All canon characters © Okubo Atsushi
Consumption
Chapter 4
Arachno-Phobia
"...and that's the last one" Cali nodded after she decapitated one of the players who were running away, with Hiro in Naginata form. The red, corrupted souls were then sucked up into Hiro as storage before he changed back into his human form. "Let's report to Lord Death" Cali started as she dug through her bag for her hand held mirror, which she always had with her, and frowned before paling. "I-I lost my mirror" she started.
"This one?" Justin asked just as he finished dialing up the number to the Death Room. "It was hanging out from your bag so I borrowed it" he explained at her shocked expression.
"Yo! Hi hi! Whatsup?" the Shinigami asked but paused when he noticed how angry Cali looked. Which was pretty rare. Sure it wasn't rare to see her annoyed, or pissed, but it was rare to see the girl actually, angry.
"Justin honey~" Cali smiled with a dangerously sweet voice. Hiro chuckled silently before sighing, he didn't want to remember the last time he got her mad.
"Yes?" Justin asked wondering why Cali had added the word "honey" when she had called his name. The reaper looked on, wondering if there was something going on between the two.
"Hand me the mirror before I force you to take a Vow of Celibacy, with my foot, for eternity" she ended the sentence with a low growl.
"I'm sorry?" Justin questioned, not sure if he had heard her correctly.
"No, not apologies Justin, hand her back her mirror before she crushes you down there" Hiro warned the priest. The blond paled before quickly handing back the mirror to Cali, who thanked him before speaking with the Shinigami.
"We completed the mission sir" she reported "all 44 souls accounted for, including the Maestro. Currently Hiro is holding onto them. We shall hand them over when we return to Death City" she nodded.
"Right..." Death wondered if he was able to trust the two to another mission without Cali killing one of them, and decided to let Justin and Hiro handle that later "actually, can you three head over to the Czech Republic and go to Loew Village? I've already sent Maka, Soul and Crona there, however something is bugging me about the actions of the Golem" he explained, hoping that this gut feeling was nothing more than a feeling.
"Yes sir" Cali nodded before turning to the other two "Lord Death asked us to go help Maka, Soul and Crona with something in the Loew Village, Czech Republic"
"Sure thing" Hiro gave her a thumbs up before searching the bag for a map. Justin on the other hand started a speech on how wonderful and kind hearted the Shinigami was.
"R-right, when we finish the job, we'll contact you again" nodded Cali.
"OK! Bye bye bii~" the Shinigami ended the call with his usual happy tone before signing off.
"Well" Hiro gathered Cali and Justin around his map and pointed to the small dot in the middle of two towns, Pelhrimov and Havlickuv Brod near the town of Humpolec which was in the middle of the Czech Republic. "Get ready to go to the middle of No-where" he warned the two of the predicted events of four hours of boring scenery.
"Not really, if you use this Highway..." Cali trailed off as she traced the thick orange line up to Humpolec. "Then the smaller streets to Loew, we should be there in...three, no two and a half hours, if things go well" she nodded "of course there are toll routes we have to take as well but, the faster we get there, the better, right?" The males nodded at this. "Good"
"Lord Death!" Stein called from the small mirror in the library, he couldn't believe what he had found. "Lord Death, there's something I have to tell you" Stein started just as the image of the Shinigami appeared in the mirror.
"Sup! Did you figure something out?" he asked seeming quite calm compared to the scientist.
"Yes, the "Heretic Witch" Arachne is inside the golem that went haywire" he explained from end of his research.
"Arachne?!" Death asked surprised. He had long though that he had killed the witch 800 years ago, and he was sure that the other witches thought her to be dead as well.
"Yes, the eldest of the Gorgon sisters. If it's her, then it would explain why the golem was affected by the "Wavelength of Insanity"..." he started to trail off for a second before getting back on track. "This is too heavy a burden on Maka's group. I'll go now and-"
"Now now" the reaper raised his large hands and calmed the scientist down "don't get so worked up." Stein was immediately confused by the reaper's calm attitude. "I had a bad feeling too, so I had already dispatched some trust worthy allies" he explained.
"If we didn't have ties to Shibusen, we probably would have been pulled over for speeding and a number of other things on the highway" Cali sighed to herself as she hopped off the motorbike. Hiro kicked down the stand and got off the bike as well.
"What did you say?" he asked loudly as Justin's Dune buggy cut all sound away.
"NOTHING!" Cali yelled as Justin finally turned off the engine of the vehicle. "I was just talking to myself" she shook her head before looking around at the villagers. None looking too friendly, though she didn't know if it was because they were normally like this or if it was because of Justin's noise.
"Shall we ask around?" Justin asked in his loud voice.
"No, we're going to sit here and do nothing" she rolled her eyes. "It's best to ask a child if they had seen three people, an albino boy, and er..two girls" she hesitated to say that Crona was a girl or not. Even though she had previously called her, Medusa's Daughter, she wasn't exactly sure.
"The villagers don't look too happy, or very welcoming at that." Hiro apologized when he accidentally bumped into someone and jumped back when he noticed that the "someone" was actually a golem. "Swiss cheeses and London!" he hissed and quickly hid behind Justin, as Cali was too short for him to hide behind, while he and Justin were of the same height.
"That's a Golem" Justin pointed to the several other ones that were walking around the village. "The tradition of this village is to use those gloves," he pointed to the large brown gloves, with a gear printed on the back of the hand, that were on majority of the people in the village, "to pack in magical power and knead earth to make Golems" Justin explain to Hiro who looked around at the large moving chucks of earth. While Justin was explaining to Hiro, Cali had gone around asking as many people she could.
"I asked around but the people here either walked off or pretended not to know and sent me away" Cali rubbed her temple "this place, they're hiding something, I wouldn't be surprised if-" Cali stopped as she suddenly felt a wave of madness sweeping over them. "-if a witch was here" she finished with a grin.
"Cali" Hiro looked at her.
"Yeah, come on Justin, we know where they are, and hopefully, they aren't in too much trouble" Cali grit her teeth before running off into the forest behind the village.
It seemed that they had been running for a while when finally they reached the clearing in which the odd wavelength was coming from. Cali's eyes narrowed on the androgynous figure, about to be decapitated by what looked like an autonomous chainsaw weapon. Before Hiro could change into a Naginata, Justin surged forward. "Holy Cruciform sword hand" he said to himself as he cut in a cross formation across the chest of the autonomous weapon.
"Maka, Soul" Cali rushed over the two "are you guys OK?" she asked when she noticed that Maka couldn't move.
"Yea, we're fine now, but" Soul looked at Justin.
"He's Justin Law, a Death Scythe. He's a Guillotine weapon, master at close combat, and revers Lord Death as God." Cali explained the questions that were probably going through both their heads. "He graduated four years ago, at the age of 13, and became a Death Scythe as an autonomous weapon"
"SHIBUSEN STUDENTS!" he yelled "THERE ARE ONLY TWO ENEMIES, CALI AND I CAN END THIS QUICKLY SO JUST WAIT THERE FOR A BIT" he explained, his voice loud due to his ear buds.
"Is what he says but...he probably doesn't like that chain saw weapon since they are both autonomous weapons" Cali stood up and called to Hiro "Flail."
Hiro nodded and turned into a spike ball flail. Cali swung the flail once, adjusting herself to the weight before dashing off towards the Golem and the Witch. Taking the flail, she jumped and swung for the witch's head though it was deflected by her black fan.
"Arachne-" the Chainsaw weapon turned away from Justin for a second, his chains wrapping itself around Cali's leg which was raised to land a kick to Arachne's unprotected left side. The Chainsaw weapon pulled Cali away and smashed her into the nearest tree before Justin locked him with his Carcan Claw and head butted him. The caused the Chainsaw to let go of Cali while he flew off a couple meters away.
Cali hissed and stood back up when she noticed something she hadn't up close. The witch looked like a spider.
"Oh shit" Hiro face palmed as Cali curled up into a ball. This was enough to stop all fighting as they wondered if Cali had some surprise attack planned.
"Is this some sort of new attack?" Soul asked.
"No" Hiro changed back to human form "To tell you the truth, Cali has, Arachnophobia"
"A fear of spiders?" Maka asked and Hiro nodded.
"It seems that she finally realized that the witch looked like a spider" Hiro chuckled.
Arachne raised a brow and decided to use this pause to mentally attack Cali before she could blind herself with madness to continue fighting. "Callisto Abbey, only daughter of Jupiter" she started, causing Cali to look up from her curled up form.
"Arachne" Cali hissed before curling back up again.
"I wonder how your mother felt when you were born a human, and was unable to become the next Kishin" she chuckled humorlessly. "You failed to be a witch, you failed to become Kishin, you even failed to hate spiders; instead becoming afraid of them. I see you even failed to follow your mother's only rule and got close with a...holy man" she raised a brow at Justin, not quite sure if she could categorize him as a holy man.
Cali cringed as she listened to the spider witch, normally she was proud that she wasn't born a witch, and that she was saved by Shibusen before she became a Kishin's egg. However, when a witch spoke of these things, she suddenly felt depressed. Arachne stopped when she heard a noise from the Golem.
"Ignoring that" the Chainsaw weapon nodded to Cali who was still curled up into a ball, "Bad things happen when you keep your head phones on" he wiped away a bit of blood that was trickling out his nose with his thumb "but it looks like you won't listen to me whatever I say, ass kisser."
Justin tisked his tongue and waggled his index finger "I can read your lips, such dirty words, you're a bad boy" he smirked slightly as the chainsaw weapon started to get enraged with his purposely annoying actions.
"So you can read lips? And you've been pretending you couldn't hear me all this time" he paused as his anger rose higher "you make me sick!" he hissed.
Behind him, Arachne called to him. "Giriko"
"The hell you want?" he asked yelling angrily at the witch.
"I" she started as she looked at Giriko with eyes one would look at a naughty child with. "Don't like kids who yell" she explained.
At this, Giriko calmed down and started again "what is it Big sis?" he asked.
"The golem will run out of energy soon. Let us withdraw," she said to Giriko.
At the word of 'withdraw', Cali jumped out from her depression and stood back up. "single wield Kama" she hissed, Hiro nodded and changed into a sickle chain.
"Wait, don't run away!" Justin took stance for his Law Abiding Gun before noticing how Soul and Maka were in danger.
"Cali and I got this" Hiro explained as Cali sped off after the witch and the chainsaw weapon. Cali had already half submerged herself in her madness, to rid the fear of Spiders as she ran after them. Justin watched them disappear for a second before turning to help the Shibusen students.
"Cali, turn right here" Hiro instructed as Cali jumped off a tree to make a sharp turn. Soon she saw Giriko and Arachne. Using the weight on the end of the chain, she threw it with force to the ground right in front of Giriko, causing him to stop before the small crater that had been created.
"It looks like we have a visitor" Arachne frowned wondering if Cali had already submerged herself into madness. If she had, they had a slim chance of getting past this in one piece as she was still not at her full power, at having just gathered herself not too long ago, and with Giriko having already fought with Justin.
"I'll have you come with me" Cali giggled as Hiro changed into a Tiger claw.
"Close combat?" Giriko asked with a sadistic grin "you're asking to be ripped to shreds" he then gently placed Arachne down and turned to face Cali.
Her eyes were constricted as she watched Giriko before rushing in and sharply turning to the left to dodge a saw foot. Coming up behind the Chainsaw Weapon, she struck him in the middle of his back with her palm. "Soul surge" it was something she had learned from Stein, normally she used a weaker version of it to disarm Meisters from their weapons by misaligning their soul wavelengths.
Giriko flew a couple meters before rapidly turning back to Cali who was giggling away as if she had seen the funniest thing in the world. "Wow, you're either heavy or strong" she chuckled before rushing at him again.
"Damn, you're insane" Giriko grinned, his sharp teeth out on display as he blocked a forceful swing of the tiger claws by wrapping his forearm with chains.
"I know~" she sang merrily as she suddenly paused, stopping all movement for a second before jumping up in the air "Insane resonance" she chuckled as the tiger claws, attached to chains, formed on her other hand and her feet, the blades grew longer, allowing for a further reach. "Aren't they pretty?" she asked looking at the way the crimson, setting sun, gleamed on the metal.
"Insane bitch" Giriko growled, hoping to get away while Cali was distracted by her own weapon. He wondered how she was able to move so well, especially after the damage he had given to her leg, which was bleeding quite heavily as he saw it.
"Tut tut tut, you don't leave a lady in the middle of a dance" Cali waggled a finger and twirled around once.
"What are you talk-" before he could finish, Cali had thrown a tiger claw at him and wrapped the chain around his ankle. "Shit!"
"You think I forgot about my leg?" Cali asked, this time with some semblance of sanity "its payback time" she hissed as she reeled him in. That was when something was shot through her shoulder. It seemed that Giriko had picked up a pebble and threw it, with the help of his chains, with enough force to pierce through her shoulder.
"Blood" she looked at her reddening shoulder. Using this short space in time, Giriko aimed a regular kick to her head, knocking her out before turning on his saw foot to damage Hiro.
"Don't kill her, she will be useful later" Arachne stopped Giriko from smashing in her head with his foot. Instead, Arachne placed a spider on Cali and left with Giriko, who was still slightly angry that he wasn't able to kill Cali or Hiro.
Justin watched as Crona and Soul picked Maka up to carry her back to the village before deciding that he should go looking for Cali and Hiro and help them fight Giriko and Arachne. He didn't want to admit it, but the Chainsaw weapon was strong, probably as strong as himself. It annoyed him slightly think it. "You guys head back first, I'll go help Cali and Hiro" Justin yelled at them before running off, following the tracks both Giriko and Cali left behind.
He guessed he was ten minutes away from the clearing when he smelled blood. Taking off his ear buds, he could hear Hiro's voice.
"Cali, damn it, Cali wake up. Come on, I can't have you dying on me now" Hiro was desperate. He had seen her bloody and beaten before but that last kick Giriko had landed her, made her head strike a rock with more force than it normally would from a regular fall. Ripping off his shirt he tied it around her leg, which had been bleeding for a while as she had been running and using her legs. He could feel his own blood trickling down his face and his chest. The saw foot had really done some damage.
"Hiro, Cali" Justin pulled apart several bushes and rushed over to Cali who was in Hiro's arms, her arms were sticky with a rust colored mud from the dirt and blood on the ground.
"Get here faster you bastard!" Hiro growled before coughing up some blood. "Carry Cali, I can get back to the village on my own" he coughed again cursing at the damage that had been done.
"No, turn into a weapon, I'll carry both of you" he ordered. Hiro was about to argue but decided that arguing was just going to take up more time, and time was something they needed to save Cali. Hiro nodded and transformed into tiger claws. Justin picked Cali up and placed the tiger claws on Cali before running off. "Oh God, let us have the wind at our heels" he prayed as he tried to get thought the woods as smoothly as possible.
By the time they had reached the village, Maka had been placed in the coffin with Crona and Soul around her.
"Uwahhh!" Crona back away as if afraid "what-what happened to her-them?" Crona asked pointing to the bloody bodies of the pair in Justin's arms. Soul, alerted by Crona's question, looked over and frowned, wondering what had happened.
Hiro transformed back into human form and wiped the blood on his face with the back of his hand. "Justin, thanks" he paused for a second "don't tell Cali I said that," he added making the blond nod with a slight smile.
"What? What happened?" Maka asked as she was unable to get up from her place in the coffin.
"N-nothin'" Cali groaned. Her eyes looked around her and landed on Hiro's face. He was red around his eyes, making her smile. "Don't cry Hiro, I thought Heros weren't supposed to cry" she grinned weakly.
"I stopped saying that since we graduated" Hiro choked out, relieved that she was awake.
Soul watched as Hiro, Cali's partner, tried his best not to cry with the relief of tension and worry. His red eyes darkened as he thought that they wouldn't be in this situation had he been stronger. His eyes trailed around Hiro's back which was covered in both small and large scars, some fresher than others. The largest one being that of a discolored star pattern. It was obvious that the demon weapon trained a lot and worked hard to keep his meister safe. He then looked at Cali, who hardly had any signs of any previous wounds. Hiro had even used his own shirt to keep her from bleeding any more from her leg. If only he had been stronger, then Maka wouldn't have fallen into this odd curse, and the two people who were there to help wouldn't have gotten hurt.
When Justin brought her around to his Dune Buggy, he passed by Soul. Cali raised a hand and gently smacked Soul in the back of his head. "Stop moping Soul Eater" she smiled lightly when the younger teen looked at her with sad eyes, "you did your job and protected your partner, that's all you need to do. It was our job to help you, and on the side try to take down Arachne before she could come back into power." Cali shifted around in Justin's arms before pulling the cross with Death's mask away from her as it was poking her arm. "Now show everyone that handsome smile" she chuckled making the corner of Soul's mouth to twitch a little.
Justin sat down on the Dune Buggy and fastened Cali to himself using carcan claw from around his mid-section. "Hiro, do you think you can hold out until Prague?" he asked, from there they were going to visit the hospital for a quick treatment before heading back to Shibusen. Hiro nodded, slightly depressed that he was unable to take Cali with him on his bike, but knew it was probably safer with Justin. After all, one of Cali's arms was out of working order while it was also hard for him to stand up straight. If he were to end up in an accident, it would only be himself that got hurt.
"..and that's it Lord Death" Cali stood on crutches as she, Hiro and Justin stood before the tall reaper. "Prague, Hospital, Airport and Shibusen. Maka is in the Dispensary right now with Stein" she explained. Death nodded, proud to have such reliable allies around him. Even those who didn't hesitate to put their lives on the line to stop the madness, even if they needed it themselves.
"Well Good job, all three of you. Cali, Hiro, take a rest and heal up, and Justin, may I have a word with you?" Death asked. For once Justin didn't have his head phones in and could actually hear the Shinigami talk.
"Yes God, Justin will listen to your words with an open heart" he knelt down as he looked up at Death expectantly. Cali and Hiro shared a look before walking away.
"See you later Justin, have a good day Lord Death" Cali smiled before hobbling off, making comments at Hiro. "I heard you actually thanked Justin when I was passed out"
"What?! I thought-"
"I thought that you said you didn't like him for his belie-"
"Oh shut up, I'm not buying dinner if you keep-"
"yea yeah, open the door would ya?"
"sure-"
Their conversation faded into the background as Death talked with Justin.
"Arachne was revived so I guess Arachnophobia will come back from it's dormant state" Death sighed "well, how did things go with Cali and Hiro?" he asked wondering if Justin had noticed any changes in the behaviors of both Cali and Hiro. Thought he knew that the pair were both good souls, if they were in danger of being taken over by the enemy, he would have to put them into solitary, and in the worst case scenario, have them both killed.
"They seemed to be in more control of their emotions than they did while we were in School together. However-" Justin stopped for a second as he played with the cross dangling on his chest, "-I can tell that because of the Madness from the revival of the Kishin, it's easier for them to let loose their madness"
"Did you feel it from your training?" Death asked remembering how Justin and Cali had done practice sessions just before they had left for Vienna.
Justin nodded "for the first while, every time we would match wavelengths, Cali would pull away quickly. She had even lost control for a couple minutes, talking to herself about madness and consumption. After that however, it seemed that she was able to pull herself away. We then were able to make a normal connection, though I could feel her straining herself away from the Madness within her." Justin prayed for Cali as he finished. Death nodded and hoped that this was as far as Cali and Hiro would end up going. He could rule out Cali forming an alliance with Arachne, due to her arachnophobia, but the Kishin was a different story.
"OK, thank you, dismissed~" he sang happily as he waved Justin a farewell before turning back to his thoughts. With the Kishin loose in the world, Arachne had been revived, there was no telling what else would happen next. "With Arachne, another strong enemy has come."
Justin found Hiro waiting outside the Dispensary. "Hiro, can I ask you something?"
"About how you told Cali?"
"I didn't and no" Justin looked to the door and whispered "it's about that mirror"
"oh, it's not too big a deal" Hiro scratched the back of his head "her father had bought it for her, she's just a little protective of it. Never leaves anywhere without it"
"Hiro, I didn't know I gave you permission to tell others about my life" Cali opened the door and narrowed her eyes at Hiro who gulped loudly, "and Justin" Cali turned to the blond "knock and the door will be opened to you."
"Right" Justin nodded as Hiro and Cali limped away with their usual bantering between them.
"knock and the door will be opened to you" is not only a phrase from the bible (Matthew 7:7), but it also means the same as "ask and you shall be answered," if you ask a question, it will be answered. (In case you didn't catch that). As well as first you must give effort to gain reward.