woman in the air and said "You kill the witch." Stein looked up and then back at me. He said "What does her soul look like?" I narrowed my eyes and looked. I said "It's big and powerful, it looks like a witches but." He raised an eyebrow "But what." I cocked my head to the side and said "But there is a sort of blue ring around it." The witch shrugged and said "Oh well. Soul protect – release." I felt the waves of her power flow out. Maka ran out and gawked. Stein looked up in anger. He said, still looking away "You managed to see through her soul protect." I nodded and said "Well, my speciality is looking for souls, I mean; I can even use senrigan so it's not surprising." He nodded and said "Fair enough. He studied the witch, then the girl on the floor. "My guess is the witch put the weapon inside the kid's body." Maka was shaking when she asked "What is soul protect?" I looked at her and said "It's a spell that can mask the soul of a witch, making it appear human. I'm not sure if there are many weapons or meisters that can actually sense this. Plus, only powerful witches can use this magic." Stein said "So far, only you and one other can." The witch was just sitting there, smirking. I felt my blood boil. The witch laughed and said "Oh, poor Crona. I'll punish her when we get back home." She then proceeded to say something that sounded like a spell "Nake, snake, cobra, cobubra, nake, snake, cobra, cobubra. Now, let's punish you. That should be very fun. Vector arrows!" Stein gasped and yelled "Hotaru! Shield." I nodded and ran in front of everyone. I put up a shield as many arrows came from the witch and shot at us. I yelled out in pain. The force, it was so strong. It hurt because the shield is like an expansion of my soul, it was very hard to use my shields this much and against such powerful opponents. My shield was on the verge of shattering when Stein and Spirit jumped in front of the shield and said "Soul resonance. Let's go! Witch hunter!" The scythe glowed a blue colour. Stein swung Spirit and cut through all the arrows. She looked at me and said "Impressive for a weapon." I growled and said "Nope, you're just too weak." She laughed. She held her arm forward. Snake tattoos were winding up her arm. One slithered off and formed a big snake that flew through the air. It swept down and picked up Crona before flying back to the witched side. She laughed, she did that a lot. She said "Man, I just came here for a small experiment, who knew I would bump into a legendary meister, Shinigami's death scythe and a weak lone weapon." My hands balled into fists as I yelled "I have two meisters! And I'm not just a weapon, I'm a Shinigami!" She smirked and said "Interesting." before flying off with her snake.

Now that she was gone I was really worried. I ran back to Soul and made sure he was still alive and breathing. Luckily he was. With that all over we went back to Shibusen. On one leg of the journey Stein asked "What is that shield anyway?" I smiled and said "The first time I used it was when Kid tried to cut my hair to make it symmetrical, it's an expansion of my soul, it feels like a knife getting stabbed into my stomach when it shatters so it's normally hard to use it against real enemies. I don't know what happened when it started glowing back there. I don't know what it was." Stein nodded and replied "It was only your soul making the shield to start with so when you got angry some of the Shinigami within you tried to help." I smiled and said "Cool." The rest of the journey went slowly and quietly, it only took us a few trips to get back. When we got back nobody was there. We rushed him straight into school and into the infirmary. I offered for Maka to stay at the Shinigami house but she shook her head quietly and stayed with Soul. That night I felt like screaming into my pillow for not being able to help Soul. I woke up in the morning and got ready for school straight away. I skated to school, crying on the inside.

I went to school and didn't know what to do. I wandered around. It was six o'clock in the morning. I found a random empty room. I walked through the door and flicked on the light switch. I smiled. The room was full of instruments. I walked around and picked out what I could actually play. I grabbed an acoustic guitar. I tried out the strings and made sure they were in tune. I closed my eyes and started playing. I loved the music so much that I started singing. At that moment I could forget about Soul, about Shibusen, about witches, about evil, about everything. I completely lost myself in the music. I learned to play guitar when I was small and have always liked singing. When I finished off my song I opened my eyes and saw a familiar face through the door. It was Tsubaki. She mimed "The doors locked." I nodded, lent the guitar against the wall and let Tsubaki in. She was smiling brightly. I asked "Why are you smiling?" She grinned and said "You're amazing at that." I shook my head and said "Not really." She punched my arm lightly and said "Yes you are." I grinned.

She then said "Oh and Soul's awake." My eyes grew wide as I asked "Is he alright, how did the operation go, is Maka alright...oh no..." She frowned and asked "What is it." I groaned and asked "Where's Black*Star?" She gasped. We ran as fast as we could to Soul's medical room, which by the way was pretty fast. I stopped outside the room as face palmed. There was a broken door. "Black*Staaaar!" Tsubaki groaned. I walked in. Maka was holding a book and Black*Star was lying in a pile of blood. It didn't take a genius to figure out what just happened. Maka sat down. Tsubaki and I sat next to her. I said to Soul "Sorry, it was my fault, I should have come back in." He grinned and said "It's alright. If you came in you would have gotten hurt as well. That's not cool." I smiled. I heard footsteps. I looked at the door. In walked in the witch from last night. She was smiling. I did nothing, I was so confused. Maka smiled and said "Dr. Medusa." I frowned, why was Maka being so nice to her, she hurt Soul. Maka started sobbing and said "I...it's my entire fault." Dr. Medusa said "It's alright. He's going to be alright. And you will get stronger because of this." As Maka walked out I asked Dr. Medusa "Can I speak to you outside for a moment please?" She nodded. We walked outside, I closed the door quietly, make sure that nobody else was in the halls or rooms around. Then...I broke.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" She grinned and said "Experiments." I growled "Get out of my father's school." She shook her head and said "No way, besides I could easily kill you and your friends." I folded my arms and stated "I'll make you a deal," she raised her eyebrow "You don't kill any of my friends and I keep your secret." She sneered "What if I break the promise." I smiled and said "The day you cross a Shinigami is the day you die." She thought for a moment before sighing "Fine, agreed." I held my hand out for her to shake, she grabbed it and shook. She then asked "Wait, you said don't kill them, why not say I can't hurt them." I smiled and said "I think things through. You've already hurt Soul and the others can take it. Plus, there would be no point of a witch being here if she didn't want to see some sort of pain and suffering." She smiled and said "I underestimated you." I nodded and said "I'm not defenceless just because I don't have a meister, I learnt to fight on my own and that's how I like it." She nodded and said "So you'll keep my secret?" I nodded and said "I'm not happy about it but yes." She smiled and left. I walked back into the room and couldn't help but smile at all my friends.