Sorry for the delay! The Excalibur chapter is still in the editing process (annoying is hard to write), but here's an update to pass the time.

Yumi Azusa, Gunbow and Asia-in-charge, is amazing simply because she managed to talk Marie out of marrying a toilet, which, in my opinion, is not as funny as, but definitely more impressive than, planning to marry a toilet in the first place. I ignored my no-Japanese rule this time so I could use "senpai," a term I will use again next chapter, so if you don't know what it means, look it up! Anyway, I wanted to do something fun with this character, so here it is. Btw, the quote this time has less to do with Azusa and more to do with my mood. Sorry about that, too. ^^'

Disclaimer: As always, I do not own Soul Eater, Master Card, or any related rights/companies/etc. Written purely for entertainment, no payment involved.

"Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again." ~ Mike Myers

"This one… or that one…?"

Azusa slumped in her seat outside the changing rooms of the clothing store. She definitely had more important things to do: force Spirit to finish the paperwork he had been avoiding for three weeks, battle the insanity wavelength produced by the reawakened kishin, anything not involving dresses designed for sixteen-year-olds…. "Marie, does it really matter whether it's blue or pink? It's the same dress."

"Yes, it does matter!" Marie poked her head above the changing room door and jabbed a finger in Azusa's direction. "Pink is a fresh, calm color, like a flower. Blue is a color of warmth and trust, more like the summer sky. It's completely different!!"

Azusa sighed as she returned her gaze to the fashion magazine she had been thumbing through. She's been reading those personality quizzes again, hasn't she? "Why don't you just stick to your usual black and yellow? Yellow is a cheerful color, right?"

"No!" Marie's one visible eye began to tear up. "Yellow indicates anxiety, and black's even worse! It represents power. It'll drive men away!"

Azusa glanced down at her own all-black outfit before giving Marie her famous 'skeptical' look—but the demon hammer was too busy freaking out to notice. "I don't believe that, Marie. What happened to little black dresses? Men slobber all over those, right?"

Marie paused half-way through her tantrum to give Azusa a blank look, which Azusa took as a bad sign. It meant Marie was thinking. "An LBD, huh…"

"What is this for, anyway?" Azusa asked while examining an ad in the magazine.

"The dinner tonight, of course," Marie answered as she leaned against the top of the dressing room door, "for all the death scythes and three-star meisters."

Oh. I know where this is going. "I take it back; a simple black dress just won't work."

"What?! But—but—" Marie puffed her cheeks out in disappointment.

"Now, something like this," and Azusa held up the ad she had been looking at, "is just what you need."

Later that night, Azusa was seated at a four-person table in the Shibusen staff lounge sipping brand-name coffee that Marie had smuggled in earlier that evening. As it turned out, her coworkers were all spineless, ergophobic deadbeats, as Azusa petulantly pointed out when she heard that not only had the other death scythes not shown up, but Sid and his partner had also taken off that morning on a rather conveniently timed mission. Soul Eater had shown his face briefly, but he had looked so worn-out from practice that morning that Marie had promptly sent him home with the assurance that he wouldn't miss much.

That left one happy-go-lucky Marie, one bored Stein, one nervous Spirit, and one seriously irritated Azusa sitting around a table drinking contraband coffee.

"Shinigami's not even going to show up, is he?" Stein asked with a yawn.

"No," Spirit replied, "he said something about strategies and the magical tools right before he disappeared. Poof."

"Did you finish your paperwork, Senpai?" Azusa asked, staring straight at him and smiling slightly when her senior flinched. "Otherwise, I think you're the one about to go poof."

"You're so irritating," Stein complained. "It's creepy when you say poof."

There was an awkward silence as the three weapons fought back the urge to accuse Stein of calling the kettle black.

"Hey, Marie, why are you wearing a coat?" Spirit asked, changing the subject.

Azusa sighed. "Come on, Marie; show them your new dress. You were so excited earlier to—"

"Fine!" Marie interrupted her friend as her face flushed red. She stood up, unbuttoning the long, white trench she had been wearing to reveal the dress she had picked out (under Azusa's carefully planned compliments) that afternoon: a low-cut patchwork dress, sewn with pink plaid, blue swirls, and yellow hounds tooth fabrics. Azusa smiled when she saw Spirit's jaw fall open and Stein's eyes bulge behind his glasses.

Marie blushed a little as she held up the edge of the dress, which hung halfway down her thigh. "So… what do you think?"

"Papa's so proud!" Spirit shouted, and under the table, Azusa stomped on his foot, causing him to flinch and preventing the overenthusiastic goof from glomping the woman and messing up Azusa's, er, Marie's evening.

Stein stared at his partner for several minutes before standing and informing her, with an expression closer to adoration than Azusa had seen on his face since he bought that two-headed bovine cadaver.

"I… want to dissect you."

Marie gaped at the professor for a total of three seconds before she growled. "Jerk!" she screamed, turning on her three-inch heel and stomping from the room with that murderous look that did not bode well for any nearby breakables.

"W-wait! Marie, I didn't mean it like that!" Stein called, grabbing her coat and racing after her. He gave Spirit and Azusa a hurried wave as he shut the door behind him.

This left the remaining two death scythes staring at each other over the table. Spirit fidgeted.

"Well, I guess we can't get any work done now," he muttered. He moved to stand, but Azusa readjusted her glasses and pinned him down with her "glare of doom," or whatever Marie had called it.

"On the contrary." Azusa plunked a large stack of papers onto the table and held out a skull-decorated pen. "Let's start with Form AZ, number three…"

Azusa allowed herself a tiny smile at the sight of Spirit's horror-stricken face.

Magazine: $1.99. Packet of decent coffee: $12.95. Patchwork dress: $62.50. Ruining Spirit-senpai's day? Priceless.