I am so incredibly, absolutely, greatly sorry for taking so long to update this. Last week I had test to study for and this week I spent working on this chapter. I still have yet to figure out how to introduce Chrona and what his/her appearance will be. That will be my mission for this week, oh, and also finishing/starting the fourth chapter. Again, I apologized for the delay and hope to have the next chapter up by next Friday if the test on Wednesday doesn't get in the way.
"I've taken the liberty of making a few adjustments to the space after the change in management." Kid explained as he opened the door to what had once been Shinigami-sama's office. "They were only a few minor things, but now it is nearly perfect-"
CRASH
Kid froze at the door, refusing to turn around and find the source of the offending racket.
BAM
Sweat began to form along his brow as his face went any unhealthy shade gray.
CRASH
Kid slowly turned his head to look into the office.
Through the door laid a large, perfectly cube shaped office with the walls and ceiling painted a dark gray. At the center of the room stood a monstrous, dark mahogany desk and a high backed, black leather chair behind it. Beyond the desk was a floor to ceiling window, probably two to three stories tall, that had once been framed by elegant black curtains but were now ripped and lying in pieces on the floor. Several book cases, in which its contents had been meticulously set, were knocked over, books and torn pages scattered on the floor. Tapestries were pulled off of the walls and pictures hung askew.
In the mess was a rosy cheeked woman in a white button-up shirt and a pinstriped vest and capris running around with a leopard print make-up box in hand. Close at her heels was an out of breath but also very angry looking woman, maybe a year or two older, dressed in similar clothing to her counterpart but with a pinstriped pencil skirt instead. Both of them ceased their rough housing when they realized that someone had just entered the room. The taller of the pair immediately paled while other started an infectious giggling, and her grin widened.
"Ok, Kid I know this looks bad, but we can fix it. Just take a deep breath, turn around, and Patty and I will clean this all up for you," The older one said as she tried to calm Kid down when she looked like she was going to faint herself.
Suddenly Kid stood up straight and composed himself, "Everything's fine, Liz, nothing to worry. What's a little mess?" He said as he took a step into the trashed room, but the moment his foot landed in the threshold Kid's brain imploded and he collapsed onto the floor.
As Liz and Patty, the latter giggling uncontrollably, rushed to Kids aid, Tsubaki and Black*Star followed Maka to the desk.
"We are all working on getting him over his OCD, and as you can see we are still making progress." Maka said as she searched through the desk drawers, "Although, he did do surprisingly well this time."
"So when did Kid take over for his old man? I thought he couldn't leave Death City because of something about his soul" Black*Star asked Maka, who had just found what she was looking for.
"After the defeat of the Kishen, Stein and all the Death Scythes worked together on finding a way to remove Shinigami-sama's soul from the city. With some additional assistance from Blair's and Chrona's knowledge on magic, we finally found the answer. Although little was revealed to the students, it was suspected that Free and Eruka were also involved and provided the necessary magic to extract Shinigami-sama's soul. Following the extraction, Shinigami-sama disappeared without a word. Many suspected foul play on the witches' part and others feared that something had gone wrong with the extraction method used. It wasn't until two weeks later, when we received this from Hollywood, California, that all suspicions were proven wrong." Maka handed a colorful postcard to Tsubaki and Black*Star.
The card read: "Hiyo, everyone! Hope everything is going well in my absence. I apologize if I worried anyone by leaving without a word. Now that my soul is free, I wish to discover for myself what has changed in 800 years. I leave the school and my trust in Kid's very capable hands and wish you all a fun filled school year.
Yours truly,
Shinigami-sama"
After rereading the card several times, Tsubaki slowly handed it back to Maka.
Black*Star stared incredulously at Tsubaki, "Hey, I was still reading-"
"When exactly did he leave?" Tsubaki questioned Maka, too shocked to notice Black*Star's protests.
"About a year and a half ago," Maka replied, taking the post card, placing it back in the desk, and pulling out stack of even more cards. Black*Star gave up on getting the card, deciding listening would be better than reading anyway. "We receive a new postcard every week or so from some new place Shinigami-sama has visited," Maka informed them as she laid the cards out on the desk.
The postcards had come from various places, starting the United States and Canada. Later, there were more from Central America (Mexico to Panama), Caribbean islands, and all of South America. The latest postcards were arriving from Europe, with the most recent one from Italy. On the back it said,
"Rome is incredibly beautiful. Can't wait to try some of that gelato everyone talks about.
Wish you were here,
Shinigami-sama"
"I guess you can't really blame him. I mean, he was trapped in this city for 800 years," Tsubaki stated while still scanning the postcards littering the desk.
"True as that may be, his actions were incredibly selfish." Now recovered from his shock, Kid walked up to the desk, "Without taking even a moment to consider the consequences of his actions, he leaves all who care for his well-being in a state of panic."
"But now we can manage the school on our own. Unfortunately, we have yet to contact Shinigami-sama. Every time we receive a new post card we send search groups to that area, but when they reach the location he has already moved on." Maka gave a worried glance at Kid, but the look turned to confusion when her gaze fell on him. "Um, Kid, why do you have you eyes closed?"
Black*Star and Tsubaki, too, looked away from the postcards and up at Kid, who did in fact have his eyes closed.
"Liz said that if I don't see the room I won't have to notice how horribly asymmetrical it is right now," Kid said with a peaceful smile on his face, "and to also to only think about symmetrical things. Right now I am envisioning the number 8."
Maka blinked a couple of times before shaking her head and trying to go back to her train of thought, "Anyways, we have made some changes to the school and have a new variety of learning methods for the students. We will have you start school tomorrow, but today we can give you a tour and show you how the classes are done."
With that statement, Maka headed to the door with Tsubaki, Black*Star, Kid, Liz and Patti following shortly after.
A thought came to Maka as she walked into the hallway. "Liz? Patti? Make sure you hold onto Kid so that he doesn't walk into-"
BAM
"-the wall." Maka finished with a sigh.
Maka, Tsubaki, and Black*Star continued walking as Liz and Patti, who was once again giggling hysterically, rushed to help up Kid after his collision with the wall.
"Anyways, let's begin the tour. There have been some changes in the school since you've been gone. There are new additions do to the new influx of students. We have a new training arena we developed with the help of some artifact technology and magic. Best of all, the Library is even larger than before, and I have access to all of it." Maka said that last sentence with a dreamy look on her face. Black*Star didn't hear anything other than "training arena", a similar look to Maka's on his face.
"Training arena! That sounds right my alley!" He yelled while running off in a randomly selected direction.
Maka's temple throbbed, with a headache on the way, as she whipped out a full text, hardcover copy of The Arabian Nights and chucked it a Black*Star's head. Tsubaki sighed as she walked over to Black*Star to pick up his crumpled form from the floor.
"As I said, we begin our tour." Maka stated as she glared down at the unconscious Black*Star. She turned and walked down the hall as the weapons gathered up and carried/dragged their respective technicians.
Shortly after a trip to the infirmary, the tour began once again. Maka walked them from classroom to classroom, stopping by at the library to see if a book was in. They then departed from the library, Maka muttering something about "'could be lost in the back' my ass", and headed in the direction of the training arena. As they neared their destination, Black*Star could barely contain his excitement.
"Oh, I can't wait to get in there and show all of just how great I have become. If I was a god before, then there is no reasonable word to describe me now other than the Great and Almighty Black*Star of Awesomeness! Not even that may suffice to express my immenseness." He was practically jumping out of his skin as the arena door came into sight. "Just you wait, Kid! You may not want a rematch with me after seeing an example of my power."
"You're not the only one who has been training, Black*Star." Kid stated as Maka pulled out a strangely shaped key and inserted it into the door. "These past years, you think all we did is teach and do paper work? I'm pretty sure you will be the one regretting a rematch." Kid ended that statement with a smirk.
"Oh, yeah! Well, we will see about that!" Black*Star yelled, his excitement even higher. The instant Maka unlocked the door, he pushed her out of the way, ran through the door, only to find himself in an empty, white room. "Hey! What's the big Idea? This looks like nothing more than an unused storage room."
Maka walked into the room rolling her eyes. Once everyone had entered, she closed the door and walked over to another door. Confused, Black*Star and Tsubaki followed, tailed by Kid, Liz, and Patty. Inside the second room was a huge control panel, covered in knobs, levers, switches and other devised that could not be named. Above the controls was a window that looked into the previous room, but no matter how hard he tried, Black*Star could not find the other side of the window in the white room. Maka fiddled with some of the controls and typed in something on the keyboard.
Disappointed and bored, Black*Star decided to leave and go find a real place to train, but as he walked towards the exit, it disappeared. In fact, the whole room disappeared, leaving him in a forest. Black*Star looked around, trying to calm down and thing rationally. Unfortunately that was impossible for him, so he just started running in hopes of finding the end to the forest.
Black*Star ran for a long period of time before a noise caught his attention, stopping him in his tracks. Looking in the direction of the sound, Black*Star positioned himself into a battle stance and prepared for the oncoming assault. Moments past, but there was no sound to follow the first. Believing that the danger had past, Black*Star began to relax. At that moment of hesitation, something pounced from behind and tackled him. Black*Star managed to turn himself over in mid air, but only to be pinned on his back.
On top of him stood a snarling creature that could only be described as grotesque. There was no doubt that this was a pre-kishen. Black*Star squirmed and attempted to get out of the creatures grip, only to be picked up by its clawed hands and slammed into the ground. After repeating this motion about five or more times, Black*Star was flung into a nearby tree. He began to gather himself up and stood just in time to be head butted by the pre-kishen back into the tree. Black*Star was once again pinned to the ground, a set of jagged teeth dripping with saliva hovering over his head. His attempts to shove the creature off of him were futile and merely draining his energy even faster.
"Well this isn't a very godlike way to die. At least no one is here to see this. That would be embarrassing." Black*Star commented on his impending doom. "And I was looking forward to kicking Kid's ass too."
Hope you liked it. Made this one a longer than the other's to make up on lost time. Review, Fave, Alert, whatever.
