Well, I have one person who said to resurrect them and one person who thought it was a given. Wait, "other" fav characters? So, they may or may not be back in action. It's my birthday, it's my birthday! (Literally) Give me presents in the form of reviews and I'll be happy. That's why I didn't post yesterday, because I got a break. There may be a weird fluctuation in chapter release dates, because I'm starting to train for the London time zone. Aka, go to sleep in the middle of the afternoon and wake up at 2 AM. So be expecting chapters that get up at odd times. *yawns* It's actually kinda nice, getting up in the middle of the night and being alone for about five hours, watching the sun rise 'n stuff. What sucks is going to bed sometime around fourish, when everyone else is eating dinner. *sad face* Okay then, let's do this. (Based off a I Will Not Bow AMV, which is rather ironic when you think about it)

Kage's POV:

He turned, seeing me and Akuma standing shakily on our feet. "You will be punished for your defiance." He said smoothly, facing us and smirking. Jack managed to get to his feet as well, panting. "I've come to strike a bargain." I said firmly, and he stared at me, slightly caught off guard. "What?" Jack sighed and smiled at me just a little. That's good. Keep going. Akuma stared at me. "W-what?" he stuttered, and I licked my lips nervously. Calm down, I got this. Be ready. "You want to leave. I can help." I said, and he frowned. "You are human. I need-" I cut him off. "No, I'm not. Feel our souls." He cocked his head, and Akuma gave a yelp as a tingling, searing pain shot through my chest. He swayed, uncertain. "How is this possible?" He said slowly.

"The Kishins and us were like genetic clones, identical in physical makeup and personalities, sometimes. So, we are now their Great Old Ones." I said nervously, hoping what I said so far was true. Akuma suddenly caught on. "KAGE! You can't, not after them!" he said, eyes welling up with tears. "I am not the one making the choice." I said calmly, desperately hoping the spell I cast would work. The Pumpkin King swayed, as if thinking. "And what would you ask in return?" he said finally, and I took a deep breath. "To leave my brother and Jack alone. Do not attack them." I said firmly, and he grinned. "Deal. Step closer, and we will begin." I stepped forward shakily, suddenly realizing the magnitude of damage I could cause if I failed.

First off, I would be dead. Second, the Pumpkin King could stay in the real world however long he wanted. Third…remained to be seen. He laid both huge scarecrow hands on my shoulders, and what little color the shadowy spirit version of this world had drained, until everything was black and white. I gritted my teeth, feeling myself being slowly drained, my consciousness being bled away into an infinity of black. I swallowed, hoping the plan worked, and hid a smile as the sucking, draining feeling stopped, and color returned, slightly. I blinked, seeing Akuma staring at me in anguish. Sorry, but this has to be done. Don't worry; we'll get him in the end. I thought at him, and then let blackness well up in my vision.

Akuma's POV:

I fell to my knees, seeing the Pumpkin King disappear and Kage stagger. She turned, and I saw her eyes were the pitch black and blood red of one possessed. "Leave." She said in the Pumpkin King's voice, waving a hand at us dismissively. I was about to protest and then attack, but Jack grabbed my collar and suddenly I was sitting in the grass, in the real world again, by the stream where our misfortune has begun. Jack sat down with a pleased sigh. "Well, Phase One is accomplished. And it was done completely according to plan." I stared at him. "But…MY SISTER'S DEAD!" I roared at him, and he shook his head. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but it isn't your sister who is dead. Demon King?" I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but then I said "Yeah, it was her time. She told me just before the spell activated."

I closed it, in shock. "What…did you do to us?" I asked him, in awe, and he smirked. "It was a tricky little spell, and actually Kage did most of it. She completely fused your souls, making you and the demons one and the same. It served two purposes, one, to make sure they did not die when the Pumpkin King blasted their physical forms, and two, to give Kage a chance to remain alive after he consumed her soul. He ate the Nightmare Queen, not Kage, so now Kage is still conscious inside his mind, waiting her chance. The instant she begins to do anything but exist or see, he'll know she's there and what she did." I blinked. "So, wait, DK and me are the same person now?" I asked, and then said "Ah, duh. Geez Akuma, you're much dumber now that you're the same person as me. Hey, wait, what do we do now that I can't get out of your body? This sucks…better than being dead though, I suppose."

I held a hand over my chest, breathing hard. "Wait, Queenie's dead?" I asked, rubbing my forehead in confusion. I then sighed. "Yeah, my sis is kinda dead. But now Kage's the new Nightmare Queen, so really nothing changed, except for we're now literally the same person." I chuckled. "Having a conversation with myself is really weird." I said, shuddering in fake horror, and DK, using my mouth, laughed. "Yeah, it's going to suck when I'm all "the world is awesome today" and you're all like "everyone else shrivel up and die". Every other word out of our mouth is going to be a contradiction to the word before it." Jack sighed. "It seems like there are a few drawbacks, but on the whole I think this worked out quite well. Now, on to Phase Two."

Lord Death's POV:

The gloom was thick about DWMA. Not only had we failed in beating Arachnophobia, Jack, Kage, and Akuma were still missing. Their friends hadn't been very happy about that decision. "What do you mean, you let them go off alone!?" Maka shouted, brandishing her book. "We could have used them on the Brew mission." Blackstar growled, hands in his pockets. "Father, is this true?" Kid asked, concern in his eyes. I rubbed the back of my head. "They seemed okay with the decision." Suddenly, there was a thump, and Jack and Akuma fell from the air, landing in a heap. "Damnit DK! Watch where you're aiming next time Akuma shouted, rubbing his head. Jack stood up. "I'm beginning to regret fusing the two of you." Akuma glared at him. "Me too buddy. It's harder to give yourself an offensive gesture than it is to do it when you're in another body."

"Guys!" Maka shouted happily, then looked around. "Where's Kage?" She asked Jack, wiggling her book in warning. He shrugged, and Akuma stood up. "Last I saw her she was rampaging through a Witch's Town." He said, dusting himself off. He got hit with a Maka-chop. "What happened?" I asked, ignoring his moans. "We were unable to stop the intended target with Plan A, so we went to Plan B." Jack said, stretching. "Kage is now the host to the Pumpkin King." We all stared at him. I Reaper-chopped his head, and he fell to the ground as well. "Seriously, it's all still according to plan, or at least that's what they say." Akuma said, sitting up. "They?" I asked, scratching my head. Akuma flushed. "Ah, yeah, about that, me and the Demon King are now the same person, we share the same body, something like that."

His eyes suddenly turned black and red, and he chuckled darkly. "Yep, we're stuck like glue. He sucks at using my powers too." They turned back to green and white. "Shut it DK." They changed again. "Like I said, hard to make rude gestures to yourself, isn't it?" Back to green. "SHUT IT DK!" Back to red. "Or what? You can't punish yourself!" Green. "I'll watch an exorcist movie." Red. "Why you little cheater! I demand equalizer!" Green. "Nope." Red. "Damn it." Green. "Yeah, so anyway, we need to talk to Lord Death." Red. "Yeah, let's tell the Reaper how you nearly stuck us all through a tree on the way here." Akuma said, arguing with himself. "This is giving me a headache…" Spirit moaned, rubbing his forehead as Akuma's eyes flashed between demonic and human. He turned, and one eye was the black and red, the other the normal green and white. "What?" Akuma's voice said, echoing, and we all gulped.

"Your eye color changes due to whoever's in charge." Jack said, not looking down. "Whoa…" Akuma said, looking in my mirror. "Hey, we look like a crappy photo! You know, negative color ?" DK said, pointing to their eyes. The one eye was normal, with white whites and a green pupil. The one DK controlled had a pitch black white, with red pupils. "Creepy…" They said in unison, and we all sweatdropped. "Anyway…" Jack coughed. "We need all meisters to evacuate to the DWMA. Our guess is the Pumpkin King will be coming here, which seems to be confirmed from his path of destruction so far. So far he has not actively killed Witches, Kishin, or humans, just anything and everything in his way, testing out his powers. His real target is this Academy." Jack said, playing with a knife he pulled from his pocket. "It makes logical sense. The Grim Reaper founded this place to fight his kind, and he was killed by the Great Old Ones, the Reaper specifically. He wants revenge, and is probably hungry for more useful souls. Death Scythes, the Reaper and his son, all would make a very tempting meal for him."

I blinked. "So what do you suggest our plan of action should be?" I asked, cocking my head. He threw the knife up, catching it and throwing it again. "Offense. Us, my Witch allies, and some of your meisters, ones that don't mind dying and taking orders from their mortal enemies." He said firmly. "Nightstalker may have to obey the Pumpkin King if he directly uses his power, but he won't do that. His focus will be on the academy, not on his own people. We won't be anything more than buzzing flies around his head, and just as easily swatted. The Witches and meisters can attack him directly, but they don't have near enough power to hurt him. So, we use what I planned. Kage is sill conscious within him, if she can harness enough power at the right time, she can reverse the spell used for him to take over her body and send him back where he belongs."

Kid gulped. "Wait, you're saying he's in Kage's body!?" he said angrily, and Jack shrugged. "She volunteered for it, I didn't force her. It was either her or her brother, I don't have the physical makeup that mimics a Great Old One like they do. Besides, as an outcast, banished Nightstalker, the hold the Pumpkin King has over her and her brother is considerably lessened. Her even more so than Akuma, because we never bothered to brand him, thus fully banishing him from the clan. If she can break free, she stands a much better chance of killing him than we do." He said, catching the knife between his fingers. "And our sister has one heck of a grudge against certain demonic figures." Akuma said, eyes turning red. "Honestly, once she breaks free, I plan to just sit back and watch the show, maybe grab some popcorn, enjoy his gruesome and bloody demise."

Jack coughed. "Be that as it may, she still needs to actually break free, and currently that is our biggest problem." Akuma's eyes turned back to green. "Yeah, true. Maybe if we attempt to Resonate?" Jack frowned, twirling his knife between his fingers absently. "Perhaps…we'd need more than you, me, and the others though…does she know any of these meisters well enough to attempt Soul Resonance with them?" he asked me, pausing his knife twirling for a moment. I shrugged, looking at Kid and the others. "Maybe, Maka's team might be able to try…" Jack nodded, returning to twirling his knife. "So then. Me, Akuma, Lock, Shock, and Barrel, with your meister team, yes, that should be able to help her break free, especially if we do a Song resonance…" he mused, flicking his knife up and down, not noticing how it barely missing slicing his chin.

"So, just a recap." I said, putting my hands behind my back. "We gather all our people here, let a few of my meisters help you, and some Witches, hope they can successfully complete a Song Resonance, thus letting Kage out, and then backing off and waiting for her to kill the Pumpkin King?" Jack and Akuma nodded. I Reaper-chopped them both, roaring "ARE YOU BLOODY INSANE!?" Akuma's eyes flashed to black, rubbing his head. "Yes, why do you ask?" he said matter-of-factly, as Jack moaned, shaking his head. "Sorry Lord Death, but that's the only option we have, unless you have a few dozen Great Old Ones on your side." I shrugged, shaking my head. "Fine, if it is the only way." I said wearily, and they sighed, letting their heads fall back down on the ground.

Ya! DK's back! I realized that it indeed would affect my desired plotline if I had both of them come back, so after excruciating internal debate I picked DK. Hey, it's not like Queenie was all that prominent a character anyway, she kinda faded into the background, instead of popping out like I wanted her too…shame…oh well. *shrugs* Guess what! Only eight more days until I am on the plane to England! So, if you live in the UK, get ready to have me popping up on your doorstep! (Just kidding, although I will be homestaying in Dublin…hmm…maybe I will be popping up on your doorstep!) I'm so pumped! First time out of the USA! *happy face* Still on the sleep training thing…*yawns* It really sucks sometimes, I'm always so tired…we need to get a keyboard silencer so I can type when everyone else is asleep… Review, Request, Rcomment, Auf Wedersien!

PS: I would share some of my birthday cake with you people, but I need the sugar energy. Sorry.