Operation Convince Soul to Embrace His Heart was underway in Music Room #3. Shortly after Soul's departure from the Host Club, Tamaki concocted an elaborate plan to get Soul and his meister, Maka, to fall irreversibly in love in the span of one afternoon. Tamaki rolled out a chalkboard, which had "Operation Convince Soul to Embrace His Heart" scrawled at the top. Without further ado, Tamaki laid out the plan.

Kyoya was responsible for research and reconnaissance on the character, likes and dislikes, and associates of Soul Evans and his lady love, Maka Albarn. As the Host Club's resident commoner, Haruhi was assigned as Maka's guide and confidante. She was to monitor Maka at all times until Tamaki gave "the word."

"So I'm being assigned to follow Maka around just because we're both poor?" Haruhi asked incredulously.

"Don't interrupt your father while he is speaking!" Tamaki said. The others gave Haruhi pointed looks, prompting her to cross her arms and sigh. Tamaki continued.

While Haruhi kept tabs on Maka, Hikaru and Karou were to distract Death the Kid and foster the illusion of privacy. Whatever unfolded between Soul and Maka would be watched by everyone ("We are a business after all," Kyoya murmured), but the couple didn't need to know that.

Tamaki announced that as the president of the Host Club, it fell upon his handsome shoulders to seduce Maka in order to heighten the drama and inspire jealousy and passion in Soul. It was this part of the plan that was supposed to convince Soul to embrace his heart, for what could motivate a man to declare his love more than the appearance of a devastatingly handsome rival?

Lastly, Honey and Mori were assigned as lookouts. Their official duty was to inform Tamaki when the DWMA students arrived, but they mostly just stashed martial arts weaponry behind the curtains and underneath the couch cushions—just in case something else turned up to visit the Host Club.

Shortly after class ended the next day, Kyoya arrived in Music Room #3 with a thick file under his arm. He neatly emptied the file's contents—three folders labeled "Soul Evans," "Maka Albarn," and, most ominously, "Evidence"—on the table. The amount of intelligence Kyoya gathered on Maka in one night was alarming.

"Kyoya-senpai, where did you even get all that?" Haruhi asked.

"I have my sources," Kyoya said.

"Is this a mug shot?" Tamaki exclaimed. He had picked up a photograph sticking out of the "Evidence" folder and stared at it with wide blue eyes. Haruhi looked over his shoulder—it was indeed a mug shot, and it featured a beautiful blonde sneering defiantly at the camera. The girl was holding a namecard in her slack hands. The small white lettering on the namecard identified the girl as Elizabeth Thompson.

"Soul-chan changed his name!" Honey exclaimed. He had begun rifling through some papers in the "Soul Evans" folder, and held up a scanned copy of a certificate. "He's called Soul Eater now. Takashi, isn't that cool?"

Mori's expression remained steady and obscure. "Huh," he replied.

"We found Maka's school transcripts!" The twins exclaimed in unison. Hikaru waved a packet of papers in the air while Karou flipped more through the "Maka Albarn" folder.

"But it's kind of boring because her grades are all A's," Hikaru said.

"Let's return to the task at hand." Kyoya said sternly. "We have a lot to cover."

Kyoya snatched the folder out of Karou's hands and laid out its contents. Paper-clipped to the top page was a photo a girl with dusty blonde pigtails and large green eyes. So this was Maka Albarn. The host club members passed around several photographs of her. Some shots were candid, but others were posed—who on earth supplied Kyoya with Maka's personal photographs, Haruhi wondered. She examined a photo of Maka and Soul together. She was dressed in a long black overcoat, and was giving the camera a big thumbs up. Soul was beside her, smirking at the camera.

"They do kind of look cute together," Haruhi murmured thoughtfully.

"She has a flat chest just like you," Hikaru said to Haruhi. "You sure have a lot in common.'

"No boobs and no trust fund," Haruhi droned. "We're basically twins."

Haruhi glanced at Tamaki and was surprised to see him staring at a photograph of Maka, eyebrows furrowed. His buoyant mood had dried up, and he adopted a tone of complete and utter seriousness.

"Hikaru's right," Tamaki said. "Maka's supposed to be taking care of our kishin problem, but she's the same size as you, Haruhi." Haruhi took another look at the photograph in her hand. The girl pictured there was thin and leggy, and was actually wearing a mini skirt underneath her enormous jacket. The pig tails, flouncy skirt, and slender body didn't exactly scream 'kishin killer.'

"Hey, if this is going to be about how girls are too weak or something, you better cut that out," Haruhi said.

"It's not that she's a girl, the problem is that she's so normal," Tamaki said. He slowly scanned the faces of the Host Club. "How can we ask someone as young and foolish as we are to risk her life like this? I mean, meisters are just regular people right? They don't have superpowers like weapons and grim reapers. And Soul was saying yesterday that they almost died—"

"Do not underestimate Maka Albarn," Kyoya said. He opened Maka's file and thumbed through the papers before summarizing his report. "Maka is a two star meister and at the top of her class. Her skills include advanced soul perception, scythe mastery, and basic hand-to-hand combat. She is the daughter of a once-renowned weapon and meister team, one of which currently holds the position of Deathscythe. These records also indicate that Maka almost created her own deathscythe at age 13, but her souls were confiscated on a technicality. In short, Maka was clearly groomed to reap the souls of kishin-eggs since early childhood."

Kyoya pushed his glasses up his nose, and light glinted of the lenses. "I don't know if any of you noticed this, but Soul said something very interesting yesterday. Something concerning the kishin, Asura."

Speaking the kishin's name was like dropping a bomb in the room, only instead of a bang, the explosion erupted with all-consuming, reverberating silence. Asura's rise occurred before Haruhi transferred to Ouran Academy, but the kishin's madness and influence affected people from all walks of life. It was a dangerous time that no one liked to recall, so why was Kyoya bringing this up now?

Then Haruhi remembered. Yesterday, when Soul became flustered amidst the Host Club and all of its clients, he did mention the kishin.

"Hey, I am cool," Soul said. "I'm the coolest weapon at the academy. I've collected over a hundred souls. I faced down witches, werewolves, and even the kishin Asura!"

"Soul said he fought the kishin," Haruhi said. Her eyes met Kyoya's. "And since he's only a weapon, that must mean his meister, Maka, was there with him."

"Honestly, I just thought he was making it up," Hikaru said with a shrug.

"Well, the DWMA never actually made the names of the meisters or weapons that defeated the kishin public," Kyoya explained. "However, judging by their impressive track record and association with the DWMA's inner circle, I suspect Soul and Maka were involved in that fight. If that is the case, I don't believe we will have anything to worry about at all."

So Soul and Maka really were the real deal. Kyoya's words floated in the room for a single beat before Tamaki's blue eyes began to sparkle with determination. The King of the Host Club had finally rallied.

"Your mother is right!" Tamaki said. "We don't need to worry about Maka's suitability as a meister. All we need to do is lead her down the path of true love."

Tamaki began to pace. "Now listen up men! We are dealing with a case of extreme denial, so we must tread carefully. With enough provocation, Soul will have no choice but to embrace his heart and love Maka forever."

"You seem to know a lot about denial, boss," Karou said snidely.

"I am an expert in many disciplines," Tamaki said. He walked away from the others and strode to the window. He placed his hands on his hips, and his silhouette was outlined by blue, cloudless sky.

"We have a few hours before they arrive," Tamaki said. "Men, let's start putting together our cosplay."


"You're doing it again," Maka said with a frown.

"Doing what?"

"Not telling me something."

If only there was something Soul could tell without feeling like a blubbering idiot. He could handle it when those Host Club creeps started sneering about his brother. Soul could even handle Death the Kid draping himself on those twins, though it did plant images in his mind that would haunt him for weeks. When those Ouran kids started questioning his coolness, his legitimacy as a weapon, Soul still felt like he was in control. After he stood up and showed off his badass scar, the faces of those rich bastards were priceless. They looked so wide-eyed and embarrassed, humbled even. No student at Ouran could break a nail without an entire staff of servants to help them, but Soul and his peers risked their lives all the time for the sake of their security. That moment should have been the wakeup call of the century.

Instead, through the greatest and most irrational leap of logic, the message "Soul Evans is cool" was interpreted as "Soul Evans is in love with his meister." What?

Soul was so blindsided by this absurd turn of events that he could do nothing but sputter like a complete dork. Though, anyone should be allowed to stammer and stumble in that situation. Even cool guys like him. The amount of girls in swishy dresses seemed to multiply, and Soul could barely hear himself think over their squealing and chatter. The weapon might have been able to salvage the situation if Kid didn't start egging on the Host Club's rabid fantasy. After they left Ouran Academy the day before, Soul made sure to let Kid know exactly how pissed he was.

"Thanks for the backup Kid," Soul had said bitterly. "Thanks a fucking lot."

Kid chuckled. "Better you than me," he said.

How all those rich bastards could spend so much time fawning over Soul when there was a freaking grim reaper in the room was a pure mystery, but Kid was savvy enough to not question it, the smug bastard. After only one encounter with them, Soul just knew that now the Host Club fixated on him, they wouldn't let go until they had their fun. But using Soul for their perverse entertainment wasn't the real problem—the problem was that Maka was also on the menu.

Maka. She was either going to implode with embarrassment or makachop him to death when she found out.

Of course, now that Soul and Kid were approaching Ouran Academy with Maka in tow, maybe it would have been smarter to give her a heads up. That way Soul would be too brain-dead to care what those Ouran kids thought of him.

It wasn't that Soul was so awkward and socially inept that he couldn't handle a little innuendo. He was friends with Black Star after all, and Maka's dumb dad was always yo-yoing between "Don't touch my daughter" and "Please, go ahead hit on my daughter." The Host Club wasn't covering any new ground. Soul could even comfortably admit (to himself) that the problem wasn't that he found the idea of dating Maka degrading or repulsive.

Soul just hated that the Host Club had to be so damn flamboyant about it.

It was an intentional, calculated, and totally uncool ploy to set him off-kilter. It was like they were punishing him for not conforming to the rich kid mold. They probably thought his life story was some sort of tragedy. Soul could picture it: the second son of an affluent family struggles to live up to his older brother's legacy. Suddenly he discovers that he is afflicted with weapon blood, and leaves the safety of his mansion to slum it up with a bunch of commoners as freakish as himself. Failures mount upon failures, and the hero dies in penniless oblivion.

Except Soul's life was no one's sob story. Discovering the scythe within his soul was the best thing that ever happened to him, second only to snagging Maka as a partner. And becoming a weapon was much cooler than a concert pianist. His old dreams died to make room for new ones. If that made him some sort of failure, Soul could live with that.

"If I had something to tell you, I'd tell you," Soul said to his meister. Maka's brow furrowed and she cast her eyes to the ground. They were walking through the Ouran grounds, passing by dazzling bush sculptures and fountains with every step, but Maka didn't really seem as thrilled to see them as she did in the Death Room. What the hell was wrong with her now?

Soon they were back, standing outside Music Room #3. Soul placed himself between Maka and the door, and raised his arms in front of his face.

"Um, what are you doing?" Maka asked.

Soul grunted. "Just trust me."

The door swung open and a flurry of rose petals spiraled out of the room in a burst of pink light. Maka squawked in surprise over Soul's shoulder as the petals began to engulf them. A musician, somewhere, was intricately strumming a harp in time with the petals' dance. Soul was prepared this time, and he swiped petals right out of the air before they could fly into his eyes. After one last blinding flash of light, the petals subsided and the Host Club appeared.

"Welcome to the Host Club," They said in unison.

For some reason, they were all dressed in weird costumes. Half of them were in fancy togas, and the other half had leaves, horns, and other random shit attached to them, as if they were tree fairies or something stupid like that. The room was also decorated with flowers and large potted plants, creating the illusion of a forest within the room. Soul couldn't really make sense of the scene, but Kid was a step ahead of him.

"Ah! Your costumes are magnificent. Such gorgeous detail and flawless design," Kid said as he strode into the room. He clasped his hands together. "Let me guess—is the theme 'A Midsummer Night's Dream?'"

"Indeed!" Tamaki leapt forth, his toga fluttering around him. He made a beeline for Maka, and swept her up in his arms. Maka squeaked as Tamaki held her tight and dipped her so low her pigtails almost touched the floor.

"And you, my princess," Tamaki said against a backdrop of roses. "You must be Maka. I've been waiting for you all my life." Maka's complexion deepened into a bright, enraged red. A strangled cough involuntarily emerged from Soul's throat, and the others gasped.

"My skirt," Maka whispered in horror.

Tamaki blinked. "I saw it, it's lovely."

"No," Maka growled. "My. Skirt."

Tamaki clearly did not bargain for Maka's plaid skirt, which only reached her mid-thigh. Soul did not mind Maka's outfit—she kicked in the faces of many kishin while wearing it, and glimpsing her legs in both weapon and human form wasn't exactly a punishment. The peep show that Soul, Kid, and the entire Host Club were treated to now was both far more enticing and more frightening. Maka was in Tamaki's arms, her legs were in the air, and her skirt, in accordance to the laws of physics, had slipped far past her thighs. As much as Soul wanted to drink up the sight of Maka's light pink underwear and exposed legs, he was more concerned about the bundle of pig-tailed rage that was bristling in Tamaki's hands.

Tamaki reddened, dropped Maka on the floor, and then collapsed onto the floor himself. He started blubbering apologies and begging for forgiveness, his blush getting redder and redder by the second. The meister scrambled to her feet like lightning and whipped a textbook out of her coat. She raised it above her head, but Kid caught Maka's arm before she could bring the book down on Tamaki's skull.

"No, Maka, you musn't!" Kid cried. He struggled to get the book out of Maka's hand. "Soul, come help me!"

Soul's shoulders heaved as he began to laugh. "Nah, he deserves it." He stuck his hands in his pockets. If he could count on Maka for anything, it was to beat up perverts. Today had really turned around. The rush of affection Soul felt as he watched Maka wrestle her book away from Kid filled his ribcage like steam, heating his core and constricting his chest. The feeling was pleasant, but vaguely terrifying. This place needs more air conditioning, Soul decided.


Meanwhile, Tamaki attached himself to Kyoya's leg.

"Mother!" Tamaki wailed. "I don't deserve to be the president of this family! I'm a disgrace!"

"You're a real pervert," the Hitachiin twins said in unison.

"Now now, Tamaki," Kyoya said calmly. "You just got carried away. It's nothing a complimentary bouquet or gift basket can't fix."

"Senpai, you should really apologize," Haruhi said. It was these words that finally stopped Tamaki's whimpering. When Haruhi raised her voice, Tamaki knew to shut up and listen. "We're supposed to make girls feel special, and all you did was embarrass her. It's a good thing none of the other students were here to see that. You should be more careful!"

Tamaki sniffed and buried his face in Kyoya's pant leg. "He will apologize, but I think first Tamaki needs to recuperate," Kyoya said gravely. "Haruhi, Honey, Mori, you three attend to Maka and the others. We'll get Tamaki cleaned up and ready for when our clients arrive. But brace yourselves."

Kyoya looked back at Maka, who had wrestled Kid to the ground and begun to hit him with the textbook. Of all the women Tamaki had to enrage, it had to be the girl who fought Asura and lived. Less than ten minutes into her arrival, and Maka Albarn was already proving to be a most unusual client. Kyoya adjusted his glasses, causing light to flash across their lenses.

"Though she be but little," Kyoya said. "She is fierce."

(A/N: Thanks to all my reviews, subscribers, and visitors so far. I really do appreciate all feedback. Next chapter is going to have a whole lot more Maka and Shakespeare in it.)