Birthright

AN: I've been dreading this chapter. I don't know how to write the whole school thing. Oh well here it goes...

Chapter 7: Nights of terror.

The unwanted guest?

Mereck awoke to the lonely sounds of the wind outside his window, if you could call it a window...

After he had proven to Kid that he wasn't a threat and had been accepted into the academy the rest of the school day had been cancelled. Kid and Sarah had quickly been encircled by a lot of people.

Sarah had been corralled by a number of students asking what it felt like to be held by a witch and her friends Jack, Shizuka and Shadow*Star.

Kid had been ringed by almost all the teachers as they demanded to know what happened. Then there was the surprised gasp over Kid's admittance that a witch would be attending the DWMA. Sarah's parents were making turns between groups. Maka spent most of her time trying to strangle Kid for letting a witch touch her daughter and Soul mostly tried to make shore Sarah was alright.

Everyone else either ignored, pretended not to see or suspiciously glanced at Mereck the new kid/warlock who was taking this as his cue to leave.

When Sarah saw him leaving she started making her way through the crowd around her to get to him. When she finally got free, with the help of her friends, she saw that kid was already talking with him. "Hay!" she shouted to get their attention while she ran to them. When she and her friends got there they found out that Kid was simply making living arrangements for him. Naturally Mereck didn't have any choice in the matter.

When Sarah heard he was to be given a room in the dungeons, she quickly suggested that he stay at her place (she, didn't understand why though, it's not like she owed him anything and he wasn't really nice to her, but still she felt obligated too), but Maka seemed to materialise behind her and refused to let a witch live in her house or to be partnered with her daughter. She shot Kid a look. Clearly something had been said about the boy and Sarah, but right now that was a mystery.

It wasn't like Mereck needed a place to stay, but Kid wanted to keep an eye on him and the dungeons were the best place for that. He didn't mind. He had had worse living arrangements while living with his mother and after.

It was midnight when he had woken up. It didn't surprise him anymore he couldn't sleep past midnight. Not after his mother started the experiments. Even now that he knew she was gone he was still afraid, deep inside, but it never showed. He would never be weak again.

He lay there on his slightly comfy pallet and thought things through, laughing at absurd notions like a Warlock Meister and also pondering the rune that had appeared on the girl as a scythe, at least he thought it was a rune. It had most of the same characteristics.

'I thought no one else except Leona and I knew about runic magic, and I've never seen such an odd rune in my entire time working and experimenting with them...' After debating this for a while he got up and started scratching the rune into the floor of his cell and when he was satisfied that it looked like the one on the blade he sat back and started studying it.

He saw the basic rune structure as clear as day. There was no arguing that it in fact was a symbol of power meant to tap the very foundations of magical power, yet none of the symbols used seemed to make sense.

Runes have a basic symbol system that works with shapes and positions, but this rune had pictures on it, detailed pictures that are hard to draw with ones hands let alone carve into steel. One mark in particular stood out to him. In the center of the rune there was the shape of a soul and as he stared at it he could have sworn it started to animate. The pictures all seemed to meld with the rune and then suddenly it stopped.

He could feel the power seep from the poor copy he had made. It frightened and exhilarated him. He could barely believe the potential this held for runic magic and his research. Soon he started to feel drowsy again and nodded off to sleep on the cell floor.

Sarah couldn't sleep that night. Not after all that had happened that day. "A witch in the DWMA?" she whispered to herself then smiled and replied, "No. A warlock." She looked at her clock and saw that it was midnight.

She started wondering how Mereck was doing in his cell. When she realised what she was doing she shook her head and instead started wondering why she cared. "Why should I care what happens to him?" she started whispering to herself in an attempt to talk some sense into her head.

After debating her thoughts for a short while she gave up and instead turned them to the mark that had appeared on her scythe blade and now resided on her back between her shoulder blades. "It never showed on my blade before," she pondered, "and I'm shore I would have noticed a big circle on my back with shapes before." She touched her back absentmindedly in an attempt to touch the engraved symbol there.

Naturally she didn't tell her parents about it or they would just get overly worried. Her mom of course would try to kill Mereck and she had a strange feeling her dad would help instead of stop her. He had a lot of restraint, but this was after all a witch or actually a warlock.

She didn't want to go to sleep. She didn't feel like fighting with her dreams again. It wasn't exactly a nightmare, just a dream where she sat in a dark place. She couldn't see a thing and the darkness felt so thick she was afraid she'd drown in it, but through it all she knew it was a dream. That's why she was never scared. She knew none of it was real and yet it kept persisting trying to work at her every fear.

When she finally dowsed off, not able to keep her eyes open any longer, she found herself in the same spot she always started. Complete darkness, but something was different this time she thought to herself, unable to make out what it was. She stood up realising she was wearing her new uniform, not nothing like usual. "Strange," she mumbled to herself. "Finally we meet face to face!" she heard her own voice in the dark. "Who are you?!" she yelled getting a little freaked out for once. She heard herself laugh, but it was a horrible laugh, dripping with insanity. Suddenly the blackness became red. She felt her lips curl up in a smile so wide she thought her cheeks would tear. She started giggling now and she couldn't stop herself no matter how hard she tried then she suddenly saw someone in the blood red surroundings. Her eyes were red, her hair pure white and her teeth as jagged as her fathers, if not more. She felt her lips move while the other person's did too and she realised it was her reflection, "I've already told you, I'm you!"

Sarah jolted up screaming in terror. Her mother stormed into her room with Soul in hand. "What is it?!" they both yelled in unison, Soul's reflection on the blade. Sarah just kept crying and saying "It was me?" Maka came to sit on her bed with her while Soul turned back to human form. He saw that this would be an excellent time for them to work on their relationship and left for the kitchen with a sly smile on his face. "They'll thank me later." He said proudly thinking he was a psychiatric genius. Then he smelt the toast burning and cursed while starting to run to the kitchen.

Maka just sat there thinking how she was going to give Soul his first Maka Chop in years for leaving her in this awkward position alone. Suddenly another sob from Sarah reminded her that her daughter still needed her. "Hay," she started, not sure what to say, "are you ok."

Too late she realised what a stupid question it was and her daughter just said "Seriously?" in between sniffs. Even in this state she can be so snobby! Keeping her temper in check Maka replied, "Sorry, what I meant to say was, what's wrong?" she said now sounding genuinely concerned for her daughter.

Sarah was taken aback. She didn't think her mom would ever care for her like this. The tears threatened to take her again, but she fought them back. Before she could reply her mother asked her another question. "Was it a nightmare?" when her daughter looked down and started crying again, Maka knew she had hit the nail on the head. She instinctively gathered her daughter up in her arms and held her gently and reassuringly. "Don't worry Mama's here now..." she cooed her daughter attempting to calm her down.

Sarah started to forget the nightmare and was relishing her mother's nurturing side. When she finally got all her wits back she pushed herself away from her mother's hug and smiled, "Thanks mom, that helped a lot" Maka smiled back also realising her daughter's affection. 'Maybe things will get better from here on.' they both thought.

When Soul saw Maka come into the kitchen and make a b-line for him he fully expected a Maka chop and had, in truth, been preparing for it ever since he stepped out of Sarah's room. Instead he found himself in total shock as his wife huged him and said softly, "You're a genius, you know that?" and his daughter walked out of the house saying "Bye Mom, bye Dad, love guys!"

He had no idea what was going on and just yelled, "Bye honey see you later!" to his daughter before she was out of ear shot and then turned to his wife curiously. "So what happened in there?" he asked finally putting the pieces together and smiled when she said, "Exactly what you planed to happen." Then she stretched up to give him a kiss. Just before their lips touched she smelled toast burning.

Mereck heard the bell toll for seven. He woke up still on the floor, but sprawled out over the rune he had drawn. He quickly got to his feet and erased the marks as well as he could. It wouldn't do to have the school thinking he was drawing spells to blow up the school or something.

After he had gotten rid of it he changed out of the pyjamas the school had given him and into his clothes, which had been washed and the DWMA logo embroidered above the rune on his jacket.

He smiled at the reaper skull above the letters and said, "If only they knew..." when he was finally dressed he had only taken 15 minutes and class started strictly at 8 so he had some time to find his way around the catacombs. It's not like he would ever be late for class. His OCD would never allow that. He ground reminded of that weakness within him. 'I know dad says it's a fundamental thing and all, but I only see it as a disadvantage' he thought, thinking about the duplicated runes on his shoulders and gloves.

When he finally made it out of the tunnel system it was 7:33. He sweat dropped on landing on an uneven time. "God damn it!" he yelled in outrage, One minute! One lousy minute earlier and it would have been fine, but NO! I had to get here at this time!" As he finished that last sentence the time switched to 7:34 and he visibly relaxed.

Then he saw people had started staring at him he blushed and waved while putting one hand on the back of his head. 'See what I mean dad?' he thought as he inched away and out on to the DWMA's front steps where he had shown up just a day before to get into the DWMA. He saw the Zombie guy, Sid if he recalled correctly, handing out nametags at the end of the steps where children huffed and puffed after climbing the stairs again. He chuckled at their weakness and made his way there.

"Passing the name tags out here this time?" he asked the Zombie when he made it over to him through all the people already here. "Ah, you're Mereck right?" Sid asked looking for the name on his clipboard. "Yeah..." replied waiting for his name tag. "Here you are!" he said and handed him his tag, and yeah we decided to give the tags out here to avoid anymore, interruptions." Sid said laughing at the thought of more witches and warlocks showing up.

Mereck laughed too and said, "You don't seem to be as peeved or scared of me as most people are here, why?" Sid turned to him and said "Well hello! I'm a Zombie! Not like witches are more uncommon then me and I never was the kind of man to judge people" He said the last part turning back to the now long line of children waiting for nametags. "Warlock actually." he said correcting Sid's understandable mistake.

"Not according to your badge it isn't." Sid said pointing at the rectangular piece of plastic in Mereck's hand. When he turned it around he saw that the badge Said "MERECK witch/meister." Mereck could just here Kid laughing at him somewhere in the school. He grumbled something but put the badge on anyway, then stomped off into the crowd. "Weird kid..." Sid remarked and continued handing out the nametags.

Mereck wasn't sure what he was going to do for the next 15 minutes when he heard someone yell his name. It was the girl who had been his scythe for the admittance test. "Hay Mereck what's up?" She said walking over too him, her friends in toll behind her. He was surprised to see her let alone her walking towards him. Sure she had been his weapon for a short time, but why would she willingly be talking to him?

"Ummm... Hay, Sarah right?" he said and she smiled "Yep," She said, "glad you remembered. This is Shadow*Star," she said pointing to her one friend dressed in some sort of ninja gear. "Hay." He said plainly not showing any emotion, "Hay" Mereck said back. "This is his sister Shizuka." She said pointing at the one next to Shadow*Star. It was obvious they were twins and before he could say anything she assaulted him with questions. "Hi! You're the witch-", "Warlock." He managed to correct, "warlock, right. What's the difference anyway? You both have magic, it's not like witch is a gender name, is it? I think it's more like a title, oh yeah titles are gender based too I forgot that. Warlock it is then. So-", "Anyway!" Sarah cut the energetic girl off saving trying to save Mereck from the maddening chatter. Then this is Jack. "Like the outfit." Mereck stated genuinely liking his taste. "Yeah, Yeah you're not the first to mock me and you won't be the last.", "No, I mean it." Everyone stared at Mereck in disbelief for a while, "I like this guy!" Jack finally stated, snapping everyone back to reality.

DING DONG, DONG DING

The bell tolled for the first day of school to begin.

AN:I think I'll just cut it off there. This is getting a bit long for my taste and it buys me more time to think of a school system. Sorry I'm mean like that XD