Dissection SOS
Chapter 2: Weaknesses
On his way to school the next morning, Stein dropped a very confused Spirit off at his house. "Stein, I don't remember this scar. When I was drunk, did you-"
"Oh, please. That one was from a while ago. Back before you met Kami," Stein brushed off the death scythe's worries. He glanced back on his way out the door to see Spirit tearing up at the thought of his ex-wife.
"K-kami! M-maaakkaaaaaaa!" Spirit howled in misery. Pathetic, Stein thought as he rolled his eyes. When he reached the steps up to the DWMA, he noticed with no small amount of amusement that Kid was standing on the very highest step, gazing lovingly up at the architecture above him.
"So, just so symmetrical!" Kid said with reverence. "Oh lovely Shibusen, how symmetrical you are,"
Stein noticed Liz rolling her eyes as Patty whispered; "Maybe he loves school so much because it's symmetrical, and he's not,"
The girl had forgotten Kid's reaper hearing. He paled and fell to his knees. "Y-you're right, Patty. I'm garbage. Asymmetrical GARBAGE!" Well, Stein thought, there are ways and ways to fix that, as his hand twitched longingly towards the scalpel in his coat pocket.
Once he'd picked up his frightened lesson plan in a box from the storage room, then bell began to ring. He grinned. He liked this part of the day. To cut through the throng of rushing students, he'd devised a mechanism for his chair to go all around the DWMA. He hopped in and shot off towards his classroom, bowling kids over with glee.
The classroom door was open, and Stein was almost inside when a wheel caught on the doorsill. He pitched forward cursing. Blasted Shinigami! Every time he removed that long piece of tile, it'd get put back within the week. Grinding his teeth in frustration he picked his lesson plan up off the floor and hoisted it onto the lab table up front.
He was so annoyed he didn't bother to start class. He just opened the box and started plucking feathers. The entire class sweat dropped at his expression and ferocity: the poor bird wasn't even sedated. Of course, that didn't bother Stein in the slightest.
A loud voice pulled Stein out of his happiness. "THE MAN WHO WILL SURPASS GOD DOESN'T NEED LESSONS! LET'S GO DO A JOB TSUBAKI!" The loud and hyper assassin shouted.
Tsubaki tried to calm her flamboyant partner to no avail. "Black*star, we have to stay for our lessons!" Quickly seeing the futility of that line of reasoning, she tried another tactic. "Don't you want to learn how to gut your opponent better?" her sweet voice saying such things with a calm face had everyone cringing. Stein just laughed.
"TSUBAKI, WE'RE NOT GONNA LEARN ANYTHING IN HERE! HE HASN'T EVEN ADDRESSED THE CLASS YET!" Black*star responded.
Stein's mirth faded and he palmed a pair of dissecting scissors. The pair just wouldn't shut up, even when Stein glared at them. They didn't notice. Everyone else did though, and backed away from the arguing couple. Black*star and Tsubaki did notice when the scissors thudded into the desk above Black*star, an inch from his face. His pupils shrunk to specs and he gulped.
Black*star's face twisted in anger and his turned to yell at Stein when Tsubaki tugged on his arm. The assassin looked down at his weapon and saw her pale, worried face and frowned. The assassin must have realized the sense in sitting down, and for once, did so relatively quietly.
Once things had settled down a bit, and the bird's belly was entirely featherless, Stein looked up at the class. "Most of you have been in one of my classes before. All of you will be facing harder opponents than ever, this semester, and will therefore need some new fighting technics. The best way to defeat an opponent is to learn its weaknesses,"
Stein heard a murmurs in the crowd, "Weaknesses have nothing to do with dissection," and "I don't want to dissect anything!"
"Class," Stein said quietly, menace lacing his voice as he held up a big knife. Everyone fell silent, attention on him and the blade he held. They'd all seen Stein had no qualms about throwing lethal objects at students. At least they had that much sense.
"There are two kinds of weaknesses: mental and physical. Most of you deal with mental weakness when you have trouble resonating with your partner or your group. Or when you're scared of your opponent and try to run the other way," Stein glanced meaningfully at Liz.
"Other classes help you to defeat those weaknesses. This class deals with other weaknesses. Physical weakness can be anything from a previous injury to the poor range of movement of a hinge joint,"
Already, Stein could see, half the class didn't understand what he was saying. He'd have to dumb it down for them he supposed. Again.
"Knowing your opponents weaknesses can help you defeat them quickly, with minimal harm to yourself. Knowing your own weaknesses, and those of your partner, can help you keep yourself alive on the battlefield. If your opponent knows your weaknesses, it is even more important to know your own, so you can protect your weakest points,"
Soul yawned and was sent a death glare. Maka nudged Soul to keep Stein from taking more drastic action. With the machete in his hand, for example.
"Learning about internal weaknesses is usually done in two parts: studying anatomy, and attempting dissection for first-hand experience of what you study. Also, since you'll be facing opponents of all shapes and sizes, you'll need to study all kinds of different anatomical structures and be able to recognize them with a glance,"
Groans came from around the room, but since he was almost finished, Stein continued with his speech. As soon as he finished, he reminded himself, he could go on with his favorite part of this lesson plan.
"Dissection is a delicate science, but it can be powerful. For example, if I cut Kid so he has a diagonal scar on one arm, but a horizontal scar on the other arm, I will have inflicted enormous mental damage as well, rendering him incapable of fighting back,"
Everyone chuckled at Kid's horrified face.
"Thus, dissection is the science of scars. Inflicting and defending potential scars is what this class is all about. Welcome to Dissection Science Of Scars. I prefer to call it Dissection S.O.S. Open you textbooks and read chapter one. Tomorrow, we'll begin the dissection of the animals shown in that chapter," he finished abruptly, wanting to get back to dissecting the bird.
Stein ran his hand over the warm belly of the live endangered bird. Putting down the machete, he picked up his favorite scalpel and cut through the layers of fat. He peeled away the outer layer of skin and took a sample of the outermost fat layer for later analysis. He was so busy writing down the rate of blood flow from the hole in the bird's stomach he almost didn't catch the loud sarcastic remark.
The crimson-eyed boy had probably thought Stein would be too absorbed in his dissection to notice, or maybe he thought being reckless like that was cool. Stein didn't know, but he did hear the scythe say, "Science of Scars? More like Save Our Souls!" there was a decent amount of appreciative laughter.
Soul glanced down at Stein, smirking to show his pride in his little rebellion. Stein matched that smirk and said loudly, "Indeed Soul, perhaps your souls will need saving, before you all finish this class…"
The students' sub-consciousnesses must have picked up on the note of truth in Stein's voice, because they all fell silent, leaving Stein to enjoy his lesson plan for the rest of the class period.
I'll do my best to update this about once a week, probably every Sunday.
No, I don't hate Kid (he's actually one of my favorite characters), and I'll give him some cool action scenes later. I figured Stein probably thinks of Kid as kind of pathetic for his OCD, so I wrote it according to that.
Thanks to my best friend for letting me use her Save Our Souls joke!
Thanks to everyone who favorited, followed, reviewed, and read Dissection SOS!
Lialane Graest: Here it is, enjoy!
Until next week, then…