Wow, sorry this took so long! I went away on holidays, and i came back to school, and i was busy, and i- *shot*
Well, i'm in the mood for writing now :D And has just planned out this whole story ! THere might even be a sequel, who knows ;)
Hahaha, enjoy! THIS IS A JUICY EPISODE! :D FULL OF SECRETS AND MORE QUESTIONS!
:D


"And we all know, the best way to get to know each other is through the act of extremely fun and COMPETITIVE sports!" Black Star declared with a large grin on his face, bringing out a basketball to the group and bouncing it a few times.

After school had ended, Stein had encouraged the Kids to get working on the first part assignments to get to know each other, and since everyone had already accepted Akito and Shizuko into their group, Black Star had suggested to play a game of basketball to get to know each others physical capability. Of course, Tsubaki agreed and Soul agreed, which had dragged Maka into this, and Kid had no other option but to join in as well, which means his partners for this assignment, Shizuko and Akito also had to play.

"Now comes to the hard decision of who's good enough to be on MY TEAM! HO HO HO!" Black Star laughed triumphantly.

"I'm sitting this one out guys" Liz raised her hand, walking towards the seat to the side of the basketball courts. "I don't want to break a nail, and if I were to play, the teams would be uneven" She ended with a smile, looking back at everyone.

"Sure, okay" Black Star nodded at Liz, and looked back to the circle of his friends that were standing before him. "Now, I think it's fair to say that Maka and I shouldn't be on each others teams."

"Huh, why?" Akito questioned, raising up a question. "Isn't she your partner for the assignment? Wouldn't you need to get to know her more?"

"No, Akito." Shizuko corrected her partner with that expressionless face again. "If we were to study each other, it'd be best if the people we weren't working with are not on our teams for this. That way, we can study their movements and habits much more easier than we could if they were on the same team as us" She completed her explanation, smirking slightly. Looking over to Maka, her slight smirk became obvious "Plus, Maka doesn't look like the type to understand these type of things"

"HUH!" Maka retorted, stepping forward as everyone around them realized the electric tension between her and Shizuko. "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM!" She exploded.

"Am I wrong?" Shizuko turned completely at Maka as Kid swore he could see a hint of red in Shizuko's eyes. No one could say anything back; of course Shizuko was right. For heavens sake, Maka didn't even know what a double dribble was last time they played, and she ended up asking her perverted old man out on a date. Ever since Maka had lost to Shizuko so quickly and humiliatingly, they have been rivals.

"Okay I think it's decided!" Black Star grinned, putting his hands on his hips and laughing. "Tsubaki, me, Shizuko and Akito versus Kid, Patty, Maka and Soul!"

"Fine" Kid added, smirking a little bit also. "We'll beat you, just you wait Black Star"

"You? Beat me? HAHAHAHA DREAM ON KID! JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT TO IMPRESS SHIZUKO! IT WON'T HAPPEN, YOU'LL FALL FLAT ON YOUR FACE IN DEFEAT!" Black Star shouted out, laughing some more.

"EHHH!" Kid's eyes widened. "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING!"

"Why so confident, hey Kid? Alright, if you're so confident, we'll have a punishment game just like last time!" Black Star gazed over at Kid, shooting daggers at him.

Kid felt as if his heart had dropped into his stomach out of fear. Last time they had a punishment game, his paintings nearly got moved two centimetres out of place. TWO. WHOLE. CENTIMETRES!

"Sound's good" Shizuko chuckled, ignoring Black Star's out of line statement as she removed her hooded jumping to reveal a loosely worn white, oversized t-shirt.

"Wow, you guys... Really... Are fucked" Kid heard Akito mutter to himself with a small smirk across his face, but before he could question the scythe on it, Black Star had declared the game to have started already.

"Huh?" Maka went wide eyed as Black Star passed the ball to Soul.

"What?" She questioned again after Soul passed the ball back to Black Star.

"YOU GUYS STILL HAVEN'T TAUGHT ME THE RULES OF THIS GAME!" She ended up shouting out as Black Star dribbled the ball off into the opposite direction.

"Tsubaki!" Black Star called out as he bounce passed the ball to his demon weapon partner. As she nodded, she ran down towards their goal but had been stopped by Patty.

"Akito-san!" She called out to the dazed out scythe that was too busy trying to look through his partner's white t-shirt. Before he realized, Tsubaki had thrown the ball in his direction.

"Fuck" Just in time, Shizuko ran in and caught the ball before it hit Akito dead straight in the head.

"Be careful won't you?" She chuckled as she ran off, bouncing the ball.

Evading Soul, Kid, Patty and a very confused Maka (well, she sucks at sports anyway), Shizuko threw the ball into the direction of their hoop. Amazingly, it went in without a sound.

"THREE POINTER!" Black Star shouted out in glee. "I PICK THE BEST TEAMS IN THE WORLD! I, THE GREAT BLACK STAR, AM AWESOME! AND I SHALL SURPASS GOD ON SO MANY LEVELS THAT HIS JAW DROPS IN AWE!" he cheered on himself despite the fact that it wasn't him that scored. This made Tsubaki smile to herself as the rest of the group laughed along with the egotistic descendant of the Star Clan.


"What do you want?" The cold and harsh voice of the man she had loved for years now responded to her presence. Either way, she would never give up on him, even if it cost her own life. "Why are you here?" She started to doze off a bit, looking at his slender, smooth face. She wished that the blue eyes that would stare so lovingly at Shizuko would look at her like that. She wished that she could scream his name, tug and ruffle his hair in pleasure, remove his clothes on impulse. Wait, what? "Answer me, Sari!"

"Why can't I be here?" She smiled softly at him, taking a step further towards him with her hands held together behind her back. "We haven't talked in a while, Justin" She concluded, pulling her cutest smile. As much as she detested doing things like this, and as much as her dear partner, Takumi, wanted her to halt everything she was planning, she wasn't going to lose to the likes of 'that'.

"Talked? I told you never to come near me again." Justin raised his voice as his eyes narrowed onto Sari. "You! You were the mistake that I regret so much! You were the person who made me lose my everything! You! You and your selfish, adultery!" Justin slammed his clenched fist onto the table. "Now, tell me why you bother anymore, Sari!"

"Do you really think she'll take you back!" Sari snapped, completely shouting at Justin. "Do you really think she'll be able to look at you the same way again!" Tears started to brim to the edge of her eyes. "Do you really think she'll love you like I do!"

"Sari" Justin sighed confidently, walking towards the girl who had just exposed her feelings to him. "Stop it"

She looked up at him with a confused face as she wiped away the tears that had started to roll down her cheeks continuously. "Stop? You want me to stop LOVING YOU? I'm sorry but it's not that simple! You of all people should know that!"

Justin's eyes widened as his anger started to raise and boil. Calming himself down immediately, he sighed in irritation, but a hint of guilt still lurked within his conscience for Sari.

"Sari..." He whispered her name, "Please, you deserve someone who would love you for who you are" He tried a compromise.

"Don't be like Takumi! He said that to me too! But I won't accept it, Justin! I'll only ever accept you!" Sari cried her heart out, pouring out all her true emotions to Justin again as he continued to ignore them. "Please..."

Placing a hand on Sari's shaking shoulder, Justin sighed one last time, "I'm sorry Sari, I'm not giving up on Shizuko"

She simply looked up at him with the question 'why?' printed all over the expression her face gave off. "Just like you refuse to give up on me, I refuse to give up on her"

"So be it" Sari wiped her tears away and looked straight into Justin's eyes. "I'll make you mine, just you wait and see" Although she was extremely fed up with Justin's behaviour and attitude, Sari couldn't help but feel as she's accomplished something that day; something like getting into the very depths of Justin's true emotions and thoughts.

Justin sighed one last time, ignoring Sari's words as he continued to do what he was doing.

"Just a question" Sari interrupted him once more, really starting to annoy the seventeen year old man, "Why are you so confident, Justin?"

"Why are you?" Justin retorted in anger.

In response, Sari sighed, placing her palm on her forehead in grief. "Just answer it, it's just a question. Don't have to get so angry"

"We had too much to let go because of something so trivial and illogical. God would surely understand my intentions" He murmured, going pink a little bit. "She still hasn't taken off the cross I gave her, which means she hasn't completely forgotten about me and what we shared, hence, using everything I've got, I can still try and convince her to be with me" He ended with a small smile, but realised who he was actually telling this to. "Not only that, Noah-sama thinks she's be a good ally if she were to join forces with us" He covered up the softness in his heart. "To have a witch, so close to our god Asura, on our side, it would be wonderful for our futures"

Sari sighed, leaving Justin be, although of course, she would never give up on him.

"Just you wait, she'll be gone before you know it, Justin"


"Fah! That was a good work out" Shizuko chuckled, plopping herself down on the bench on the side of the basketball courts. Lifting up her short fringe to wipe the dripping sweat off her flawless forehead, her panting slowly ceased as Kid came and had taken a seat next to her. His eyes wandered from the sweat dripping down the side of her face to the necklace around her neck.

Shizuko had noticed Kid looking at her strangely but couldn't make out exactly what he was trying to look at. She was stuck between how gross she looked at the moment, something weird being on her face, or the fact that he was trying to see through her shirt. Actually, she highly doubted her last thought, this was Death the Kid, seriously...

"What are you-" She stopped herself when she brought her hand up to her face and felt around. The tip of her finger at touched the surface of a cold, metal like substance that had been hanging around her neck. She looked down to realise that it was the necklace. Shizuko had never found the chance to take it off yet, and she didn't know if she ever will at this rate. Sighing, she let go of the silver cross that had once symbolised so much and looked up at the dreary cloudless sky and the laughing, blazing hot sun. "Oh."

"S-sorry" Kid looked away, feeling embarrassed about being caught looking at it. Looking around to see Black Star and Maka arguing as Tsubaki tried to calm them down, Liz checking on her nails, Soul muttering to himself about how uncool things are, and since Akito and Patti had gone to get drinks for everyone, he was wondering how he got into this awkward situation. "I didn't mean to" was the last thing he could say before he had lost the will to speak.

"It's okay" Shizuko's sudden, serious voice had shocked him a little bit. "Akito probably told you about this cross, huh?" She smiled at Kid's way.

"Actually, he hasn't" Kid corrected, wanting to hear more about this. Of course, this wasn't just for assignment purposes. "He didn't tell me much actually..."

"Oh, I see" Shizuko sounded as if she wasn't going to tell him when suddenly, she spoke out. "Justin gave it to me."

Ohhhhh, why wasn't Kid surprised...

"I guess, it was supposed to mean a lot, being his two year anniversary present for me, but little did I know he left not only me, but everything else he had only six months after he gave me this" Shizuko smiled sadly, looking down onto her lap where her hands rested. "I guess it's meaningless now, isn't it Kid?"

"You're wrong" Kid spoke out, shocking Shizuko as she raised her head up to look at him dead in the eyes. "Just because he did all of that to hurt you, doesn't mean that it doesn't still mean something." He didn't know why he was saying this, but he knew from the way she spoke that Shizuko had been in a lot of pain. "It symbolised two and a half years of love; that will always mean something in the past. Even though in the future you might forget about it, that very necklace once gave you so much happiness"

Kid had felt like slapping himself absolutely silly by the amount of corny lines he was carelessly blabbering out of his asymmetrical mouth. As he desperately tried avoiding eye contact with Shizuko, who was looking at him with a shocked facial expression, he couldn't help but noticing that her necklace was... Yes, the idiot noticed that it was symmetrical. As his eyes started to sparkle wide open, and his jaw dropped in glee, Shizuko's expression of pure shock turned into one of pure confusion.

'What's he looking at?' She wondered to herself, moving back slowly as tears started to brim Kid's eyes.

'It's fabulous! Beautiful! Symmetrical! To think she would own something so aesthetically pleasing like that! Amazing!' Kid's inner voice cheered to himself.

"OI, PERVERT!" Both Shizuko and Kid had looked over to Akito who had just come back with Patti holding nine cans of drinks around his arms. Suddenly, Akito let them fall to the concrete ground with a 'bang'. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING THERE!"

"Eh?" Kid stared at Akito confused, still not able to get his mind off Shizuko's symmetrical necklace. "Me?"

"DON'T ACT STUPID, YOU ASYMMETRICAL BASTARD! STOP STARING AT SHIZUKO'S BOOBS! THEY'RE MINE!" Akito shouted out impulsively, allowing the whole of Death City to hear him more than well as Patty held him back from storming off towards Kid and impaling him or something.

"EEEH?" Shizuko shrieked, covering her chest with her arms.

"IM SORRY! IM SO SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN TO!" Kid started to apologising, meaning that he was admitting the fact that he was staring at Shizuko's boobs- "IM A PIG! I KNOW! ABSOLUTE TRASH! I HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE THE SON OF A DEATH GOD LIKE MY FATHER! JUST THROW ME OUT WITH THE REST OF THE GARBAGE!"

"OH I WILL" Akito shouted, breaking out of Patty's grip and stomping towards Kid, who was banging his fists on the ground like a depressed teenager, and his partner Shizuko, who was sitting there quite dazed.

"I'M SORRY FOR BEING ASYMMETRICAL!" Kid shouted out, stopping everyone.

"Wait, so you weren't looking at..." Akito stopped himself. "Then what were you-"

"I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT HOW SYMMETRICAL SHIZUKO'S NECKLACE IS! BUT I DON'T DESERVE TO! SINCE I'M SO ASYMMETRICAL! HOW COULD I! AHHH IM GARBAGE!" He started tearing up rapidly.

Everyone sighed and Shizuko got off of her seat and knelt down to put her hand on Kid's back. "Don't be silly, you're a great Shinigami!" She smiled, forgetting everything. "You're not trash, or garbage, and apart from those.. Three.. Stripes.. You're very symmetrical!"

"R-really?" Kid's eyes widened in glee. "YOU THINK SO?"

Shizuko nodded as Death the Kid stood up suddenly, brushing off his clothes in a posh and elegant manner, fixing and straightening his collar, and flicking his hair so it would sit properly.

"Now, Akito..." Shizuko turned to her partner who was standing quite close, twitching slightly as her anger rose increasingly by the second. "WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT OWNING MY BOOBS!"

"Oh... Fuck"


"Ne, Sora-chan" Shinigami placed one of his large, white hands on the witch's shoulder, worrying for her current unstable mentality. "You look kind of dazed out. Maybe you should take the rest of the day off?"

"Hmm, I guess so" Sorako gazed out one of the windows from the Death Room, looking over Death City with tired and hazy eyes. Taking a deep breath in, she had wondered to herself as to why she was in such a glum and foul mood, before Shinigami had broken her chain of thought.

"You've worked hard today, Sora-chan, preparing the assignment tasks with Stein-kun and I, so why don't you go home and gave a rest for a while hey? Make yourself a nice dinner, take a long bath, sit yourself in front of the television and watch late night movies until you pass out" Shinigami chuckled, cheering up the witch slightly. Of course, Shinigami, Sorako's oldest and dearest friend, had always known exactly what to say and do to make even the dimmest of frowns turn into the slightest of smiles, even on a day like this. "We both know what happened today, eight hundred years ago, and ten years ago as well. It's best if you, of all of us especially, get some rest and not think about it"

That's right, this was the most dismal day of all days. But how could she not think about the two happenings on this day? It had been carved in her mind for eight hundred years now, and it had only gotten worse when another thing happened only ten years ago, when Shizuko was only six years of age. Neither she or her daughter would ever be able to forget that extremely eventful day. Bearing the pain of something before that, and then having something three times as worse happen on the same day, it was horrible, absolutely horrible.

"I wonder..." Sorako mumbled, looking back slightly at Shinigami with tearful eyes. "If Shizuko remembers what this day means for her..."

Shinigami looked at Sorako with a look of pure pity. He had felt so sorry for her, for everything that's happened to her family. Even though they were witches whom had possessed powers for good, they had the extreme bad luck of normal witches, and a curse that no one else without their powers could bare.

"I'm sure she acknowledges this day especially" Shinigami started moving towards Sorako, who had turned her attention to the cloudless sky again. "But I don't understand why she refuses to take his family name, Sora-chan" He questioned her intently.

"She wishes to not bare the pain, I guess" Sorako sighed, turning around to face the death god, face to mask. "I don't blame her; his bloody death happened right in front of her eyes, for crying out loud" She looked down at her feet, trying not to concentrate too much on her memories. "But no matter how much she loathes her powers, no matter how much of a monster she thinks she is, no matter how much she tries to hide her true self, she'll never forget what the very first man who believed in her and gave her strength gave to her..."

Shinigami smiled deeply, agreeing with his friend. "Mmm, he was a wonderful man, wasn't he?"

Sorako smiled genuinely, letting all her memories flow through her heart and mind once more again, "Yeah, he was" Her smile had turned into a frown of hatred for herself. "Shizuko wouldn't hate herself like this if I had protected him, though..."

"Sorako!" Shinigami's stern voice shook up the whole room. Sorako? He hadn't called her that for ten years. And even before that, he never called her that. "Don't you dare say that about you or Shizuko!" That's right, this man.. Or rather Death God, was rather stubborn. "It wasn't your fault!" No, but of course Sorako thought it was her fault, because, if it weren't for her stupid and moody actions, they would have defeated the other witch before she had gotten to him. "If you ever think it's your fault, I swear so hard that I'll-"

"You'll what?" Sorako looked at him with empty eyes.

"I'll never forgive you, Sorako." Shinigami's voice softened again. "If Toshiro forgives you, and Shizuko forgives you, then it'll never be your fault. They never thought it was your fault, and it wasn't! It's not your fault something happened on the same day to make you angry, its not your fault your souls couldn't resonate well enough, it's not your fault he-"

"Enough." Sorako smiled. "I know. He loves me no matter what, right?" Shinigami nodded in response.

"But remember, Death, he, that stupid demon, also said the same thing to me..." Her smile completely disappeared from the face of the earth in an instant.

...

'Hey, Toshiro.

Have you been watching over us like you promised me you would? Ha, of course you have! You've never lied to me before, and you never will, right?

I'm going to be straight forward with you, Toshiro; I miss you, so much. Why'd you have to leave like that?

Do you still blame me? Because I'm so sorry, so fucking sorry. I'm sorry I was in such a bad mood, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you when you had told me the plan that would have given us both life, I'm sorry that I was the cause of your departure.

You know, Shizuko misses you too. Whenever I look into her deep violet eyes, I'm reminded of the way you looked at me every time you told me 'I love you, Sora'. But thank you; thank you for giving me such a wonderful daughter, and a wonderful five hundred years together.

I don't know when she'll be able to accept her family name, because I know it's too much pain for her to bare like that, seeing all of that with her own two eyes. Do I regret it? Of course I do. I regret everything.

I regret everything, but falling in love with you.

Ha, but I did warn you when you confessed, remember, Toshiro? I had a curse, and you chose not to believe it, and even convinced me to forget about it, but now, it's carved into the mind of your daughter like a scar.

With your help, one day, I'll teach her to love again, and break this curse.

I love you, Toshiro and will never forget you...'


Isn't that cute? ;) LOL

More secrets! More questions! More characters!

I promise, this will make sense in the end, hahaha! D: ANd if it doesn't, you can shoot me.. again :]

Hope you liked chapter 8! Wait for chapter 9, where SHizuko's big birthday bash occurs!

Stay tuned 3 I love you guys :3

- OtakuKeik.