One one more chapter to re post before I can post my one-shot tie in :) I'm looking forward to that~ so much so that I might post it earlier.
Thanks again to everyone resubmitting reviews and anyone new.
Before this mission began; If someone had told me that a team of elite Shibusen students would go on an undercover mission of some kind I wouldn't have been surprised. If someone had told me we might be posing as high school students, I wouldn't be shocked at all. If someone had told me we'd be voting on who the "most innocent looking girls" were; then I would have thought they were out of their fucking mind.
And yet, there we sat at a designated safe point, trying to decide who the most innocent looking girls of Spartoi were. There aren't many words to describe how fucked up this was when Stein and Marie said this was our first priority.
"It's Kim! She's perfect and lovely!" And Kim started assaulting Ox because he was causing a scene, yeah that's innocent.
"Tsubaki is fairly innocent." Marie's suggestion was met with Liz's laughter
"Oh yeah! Really innocent I should fill you in on the Book of Eibon sometime!"
"It was almost you ya know." Tsubaki was pouting a bit at this point
"Patty can do it."
"No Liz! If Patty goes, and you stay we won't be symmetrical!"
"We're not even fighting at this point Kidd!"
"But it's Patty!" Kidd had a good argument against Liz, Patty had excused herself from the conversation in favor chasing Kilik's weapons around pretending to be a monster.
"Maka looks innocent too ya know."
"No I don't!"
"Because pigtails are so menacing?" I don't think I should have been hit for just agreeing with Kidd.
After much more bickering we all decided that Kilik's weapons were too young, Patty was too wild, Tsubaki was too mature looking, Liz was too afraid and too mature looking, and the only girls we could easily send would be Kim, Jackie and Maka.
Stein is some kind of closet pervert, I swear. How else would he and Spirit have even been partners? That man, not only did he seem to already figure out what he had us wasting time to figure out but he had outfits already made for the three, outfits that fit Okay let's be fair here, he is a doctor, he has had to see Kim, Jackie and Maka on separate occasions which have included everything from handing them icepacks to stitches so maybe he might be able to guess their sizes. He also has access to all their personal records so maybe Stein isn't a total perv' for being able to have outfits that fit.
And I take it back, I'm sorry but no the man is a pervert just like Spirit, he just hides it better.
He put them in catholic school girl uniforms. Not normal modern uniforms but the kind with the tiny miniskirts, plain flats, knee high wool socks button up shirt and blazers.
There is a fucking difference between the Halloween costume / Brittney Spears sexy look for the Catholic school girl uniform and what they actually wear. How do I know this? Because I am a man damn it, and we know these things! Okay so maybe I'm taking it a little too far by describing it as a Brittany Spears look but it definitely didn't look legit. The uniforms really didn't cover much more than the Spartoi uniforms but the Spartoi uniforms just do not carry the same implications.
"This is never going to work."
"Kim! You look amazing!" Ox was hit again short after this statement. Why are women so damn abusive?
"Even more proof that it isn't going to work. I better get extra pay for this mission; I look like a damn porn star."
"Professor is there even a catholic school in this area?" I don't know if I have ever seen Maka's face so red, I would have laughed if I thought I could get away with laughing.
"There probably is."
"And to think I was going to try talking Mama into letting me back into your class or filing an appeal once she left."
The plan was fairly simple; the girls would go into the city together act like normal innocent girls and do girly things such as shopping. While they did this Maka would use her soul perception to look for Kishin in the area and Kim and Jackie would check to see if they could get anyone to speak about kishin-related problems. If anything went wrong Kim had Jackie at her disposal and they could stall long enough for Maka to escape and then they'd follow her out.
Of course after the girls were gone for two hours instead of the one hour maximum we'd given them we knew there was some kind of problem. None of the three were answering their cell phones and Ox was getting anxious. I stayed cool because that's what cool guys do. Yep; they absolutely do not text their meisters 70 times and call 20 times and no matter how defective Maka's phone must be to say that happened I am here to say that it didn't happen. Also Blakstar is a liar because he knows I was just playing on my Draw Something app and not texting.
Do not believe anything he says!
Stein reported in to Shinigami and got the go ahead for us to all enter the city; since something must have went wrong our cover was already blown so at this point it couldn't hurt to just walk in.
"Soul I think you should stay back here to call for reinforcements in case we don't make it back."
How insulting. I didn't care that I was shooting Stein a dirty look "Are you seriously telling me not to go after my meister?"
Was he seriously saying that I'm going to be useless without Maka? I mean I'm not that effective at fighting without her but I can throw some punches and if I don't go in and there's a fight what the hell is Maka supposed to do besides get herself hurt?
The nutty doctor sighed "Figured you wouldn't listen… worth a try I guess. Let's go."
We walked in as a group with no weapons at the ready, if we were wrong about the city coming in wielding weapons might not be too smart.
Of course we weren't wrong and upon entering the town we noticed how no home even had lights on, it's was only eight PM; there was no way people were all sleeping that early.
"This place is simply crawling with Kishin." Stein almost looked amused, I'm sure he really was.
"You should have just sent me in instead of those girls and we wouldn't be playing rescue mission right now"
"No we'd just be footing the bills to repair a city."
"Tch! And they'd be grateful!"
This banter between Stein and Blackstar went on for a bit before the sound of breaking glass made them stop.
"That must be the girls, let's not keep them waiting."
Maka and Kim were tag teaming a few kishin using Jackie, tossing her back and forth; it mostly just made it impossible for Kim to engage Jackie in resonance or to fight seriously but given the nature of the situation Maka needed some weapon to help protect herself. Judging by how worn out Kim and Maka looked the fight must have been going back and forth for a while or they had fought a few Kishin before.
Our resonance was shaky due to Maka having to adjust her wavelength to match Jackie's, not that it mattered since Spartoi with Stein and Marie meant easily taking down one kishin after another with ease.
"Hey Soul, carry me." Gotta love Maka's way of thanking us all for jumping to their rescue or her explanation of how things went wrong. Just order your Death Scythe to carry you around because you're too lazy to walk. Way to go; this is why you have fat ankles.
If I think these things I won't say them and if I don't say them she can't hit me.
"So what's the story here?"
Kim would be the one to explain things to Stein
"Well we came into the city and noticed how empty it seemed, Maka used her soul perception and was able to notice fifty souls that we were fairly sure were kishin of course we needed conformation and we needed to see if we could find out what happened to all the citizens we were checking out a super market when we got ambushed I was doing find with that and able to peel off one no problem but once we were out and on our way back to all of you we got attacked by more than one so Maka and I tossed Jackie back and forth and well you know the rest." Kim went back to greedily chugging the water she'd snatched from Ox
"Couldn't one of you have returned a single phone call?" My question was more directed at Maka.
"We hardly had time to do that and besides my phone got smashed."
I was kinda glad her phone was broken, she wouldn't be able to see the barrage of texts and her parents couldn't call us; both great things.
"Ox was just irritating me when I was trying to fight so I fed my phone to a kishin."
And then Stein just had to speak up "I figured it would be like this."
"You knew and you still had them go in?" Ox tends to forget that Kim can kick his ass most days and he always goes into some clingy pseudo-macho mode
"And in these outfits?" Leave it to Jackie to remember the important things.
"I had a point to prove and needed to make it look like a legitimate plan."
What the hell was he even talking about?
Even with the town cleaned of kishin our orders were to stay put until another team came in to take over to gather evidence and find out what caused the town to be a target in the first place. Liz looked like she was going to die when Stein announced that we'd have to stay. We settled into the town courthouse deciding staying in someone's abandoned home would be too weird and the courthouse was the biggest building around anyway. We were originally geared to camp so we basically ended up camping under a roof, tents included. Apparently women like privacy but don't like going a down a hall and to the left away from everyone else to get privacy; Liz said it was "too freaky".
Even with the kishin from earlier all turned into nice little soul-meals we couldn't just assume the area was safe. We arranged a look-out schedule that was modified after Kim declared she was too tired from the scuffle earlier. Putting Kim Maka or Jackie as guard would just result in one of them passing out. Of course Maka insisted she was totally fine with it but it's not like 10 other people not including Kilik's weapons, couldn't guard just as easily, (it would have been 11 but Liz as night guard could only count as half a person).
I was unfortunate enough to have to stand guard second which meant there was no sense in trying to sleep considering my shift started at Midnight and ended at 1 AM. Blackstar insisted on going first and the sheer joy of waking up Kid "symmetrically"was all on me. Or possibly not as Maka had stayed up reading from her textbook.
"Hey Soul." She had scooted near me in order for me to hear her whispers
"hmm?"
"What time do you think it is back in Death City?"
"We're about nine hours ahead so four in the afternoon."
"Oh" She rolled over on to her stomach reading away making little sighs every so often until I took the hint
"You know if you wanted to borrow my phone to call your mom all you had to do was ask. I never use up my roaming minutes anyway."
"Thanks Soul."
She tip toed away towards the door as to not wake up anyone else with her chattering
"Hi Mama… I'm on Soul's phone mine got smashed. Yeah I'm okay just a little tired from having to sync up with Jackie. Oh, I didn't realize Professor Stein already reported in. Yeah it's surprising that Blackstar isn't all talk isn't it? Ah yeah about to read over the chapter, so I'll just add that in. Love you; bye."
"That was fast."
She nodded "Yeah she has a meeting or something like that. We've got a written assignment to hand in when we get home" She pulled a notebook out from her stuff and scribbled something down.
"You're not about to work on it now are you?"
"Just jotting down ideas, it's an essay on the signs of a negative resonance."
"So why are you still awake?"
She looked at me like it was a stupid question before answering "Gotta make sure I keep up in all my classes; mission or no mission. The extra week of makeup time is fine but if I do that everything will pile up and I'd hate doing twice my usual workload for a week."
"It can wait till morning ya know."
Of course she never listens to me so I don't know why I bothered.
Naturally right after my watch shift ended and I was started to sleep fairly well, Maka tossed her book aside.
"Kidd did you notice that wavelength?"
"Yeah not good. let's get everybody up."
I groaned and sat up "Fuck my life."
And swarms of pathetic kishin happened.
Until the next morning.
And just for anyone who might not think it's possible; a weapon can totally sprain a wrist while in weapon mode. It's just not one of those things that's automatically noticed until out of weapon mode when the swelling is visible. I'm not even sure if it happened when Maka pole-vaulted to kick one of the kishin in the face or if it was when she had to slice in an upwards motion and my blade got caught on the kishin's rib. Of course I still got yelled at for not telling her.
If we hadn't excused ourselves to the outdoors to argue I imagine the echoing of our yelling would have cause Stein to scalpel us a few dozen times.
"How could you have not known?"
"It's just a sprain woman."
"That's not the point."
"Well it should be the point."
"Well it's not!"
"Then what the hell is the point Maka?" It's not like my head wasn't already pounding from no sleep and too many tedious fights; obviously a screaming match would help it!
"You always do stuff like this! What if a powerful kishin had attacked? A screw up like this could have really caused a problem."
"It's a fucking sprained wrist Maka, it's not a damn screw up. We have fought with a lot worse than sprained wrists so I know and you know that that is not an issue that is going to mess with us."
"It could have!"
At this point I was so sick of yelling and I just wanted to go lay down like pretty much everyone else had taken the privilege of doing. So I did what any guy in my position would do. I sat my ass on the ground and decided to get to the bottom of the matter.
"What the hell is your actual problem Maka? You've been acting like a fucking spazz all month, are you on an extended period?"
"No you jackass! I've just noticed that we have a lot of work to do if you're going to be the best death scythe ever."
"You've always known and noticed shit like that. This argument is not about that and you know it isn't."
"Oh really? If you're so smart you tell me what it's about Soul."
"It's about your insane need of constant approval from that woman who obviously dislikes me. Do you think a flawless mission is going to make her suddenly approve? She doesn't even bother to visit you until she has business in Death City and even then she's hung out with you how many times?"
"It's not her fault she's busy! She's never said she doesn't like you and I don't have a constant need of her approval!"
"Oh so then please explain to me why you've been willing to stress yourself out all month and do whatever the hell she's wanted you to do?"
"You don't get it."
The door swung open and Marie stepped out "I think you both need to drop this and get some sleep while you can in case we need to fight more kishin."
I would have been out of my damn mind to not be okay with this plan.
I woke up close to sunset, one of the last people to wake up in fact but no other disturbances had happened during the day so there was at least that much to be glad for. Needless to say Maka wasn't talking to me and was back to her hardcore studying fully equipped with note cards. I grudgingly looked over some school related stuff when she shoved a textbook in my direction, of course I was happy to let Blackstar distract me with a game of poker in which Kid really sucked and Stein kicked all of our asses. Liz spent her time doing nails for Kim, Jackie, Tsubaki and even Miss Marie… Patty was actually the only girl to play any poker and her skills almost matched Stein's which was too freaky.
Maka poked me on the shoulder after a few hours of card games meekly asking if she could borrow my phone to call her mom. I let her borrow it of course but instantly regretted it because right after the call she was back to scribbling down more note cards.
After another restless night the take-over team had finally arrived and we were sent home (It was Friday afternoon when we got home so we'd missed all of our classes). Maka insisted that she and I go pick up another mission for the weekend, something close to home this time, this led to us getting 2 missions for the weekend, both in Detroit. Nothing worth mentioning happened that weekend, my wrist still hurt like hell but that's what Advil is for. We didn't get back to Death City until four AM Monday morning, just in time to mourn the fact that we simply weren't going to get any sleep. Maka kept mentioning that the month would be over in a week and a half as she hastily scribbled at her homework while downing a bowl of dry cereal (we haven't bought groceries in a week at this point and were out of milk, eggs, bread, butter, paper towels, and on our last roll of toilet paper.)
"Gotta' go to the grocery store on the way home today." She let out a yawn as she settled behind me on the bike which only made me have to yawn too because yawns are magically contagious.
"Yeah, got the list right?" She usually gets mad if we don't have a list to shop with because she says we'll buy a lot of stuff we don't need.
"No, we're out of everything so I didn't bother." She was using my shoulder as a pillow and I'm sure she would have fallen asleep and got tossed off the bike had I not given the engine a few extra revs on the way to the academy.
Naturally, that day just drug on and on, and between Blackstar's loud ass mouth. Kid's symmetry sobbing, Patty's damn giggle fits, that new teacher's rant on using the wrong kind of paper for reports and Maka's constant visits to her mother's temporary office in hopes of seeing her (of course she wasn't in the office once) I am amazed that I didn't hit a new level of insanity making black-blood look like child's play.
After the last class of the day we were once again standing outside of her mother's office and it was still locked with the lights off.
"Why can't you just call her? We have to buy groceries and I didn't even get to nap at lunch so we need to go do this so I won't fall asleep while driving."
"I need to ask her something really important; I can't ask her over the phone."
"Maka…"
"Soul, please? Let me just check the terrace and then we'll go okay?"
I sighed "Fine make it quick."
I'm pretty sure I dozed off waiting for Maka to get back from the terrace but of course Maka came trotting back not long after waking me up. She looked fairly disappointed and her walking pace had sped up considerable faster than it had been all day.
"Something wrong?"
"Everything is fine. I don't even care. Let's just go buy groceries and go home."
I didn't expect her to cook when we got home, I was more tired than hungry and expected her to feel about the same but she had an amazing burst of almost angry energy and woke me up a few hours later to eat some amazing ass garlic chicken thing that she was viciously stabbing at with her knife she ate half of it before announcing that she was going to bed and she'd take care of the dishes in the morning.
After I finished eating I was just about to go to bed myself when Blair came skipping into the house with Spirit creeping in behind her.
"I brought someone over hope it's okay." She chirped before changing into her cat-form and making herself comfortable on the kitchen counter.
"Maka's in bed, what do you want?"
Spirit tugged a chair from under the kitchen table and rested his head on his arms.
"Fuck. Needed to talk to her, any way I can talk you into waking her up?"
I almost laughed "Hell no, even if she hadn't been exhausted before she went to bed I'd send you to do that; I value my life."
He sighed; "Figured as much. Guess I'll just pull her from a morning class or something. She tell you what was up?"
"No, but she looked and acted pretty pissed."
"Well if she didn't tell you then I shouldn't bother. Anyway you look like shit go sleep or shower or something." Spirit left it at that before walking back out the door. Blair sighed
"Nya, geeze work has never been so much work. Calling it a night too." She bounced off the counter and scurried off to Maka's room.
What in the hell was going on?
I've mentioned it before but I'll mention it again, there's limitations to being stuck with one point of view.