While trying to find the correct meeting room for that day's little get-together, Kyoya Ohtori came across no fewer than two libraries, two cafeterias, a few racquetball courts, and, for some reason, an indoor ice-skating rink as well. He could have simply asked for directions, of course, but he was trying to maintain his omniscient persona in front of the locals.
Then again, perhaps he should make more of an effort to appear human.
"Excuse me?" he asked a passing student. "Would you be so kind as to direct me to the Death Room?"
Other than Lord Death and Son, Kyoya Ohtori was the first to arrive. When he noticed that they were discussing something that seemed important, he took a seat near the opposite end of the meeting table and took out his laptop, pulling up some work that he probably wouldn't be able to get done later.
As the minutes wore on, the other attendees began filing in and taking their places at the table. Any and all Death Scythes from Ouran and DWMA were attending. This was Kyoya's first time seeing Tezca Tlipolca, Vajra Yadava, Tsar Pushka, Deng Dinga, and Djinn Garan. Though, admittedly, he'd only seen Spirit Albarn in passing. Marie Mjolnir, Justin Law, and Yumi Azusa were also there. Those who had meisters had brought them along. Stein had been sitting with Marie at the start, but had soon gotten bored and gone over to bother Spirit and Lord Death.
The younger generation Death Scythes were in attendance, and sitting together: Soul Eater Evans, Elizabeth and Patricia Thompson, as well as Tsubaki Nakatsukasa. At least, Kyoya assumed she was a Death Scythe, since she was at the meeting. Their meisters/weapons Maka Albarn and Black-Star were also there.
The two Witches, Kim Diehl and Angela Leon were there as well, along with Jacqueline O'Lantern and the Samurai Mifune.
In Kyoya's opinion, it was rather unfortunate that the two Shinigami had invited so many people from Shibusen to attend the, supposedly, top-secret meeting. On the other hand, thirteen of them were Death Scythes, so he wasn't too unhappy about it.
From Ouran he, himself, had invited his own Death Scythes, of course: the Haninozuka brothers, the Morinozuka brothers, and Ayanokoji, their sole female Death Scythe.
And, if on was going to be technical, Kyoya was also there, but he wasn't one to brag, when keeping things secret might result in a later advantage.
Which was part of why he'd been extremely reluctant to call this meeting, in the first place.
Moving on, the Ouran Witches were there, and looking depressed, as was characteristic for them, these past few weeks... though, they did look noticeably better, if still not anywhere near normal. The Hitachin Clowns were there, and so was Noyade, leader of the demons of the Alliance.
Essentially, if this war were a chess match, anyone of rook rank or higher had been invited.
And as for the third parties: Blair and Belzenef were attending, those two fairies who seemed to be from Shibusen were over in one corner, and GLaDOS was the sole representative from Aperture, though the other two sentient weapons, Excalibur and Ragnarok were sitting with her. Ragnarok had brought along his meister, Chrona.
The last person to arrive was his sister, Fuyumi, and his brother-in-law, Anthony. Though, no one had wanted to be late, and it was still fifteen minutes before the meeting was due to start.
Kyoya had considered starting the meeting early, since all were present, but the attendees all seemed to be enjoying talking in a disruptive manner, and Kyoya really could use some more time to run a few modeling programs on his laptop.
While he did so, Kyoya kept an ear open to the conversations going on around him.
The room was divided into roughly two conversations: Justin Law and Fuyumi's conversation, and Lord Death's conversation. The third generation Death Scythes (except Spirit) were part of the first, as were his own Death Scythes. Maka Albarn, Black-Star, and the Hitachins were part of the first, as well. The second comprised roughly everyone else. And, though the conversations happened simultaneously, it was a simple matter for the Ouran Alliance leader to split his attention while snooping and to file any useful information away for future reference.
There weren't very many speakers for the two conversations, but there were a great many listeners, and this day would be remembered as a key one in deciding the strategy of the coming war.
Near the south head of the Death Room, Lord Death and Belzenef conversed in formal tones, both of them familiar and comfortable with the fine art of diplomacy.
"Belzenef, was it?" asked Lord Death. "I'd like to thank you for the help you've given the DWMA in these recent weeks."
Belzenef nodded, gravely. "You are welcome, Shinigami-sama."
Those from Shibusen had only ever seen Belzenef as an employee, so none of them, save Blair, had much of a feel for his personality, which was reserved and composed, though he did seem to be warming up to the Ouran Witches, particularly Nekozawa.
Lord Death was still on his thankfulness tangent. "There's always a place for you, at Shibusen, should you want it," he was saying.
"Thank you for the offer," said Belzenef, "but I believe I'll be joining Blair in the Ouran Alliance. I just signed the paperwork this morning."
Lord Death was obviously surprised at this bit of news. "Blair, you're a part of the Alliance?" he asked, turning to focus on Blair. "I'd always thought of you as being part of Shibusen."
Blair shrugged. "I don't know if it's permanent," she said, "but it seems like a good place to hide from Soul for awhile."
That threw Lord Death for a loop. "Why would you want to hide from Soul?" he wanted to know.
"Um, I mean..." Blair tried to come up with something else to say.
Soul cut in. "It's cool, Blair," he said. "You can tell them. I'm barely even mad about it anymore, and it might be useful information."
"Okay," she said. "Well, you know by now, that there's a parallel between Cats and Witches?" said Blair. Lord Death nodded, and she continued. "A Witch's soul can be used to create a Death Scythe, but not a Cat's... at least, that's the general misconception," Blair finished.
"'Mis-'?" Lord Death asked.
"Yeah," Blair said. "if a weapon who's eaten ninety-nine Kishin souls eats one of a Cat's nine souls, you do actually get a Death Scythe—just not a conventional one. When Cats make Death Scythes for ourselves, for instance, we always use our own souls."
"Of course," said Belzenef, continuing the explanation, "sacrificing one-ninth of your lives is a significant loss, so even though having a Death Scythe made from your own soul has the advantage that only you can use its power... it's usually only criminals and miscreants, sentenced by the council to be mercenaries, who create feline Death Scythes."
"No one else can even resonate with the weapon anymore?" asked Lord Death.
"Well, anyone who would normally be able to can use the weapon," said Blair, "but only the Cat will be able to use it as a Death Scythe. It's complicated..."
"Interesting," said Lord Death. "But, hold on a second. Didn't you—"
"Yeah," said Blair. "The council got me for some pretty blatant tax-evasion and sentenced me to death, followed by servitude as a mercenary. I was supposed to go out into one of the worlds, find a weapon, and turn that weapon into a Death Scythe."
"So, you decided not to?" asked Belzenef, who was actually a little bit foggy on the details of what exactly her plans had been, if he was going to be honest with himself.
"No..." Blair said, looking nervous as anything. "I went out and pretended I was a Witch."
"And then Maka and Soul came along, you let them eat your soul, and completely stole their work," said Lord Death, who was, frankly, both surprised and appalled by the ingenuity of the idea.
"You've got it!" Blair said, beaming in appreciation of her devious plotting.
"Wait just a second," said Belzenef, starting to put the pieces together. "When exactly did this happen?"
"Um," said Blair.
"Blair..." said Belzenef.
"About... a week after I left home, actually," she finally admitted.
"You mean to say," said Belzenef, extremely irritated to say the least, "that you completed your assignment, literally, the week after it was given, didn't report it, and then went off to have fun for the rest of the allotted time, forcing me to continually track you down and give, completely useless, warnings to complete your assignment?"
"Yes?" said Blair, looking very nervous indeed.
"You are dead to me," he said, before turning to face the Ouran Witches and start up a conversation, just to make the point that he was ignoring Blair.
"Much as I'm horrified by the dishonesty," said Tsubaki to Blair. "There's a part of me that's very impressed."
"Tell me about it," said Lord Death. He then seemed to notice who he was talking to. "Tsubaki? I didn't know that you'd made Death Scythe. Congratulations!"
"Thanks," she said, smiling brightly at the kind words, "though it's not really any merit on my part. It's the Witches you should be thanking."
"What?" asked Lord Death.
"You remember they helped heal Kid, right?" asked Tsubaki.
"KID!" yelled Maka and Black-Star, "Get over here!"
Kid exchanged a glance with his father, but did as they asked, moving to the other side of the room and leaving the conversation.
"Of course," said Lord Death, once he'd managed to regain his train of thought. "I gave them a cake or something. And a Porsche."
"I liked the cake," said Kirimi.
"Cake," said GLaDOS. "Don't get me started on cake..." she went on her own tangent, while Stein listened, sympathetically.
"Do you know any of the details of how they helped him?" Tsubaki asked.
"Magic?" asked Lord Death, stating the obvious because he did not, in fact, know.
"Less than you might think," Tsubaki said. "What they used was a very elementary healing-spell, fueled by a crap-load of power: more than you'd ever see under normal circumstances."
"Okay," said Lord Death, "I'll bite: how?"
"They used the energy from a Death Scythe power-rush," said Tsubaki. "I'd consumed ninety-nine Kishin eggs, and so I was the perfect candidate."
"And the Witch's soul?" asked Lord Death.
"The four adult Witches each gave up part of theirs," Tsubaki explained, "and then Kirimi did the healing spell-work."
"They lost part of their souls?" Lord Death asked, alarmed at the prospect.
"Surely you've noticed they haven't exactly been the most chipper people since?" said Tsubaki. "The process isn't exactly a pleasant one, or so I'd imagine."
"Oh," said Lord Death.
He turned to the Ouran Witches. "I see I was unaware of the trouble you took for us," said Lord Death. "Would you like a few more sports cars?"
Nekozawa blinked.
"Are you suggesting that having the soul torn is equal in worth to any sort of material goods?" asked Haruhi, stunned.
Nekozawa was silent as he considered it.
"I mean, don't get me wrong," said Haruhi, "we did it because it was necessary, not because we wanted compensation... but if we had wanted something in exchange, it would have had to be a heck of a lot more valuable than a few fancy cars, to justify such a sacrifice..."
"Works for me," Nekozawa, nodding to Lord Death in thanks. "Many have given more and received less, and I'd be a fool not to take what we can get." He paused, something else occurring to him. "Besides it's the thought behind the gesture that counts, rather than the dollar value," he added. "We deal in magic, not alchemy," continued Nekozawa, "and, in my opinion, all that equivalent exchange nonsense gets far much more hype in the grimmories than it deserves..."
"Oh, I agree," said Haruhi. "Fair sacrifice implies that you would be able to break even, if you'd never be able to get ahead... but practically speaking, you can never do well enough to even approach breaking even..."
They continued in this vein for another few minutes, until Kyoya Ohtori stood up and called for everyone's attention.
"Let's get started, shall we?" he said.
The second conversation:
"Now, so..." Fuyumi was saying to Justin Law. "You say Death the Kid and Lord Death are the sole Shinigami of this dimension. Honestly, I've never heard of a Shinigami taking their title in relation to another death-god for anything but aesthetic reasons. But what I've seen of those two seems to imply that their relationship truly is like that of parent and child. Am I completely off-base here?"
"There is Shinigami the Father, and Shinigami the Son," said Law, going into full-on devout-mode. "The Father reigns from his city on high... but the Son is one who chose to walk among us, to be one of us, and to better understand the human race though empathy. The Son chose to die for you, personally, and now he sits at the right hand of the Father."
Fuyumi got the reference almost immediately and simply sat there, a disconcerted expression upon her face. She looked over to see that, indeed, Kid was seated to the right of Lord Death.
"Hold on a minute," she said, as she realized the full implications of his words. "'Chose to die'? Is that just because of the Jesus metaphor?"
"Well, I could be wrong, of course," said Law, "but, from where I was standing, on the night Kid was shot, it looked as though he glanced in the direction of the sniper before he stepped in front of you, blocking you from the line of fire."
The Guillotine turned to face the table's head.
"Hey, Kid!" said Justin. "Is it true you..."
"KID!" screamed Maka and Black-Star, drowning out Law's question. "Get over here!"
Raising an eyebrow at their brusque summons, the grim reaper excused himself from conversation with his father and various others and made his way over to his peers.
"What's with the yelling?" Kid asked.
Maka and Black-Star drew him into a huddle with Fuyumi Ohtori and Justin Law. The other third generation Death Scythes were listening, none too subtly.
"They know," said Black-Star, giving a significant nod in Law's and Ohtori's direction.
"Should we kill them?" asked Maka, in all seriousness.
Kid put his head in his hands. "That would rather defeat the purpose of stepping in front of the bullet in the first place, wouldn't it?" he sighed. "Besides, how would you kill Law, even if you were so inclined?"
"Portal guillotine?" suggested Black-Star, as though it were obvious.
"Neurotoxin?" offered Maka.
"Mashy-Spike-Plates?" said Black-Star.
"You two are never getting keys to my house," said Kid, looking disgusted. "Have I mentioned how much humanity appalls me?"
"Nope," said Black-Star, cheerfully, "that's a lie. You're not appalled by humanity, just by us."
"Why else would you bother taking a bullet for Ohtori?" asked Maka.
"That's—" Kid started to retort, but was interrupted.
"So you did save me on purpose?" asked Fuyumi. "When you barely had any power yourself?" She looked about ready to start crying.
"Ms. Ohtori," said Kid, uncomfortable in the utmost, "it's something I would have done for anyone. There's really no need to look so distraught. You have nothing to feel guilty over," he said, seeing how she still seemed to be on the verge of tears.
"Honestly, Kid," said Maka. "If you're really that unconcerned, why not just admit to your heroics? It would do wonders for Ouran / Shibusen relations."
"What's that, guys?" Kid asked, innocently. "You want me to tell father and Spirit-san about how you two saved my life? Why, that's a lovely idea! I'm sure they'd be thrilled to hear it!"
Black-Star folded his arms. "Oh no you don't. This counts as our blackmail. Which means, rather than you holding that over our heads, we now operate on the principle of mutually assured destruction should any of this get out."
"Yep. We're secret buddies!" agreed Maka.
"You two saved Kid's life?" asked Law, who they'd honestly forgotten was still there, even if only for a second.
All three of them well silent.
Maka recovered first and proceeded to try and tried to talk her way out of things. "We're comrades," she said, "we've saved each others lives more times than can be counted."
Law wasn't convinced. "That's not what it sounded like."
"Great," said Black-Star, "we don't have any dirt on Law. At least, I don't. Maka? Kid?"
"Big fat nothing," said Kid.
Maka shook her head. "Sadly, no."
"How about orphans?" asked Law.
The three students gulped.
"No," said Kid, in the most innocent voice he could manage. "As far as we know, you've never done anything blackmail-worthy involving orphans."
"Oh, but I wasn't talking about myself," said Justin Law. "If I recall correctly, you had to leave the Eat Class after a certain mission that involved protecting orphans. In fact, I do believe Lord Death is under the mistaken impression that you were on a soul-hunting mission when the whole sad affair occurred. Could this be something similar, I wonder? Why don't we ask him?"
"Fine, said Kid. "fine."
"It's just..." Maka began.
"Have you met my father?" the two of them asked, in a deadpan unison.
"He overreacts to nothing!" said Maka. "If he actually has something of substance to freak out over, he might just explode with overprotective pride."
"Father doesn't know the meaning of the word 'discretion'," said Kid, massaging his temples. "Have you seen him show my baby pictures to random people? Not just acquaintances, mind you, or as part of casual conversation. I've actually seen him pull aside strangers on the street and take out his wallet..."
A few of the Death Scythes nodded in sympathy. Everyone loved Shinigami-sama, of course, but his personality was a bit much to deal with.
"You didn't seem that worried about something like this happening after you defeated Asura," Vajra pointed out.
"Saving the world's fine," said Black-Star. "That's duty, we're almost expected to do that, along with all our other chores. But, if their parents find out that we're saving lives recreationally, and without a great amount of power to our names... well, then the rest of the world will find out, too. And and if this stuff goes global, then we might as well paint cute symbols on our stomachs and join the care bears. We wanna be seen as soul-devouring death-warriors, not magical friendship-ponies..."
Maka shuddered.
Kid looked slightly miffed. "But I like the magical friendship ponies..."
"Of course, we'll be discreet around Shinigami-sama and Spirit," Law assured them, glancing at where the two of them were talking to the Ouran Witches, across the room. The other Death Scythes nodded. "However, in an organization such as ours, there are some things you just shouldn't keep from authority, for informational purposes if nothing else."
Kid sighed. "Fine," he said. "What do you want to know?"
Law raised an eyebrow. "Those two saved your life, and you're using it as blackmail?"
Kid raised his hands as though to defend his position from attack. "This is different from pushing me out of the way of a falling rock or taking out an attacker during battle—both of which have happened, numerous times. Though, honestly, I was never actually in danger of dying before the whole weapon deal, and none of those 'dangers' that they spared me from would have killed me." He paused. "Though I am, of course, eternally grateful for the suffering they spared me from. Not to mention, those incidents were all spur of the moment, and this particular little gem of information is valuable for two reasons: one, because Maka and Black-Star actually saved my life; two, it was also deliberate and, at the time, completely paranoid."
"Well?" asked Justin.
Kid drummed his fingers, marshaling his thoughts. "Have you heard about the soul-hunting the three of us have been doing with GLaDOS?"
"You mean, acting as a decoy?" asked Law. "Yes."
"GLaDOS has been giving us a few of the souls we help bring back, as commission we think," said Kid. "And these two" he pointed to Maka and Black-Star, "insisted that I should consume all six of them, as the number of souls eaten is, theoretically, proportional to the amount of meister ability we regain. Not that it had had any effect that I'd been able to notice."
"Because, and I quote," said Maka, "'what if some nut-job takes it into his head to try and assassinate a Shinigami?'"
"Which was completely paranoid and unreasonable," Kid interjected.
"But, it happened," Black-Star pointed out.
Kid shrugged. "Doesn't mean you weren't being paranoid. They could have been aiming for Ms. Ohtori, anyway."
Law regarded them with interest. "You two suspected that Kid would be attacked?"
The Kishin Killer and the Assassin looked slightly uncomfortable. "Not really," Maka admitted. "We were just trying to annoy the crap out of him by being overly nice, and to justify ourselves by saying it might save his life one day. It was hilarious."
"Yeah," said Black-Star, smiling. "Every time we made him eat one of the souls, he'd get the most interesting look on his face..."
"I know, right?" said Maka.
Kid shook his head, then looked over to Law with a 'see what I have to deal with?' expression.
Law, however, was completely somber. "You barely survived that attack. If your powers had manifested in any lesser degree than they had, you wouldn't be alive today."
"Yes," agreed Kid. "So if we'd divided the souls evenly, like I'd wanted to, I'd be dead. But there's no hard evidence, only speculation on our part. So it's not like it's strictly necessary to bring it up..." Here, he looked away.
"Were you really not aware that your Shinigami abilities were coming back?" Law asked Kid, raising an eyebrow.
Kid shrugged. "I'd tried to access them after consuming souls, but to no avail. I suppose I simply required a 'do or die' situation to find out what I was truly capable of."
Law was thoughtful. "You knew there was an Assassin trying to kill Ohtori, didn't think you had any sort of healing ability to draw on, and you still took that bullet purposefully... Death help us all, he's following in his father's footsteps..."
"To be honest," said Kid. "It sounds a lot better than it is. I had very little idea what was happening, at the time. I wasn't entirely sure that the gun wasn't an umbrella or a walking-cane of some sort. I thought that I was just being paranoid..."
"So, what are you three planning to do now?" asked Justin.
"Well," said Black-Star. "Now that Tsubaki's somehow a Death Scythe, we can start force-feeding Kid souls again."
Maka nodded.
Kid whipped his head around to look at Black-Star. "You're going to do what?"
"Are you familiar with the concept of fatty goose liver?" Maka asked.
Kid's face was blank.
"Oh," said Fuyumi, making a face. "I've never eaten the stuff. I'm told it's very good, but I could never stand the thought of the geese being force-fed before slaughter."
Kid blanched.
"Now, you can either gorge yourself on souls like a good little death-god," said Maka, putting an arm around Kid's shoulders and leaning in conspiratorially, a huge smile on her face. "Or we'll turn you over to the third-generation Death Scythes and let them make some foie gras a la Death Scythe."
"Sounds acceptable," said Justin Law.
Kid sighed in exasperation. What was the expression? 'A good friend would save your life, but a true friend is someone you could happily murder with a chainsaw?'
Then, shaking his head, though he did nothing about the arm around his shoulder, he turned his attention back to reality since Kyoya Ohtori appeared to be starting the meeting.
While the Shinigami and his friends were making good-natured jokes, Kyoya Ohtori had been staring at his laptop screen and failing to see any of it. On second thought, perhaps he should have started the meeting early, after all. It would have saved him from learning facts which did nothing but make things complicated.
Because, as it turned out, Death the Kid had not, in fact, been injured accidentally when a sniper had tried to take out his sister, as Kyoya had thought. In fact, the younger Shinigami had done it on purpose.
Surprisingly, that didn't eliminate the guilt that Kyoya was feeling in the slightest. In fact, it increased his debt to these people by quite a considerable fraction.
He closed his laptop with an audible snap, bringing most conversations in the room to a halt.
All doubt was gone. He was going to do this.
"Let's get started, shall we?" he said, which ended the rest of the talking. Kyoya pushed back his chair and stood up.
"Thank you all for coming," he said. "And thank you, Lord Death for offering your own headquarters to host the meeting.
"Now," he said, "recent events have made it clear that an alliance between Ouran, Shibusen, and Aperture would be advantageous for all three parties, but before such a thing can be discussed, there must be some measure of disclosure between our organizations."
A quick glance around the room confirmed that things were going well so far.
"I will not insult you by claiming to tell you all the secrets of Ouran," Kyoya continued, "just as we by no means expect to know all that goes on at the DWMA. There is one thing, however, that recent events compel me to share. I believe my sister agrees."
"Of course," Fuyumi said.
Here, he paused.
"You are aware that the Death Emperor has four children?" said Kyoya.
"Yes," replied a few people. Others nodded.
"And that they have not been seen publicly for several years?" he continued.
"Of course," said Belzenef, who looked rather bored.
"There's a reason for that," Kyoya said. He'd been approaching the topic rather slowly, in the hopes of keeping things calm during the revelation.
"Please, do tell," said Death the Kid.
"They're trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact that two of the children aren't there anymore," he said. "That they became part of the Ouran Alliance—"
"Is it Nekozawa?" asked Black-Star, interrupting his dramatic reveal.
"No," said Ohtori.
"Is it Suoh?" asked Tsubaki.
"No," said Kyoya, "but if you tell him, then he will tell everyone else, so please don't. When Coven Nekozawa first arrived, they told Tamaki that Haruhi's gender was to be kept under wraps, as a prank. By the end of the day, everyone in the Alliance knew the Dragon Witch's 'secret'..."
"Is it you?" asked Maka.
"Yes," admitted Kyoya, expecting this to cause a great stir amongst the Shibusen members.
The people from Ouran already knew and did not react.
He didn't expect the guessing-game to continue uninterrupted, but...
"Is the other one Kasanoda?" asked Patty.
"No," said Kyoya, feeling that the Shibusen delegation could, perhaps, stand to take things a bit more seriously.
"Is it Mori?" Soul wanted to know.
"No," said Kyoya.
"Is it Ayanokoji?" asked Liz.
"No," said Kyoya.
"Is it—" Lord Death started, wanting to join in the game.
"It's me, actually," said Fuyumi, raising her hand and giving them a small smile. "We took the same last name when we named ourselves. Even if there's no blood relationship between Shinigami, we think of each other as siblings."
"'When you named yourselves,' repeated Stein. "That implies that the names are a recent development. What are your titles, then?" he asked.
"Well, they used to be 'Death Princess' and 'Prince of Darkness,'" said Fuyumi, "but we changed them to 'The Dark Lady,' and 'The Shadow King,' after I got married."
"Is your husband...?" asked Marie.
"Anthony is human," said Fuyumi, "which is why we had to leave home. Kyoya sided with me, but neither of our brothers did."
There was a moment of silence at that, as the Shibusen members looked at Kyoya in appraisal. He, honestly, had never struck any of them as compassionate, in any sense of the word. What would he have stood to gain from such an alliance? 'Sibling loyalty' aside, of course.
"We appreciate your honesty," said Lord Death, after a long moment, "but why tell us now?"
"We believe that our father is starting to move against us," said Kyoya. "The Assassin who injured your son was most likely aiming for Fuyumi."
That made some measure of sense, actually, now that Lord Death thought about it. The bullet had been intended to kill a Shinigami. Everyone had simply taken it for granted that Shinigami-sama and Kid had been the only death-gods there that night.
"So you want allies," said Azusa.
"In as few words, yes," agreed Kyoya. He wasn't about to make some grand appeal to compassion or start spouting rhetoric when he was pretty sure everyone already knew he was in this to overthrow his father and become ruler of his own world.
"What are the capabilities of the Death Empire?" Ragnarok wanted to know. He, for one, was always ready for a fight, but having good intel never hurt.
"He has our two elder brothers, 'The Demon Regent,' and 'The Heir to the Abyss.'" Fuyumi told them.
"He also has twenty-eight Death Scythes—"
"Twenty-seven, Kyoya," corrected Fuyumi, "another one managed to commit suicide."
And if that wasn't just the most chilling thing anyone had heard all day, for the casual tone in which it had been delivered as much as the meaning itself. Kyoya Ohtori's questionable motives aside, none of the Alliance weapons seemed so much as unhappy, let alone suicidal.
"Twenty-seven Death Scythes, then," said the Ohtori brother, accepting the edit with no change in expression or inflection. "Our father also has a good number of Witches on his side: twenty-two, at last count. Though the Cats, whom he was closer with, have since been incarcerated by yourselves."
"We have thirteen Death Scythes," said Lord Death, starting a tally of his own, "fourteen, if you count Soul-kun twice. And yours as well makes nineteen. Two Shinigami, plus two Shinigami is four to their three—though Kid isn't full powered yet. We specialize in soul-binding powers," said Lord Death. "Though we tend not to use those unless it's a matter of life or death."
"Soul-binding?" asked Kasanoda. "As in those insanely powerful spells that bind you to—" he broke off in horror as he realized something.
"When was the last time you left the city?" Haruhi asked Lord Death.
"A few decades," Lord Death said, shrugging. "Why?"
"No reason," said Nekozawa. "Please continue with your inventory."
"We have five Ouran Witches and two Shibusen ones, unless I'm mistaken," said Ohtori.
"Victory shall be ours!" said Angela. Kim nodded.
He turned to look at GLaDOS, "Do we have any sentient weapons on our side?" Kyoya asked.
GLaDOS sighed. "Ragnarok, unless I'm mistaken, wishes to fight with you. Excalibur doesn't have a meister, thus it would probably be wisest for him to remain neutral. My own meister, the only one I've ever been capable of partnering with, is rather angry with me right now, thus I feel it best to sit this one out.
"Thus, in response to your query, you have eight sentient weapons on your side: Ragnarok, five cores, Blue, Orange, and the Turrets have also decided to side with you."
"The... turrets?" asked Lord Death.
"As I understand, they have a sort of hive mind in Aperture's mainframe and are continually reincarnated in their bodies throughout the facility. They like you," she admitted. "Science only knows why."
"You have two Cats," said Belzenef.
"And two fairies," said Silver.
"Four demons," said one of the Ouran delegation.
"And the rest of the Alliance," said Ohtori.
"And the weapons and meisters of Shibusen," said Stein.
"Well, then," said Lord Death, thinking things over, "That doesn't sound like such a hopeless fight. Unless the Death Scythes object, it is decided, then. Shibusen shall ally with Ouran, and the DWMA shall go to war."
After the meeting:
The seven members of Team Albarn, who had worked so hard to remain a team, walked slowly in step with each other, basking in the light of their victory at managing to do so.
"So, we're going to war with death," said Tsubaki.
"And against death," said Black-Star, whose arm was linked with his partners.
"And for death," said Liz, clapping Kid on the shoulder.
"And we're back in business," said Maka, rubbing her hands together. "Break-time is officially over! Time to get Kid his powers back."
"And make you two Death Scythes," reminded Tsubaki.
"Hey, guys," said Lord Death, catching them as they left the meeting-room. "I'd like you to go train in Ouran for awhile: help train their weapons, get them ready for war, and become familiar with their typical fighting strategies. Okay?"
"Will-do, father," said Kid, waving at his father as he followed his team down the hallway.
Their next stop was the Third Music Room.
"Hey, guys," said Liz, seeing most of the Not Class members. "Starting tomorrow, the Time Wasters Society meets in the Ouran Dimension!"
"Can we still bring the fireworks?" asked Meme.
"Why not?" answered Kid. "I'm sure they won't mind."
AN: And that's a wrap for Part 2, folks. Next is Part 3: Oh the Shinigamity...
So I've been going back to fix typos in Parts 1 and 2. I really hope that this isn't screwing with those who have this story on alert, since I sometimes replace an entire chapter's content in order to fix a single mistake.
Burnt myself out again, so I will probably take an uncertain-number-of-months break at this point, before starting Part 3. Or at least, before I start on the battle. Fluff might go up sooner, if I finish it.
And, I'll be honest with you. My outline for Part 3 goes very much like: 'First fluff; then. resolve loose plot-threads; finally, gigantic showdown between the Ouran-Shibusen Alliance and the Death Emperor in a flashback-laced massive-multi-crossover battle that results in surprisingly few permanent casualties.'
All I know right now is: 1. I really like the idea of an 'ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny' fight where everyone is essentially on their own side. 2. Chess is awesome. 3. Portals make warfare fun.
And now I'm off to procrastinate.