A/N: We're entering into another arc here. I think this one will take a few chapters, probably three or four, and then things will really start moving in earnest~ Hope you guys enjoy it!
Review Responses:
Diana Raven, thanks, I'm glad you liked it! And yes, thanks to Soul's influence, Rei has a little bit of Soul Perception synesthesia going on.
Anonymous Person, yes he is, yes he is. But if he didn't do at least one supremely idiotic thing, he wouldn't be Black Star.
fanficlove2014, Soul was, um…also not feeling great. Poor guy's getting old, although he doesn't want to admit it. Although being a Death Scythe means he kind of sets his own hours so he may have been sneaking a nap somewhere. Also regarding Morgan, Black Star may have been trying to teach them something about fighting spirit rather than actual fighting, so she was good. Although being Black Star, he didn't get the point across in the most straightforward way. Thanks for the review!
karma88, yep. Where would we be without you, Black Star? Thanks for the review.
Guest, for sure! I'm playing up Black Star's irreverence for laughs, but Kid is definitely not weak.
pokelover01, thanks, I'm so glad you liked it! And don't worry, Ophelia's scenes were fun for me too, because they really tested the characters (although it was hard to actually kill her off, despite having planned it pretty early on). I'm glad you like the story though! Regarding Elaine, it's probably the blond hair and black clothes, although no worries, Medusa is most certainly dead. Enjoy the chapter!
God of Crossover, no he shouldn't, lol. Thanks for the review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The First Attack Pt. 1; Battle over Death City!
Death City's graveyard was quiet that morning, the only sound coming from the ravens that perched on the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the perimeter, cawing softly to each other. At night, with the fog and the tombstones and statues leering from the sides of the path, the place was sinister, but in the full light of day it was only quiet. Contemplative, as if the very air was aware of the weight that this place bore. Death City might have been the city inhabited by Death himself, fascinated in many ways by the eerie and the macabre, but it was still wearying when any of its people had to die.
Shelley Stein, moving quietly through the tombstones in the morning with a bouquet of white flowers, wondered not for the first time whether they couldn't have found somewhere else to lay Luna to rest. She was the sort of person who deserved life and light, the sort of person who would have been happier somewhere else that wasn't this dark, foreboding place—beneath the boughs of the trees in the training forest, perhaps, or somewhere where she could look out over the school, somewhere where she could have the place all to herself and not have to share it with the weight of countless centuries of death and war and misery. She couldn't help but feel like they could have done a little better for her, in that regard.
Of course, it was a stupid thought. Luna didn't actually care about that. She was dead. She didn't care about anything anymore.
Her frown deepened as she made her way past the gravestones, pausing for a moment to lay a single white flower on the graveyard's newest grave, the one set aside for Ophelia, before continuing her grim pilgrimage. It didn't matter, in the end, that she was here, but Shelley visited anyway on the off-chance that it did. If the previous Shinigami-sama had known anything about an afterlife, he hadn't mentioned it, but Shelley was just scientist enough to know that it was impossible to prove a non-existence.
If a little voice in the back of her mind whispered that she was doing this for herself, that even if Luna really was watching her right now, Luna wouldn't want her to torture herself, she pushed that back down, tightening her grip on the flowers in her hand.
They tumbled to the ground when she reached Luna's grave and saw that she wasn't alone.
Micah stood standing in front of Luna's tombstone, his expression oddly repentant. She stared at him, her eyes widening, and an odd feeling passed over her like cold water, a sensation that sent her skin crawling and made her question her reality. He looked almost the same as he had two years ago, the last time she had seen him, and for an instant, she forgot to hate him. For a single instant, her heart leaped, butterflies coming to life in her stomach before she remembered what he had done and hated herself for it. He looked up at her, his mouth curling up in the same sheepish smile she recognized, the expression of a man who had been caught looking through her research notes without permission, that of the boy she had once caught copying her homework.
She hated him. She couldn'thate him.
She wanted to be sick.
Her hands clenched into fists at her side, so hard that her knuckles went white, but she couldn't stop them from shaking. "How dare you?" she asked, her voice deceptively soft and shaking with rage. "You don't have any right to be here. Not after what you did."
"Is that the only thing you have to say to me, Shell?" Micah asked. "After all we've been through?"
"You don't get to talk about what we've been through!" Shelley said, louder this time. She took a step towards him, gesturing angrily with one arm. "You don't get to talk about—!"
Tears. They stung at her eyes, blurring her vision. The sensation struck her, bringing her back to reality, to the reality where Luna was dead and Micah was a fugitive and she was a representative of the DWMA who didn't need to be standing here hashing out past sins, not when there were more important things to consider. She sucked in a breath as if that would calm her, blinked tears out of her eyes rather than reaching behind her glasses to wipe them off in a way that would show him how much she was affecting her.
The fingers of the hand that she had swung out to her side shifted, each digit becoming a long, thin, scalpel-like blade. "Why are you here?" she asked. "Talk. Now."
Micah's eyes drifted from her face to her hand, to the blades that gleamed in the sunlight, then back to her face again. He sighed, a long-suffering sigh as if he had been expecting this behavior from her but had been hoping that he could get around it. "Really, Shelley?" he asked. "I don't want to fight you here. Not in front of her." He looked away, as if to say that enough blood had been spilled over this already.
She wanted to kill him, she wanted to kiss him, she wanted to cry. She was so angry that she couldn't think straight. She didn't know what she wanted to do. But her eyes drifted from him to Luna's grave and she knew that despite everything, despite all that had happened between them, he was right. She didn't want to fight him here. Lack of proof in the afterlife be damned, she didn't want to do this in front of Luna.
Slowly, as if it pained her, she turned her hand so that her fingers were pointing down, letting them shift back into their human shape. She straightened up, lowering her hands back to her side, but kept her eyes on the ground.
"Get out," she said.
"Didn't you want to know why I was here?" Micah asked.
"I don't care!" she said. "Get out. Before I change my mind."
Micah watched her for a moment, then shook his head, as if amazed at what he saw there. "You haven't changed," he said. "So self-righteous. You'll sacrifice anything, won't you, as long as it keeps the world exactly the way you want it?"
The idea was so absurd that Shelley wanted to laugh, wanted to cry at how twisted around things had gotten between them. "You killed Luna!" she said. "You murdered your partner! I'm sorry, Micah, but how exactly did you expect me to react? In what universe was what I did wrong?!"
"We were going to change the world!" Micah said, anger in his voice now. "We were on the cusp of discovery, and you threw it all away! Whatever happened to 'us against the world', Shell?"
"I don't know!" Shelley said. "You tell me!" She was aware that she was screeching, shouting at him so loud that she was sure people could hear her from the street, was aware that she was alarmingly close to crying, but she didn't care. "I never wanted—I didn't want—"
"I didn't want to do it!" Micah said, interrupting her. His eyes were wide, as if he was trying to convince her of what he was saying, as if he wanted nothing more than to have her believe him. There were tears in them too, and the sight of them would have made Shelley's heart break if it hadn't already been broken. "I didn't want to do it, Shell. It was the only way…"
"You think that makes it better? You think that makes what you did any less unforgivable, you traitorous son of a—"
"No. I don't." He seemed to have gained back some measure of his self-control, drawing in a deep breath and pulling himself up to his full height again. When he next spoke, his voice was hard. "I don't think that makes it better. But neither does that excuse what you did."
"I did my duty," she said. "I did what I had to." She could feel herself retreat, could hear the coldness seeping into her voice. Her hands closed into fists at her side again, but this time, they didn't shake. She was too controlled for that now. "I'd do it again."
"Then," Micah said, watching her, "it appears we have nothing more to say to each other."
"It appears so."
He shook his head, reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. "For what it's worth, Shell, I really wish things could have turned out different."
Before she could respond, an explosion rang out, one powerful enough to shake the ground beneath her. Her eyes widened and she whirled around in the direction of the DWMA's headquarters, where the building rose above the city. Smoke poured from a gaping hole in one of the building's top floors. As she watched, shadows rose, dark forms swirling around the building like crows. The shock of the sight took her breath away, so that for a moment she forgot where she was and who she was with. Then she remembered and whirled back around to face Micah.
He had a card in his hand, the face turned towards her so that she could see it. The Chariot. He held her gaze as he tossed it to the ground, the card beginning to glow.
"That's my cue," he said. "I'm sure we'll see each other very soon."
"Wait!" Shelley said, extending a hand towards him.
A flash of light swallowed him up and he was gone.
The explosion shook the school, rattling the ceiling of the Death Room. Kid looked up at that false sky as the school rocked, eyes wide as around him, several of the DWMA's staff let out cries of alarm.
"What's going on outside?" he demanded, turning towards the people gathered at his left. "Hestia!"
Hestia, a young red-headed woman who had recently risen through the ranks of DWMA's security forces, stepped away from the group of people arrayed around Mifune, fiddling with a device strapped to her arm. "Sir!" she said. "It looks like a powerful source of energy has suddenly appeared in the sky over the school. They're firing at us. The upper levels have taken structural damage."
"She's right," Ox said, tapping at something on the screen of his phone. "We're under attack!"
"That's a Witch's Soul Response!" said Maka, her eyes wide as she looked up at the ceiling. Overhead, the shaking continued, the sounds of muffled screams beginning to ring out through the room from the courtyard.
"So it is," said Kid, feeling the power of the Witch's Soul through his own Soul Perception. His eyes narrowed, his hands clenching into fists. Next to him, Black Star looked up at the ceiling, an expression of mild surprise on his face. As Kid watched, he grinned in understanding.
"Huh," he said. "She's got guts. This might be fun."
Kid frowned at him, unamused. "When this is over, I'm going to execute you," he said, flatly.
Black Star's grin widened, the warrior settling into a crouch. "You can try," he said. "Tsubaki!"
"Right!" said Tsubaki, transforming in a flash of light. Black Star grabbed onto the light as it streaked towards him, not even waiting for her to transform fully before rushing out the door.
"Dammit, Black Star!" Kid swore. He swept his arm out in a wide gesture over the security forces, straightening up. "Secure the school! Get the students to safety! Liz! Patty!"
All around him, people nodded and voiced their assent, the sounds of weapons transforming ringing out through the large room. At his word, Liz straightened up and nodded, becoming a comfortable weight in his right hand as, on his left side, Patty did the same, a grin on her face. He spun the guns around twice in his hands, then ran from the room, following his people out into the courtyard.
Rei clashed with his opponent once, twice, a third time, Ayame's ninjato form clutched tight in his left hand, the short blade clanging as it met and deflected strikes from the older student's sword. His opponent's brow furrowed, sword moving as he tried to strike at Rei again. Rei deflected the strike with his own, eyes narrowed in concentration.
The other student was good, but he'd been expecting to fight Ayame. It showed in the way he fought, in his confusion as Rei deflected his blows, his own blade barely there. He'd been expecting someone to fight him directly, had probably stayed in the crowd for the past couple of weeks as Ayame defeated opponent after opponent, watching her, studying her reactions and the ins and outs of her particular fighting style. He probably would still have had trouble against Ayame, but at least he would have been prepared.
Rei's fighting style was completely different. He pushed just far enough to give the other student something to push back against, just enough force to make his opponent believe that he was committed to this forward assault, with enough inconsistencies to keep him guessing. Why use a short blade, something he could only grip with one hand, against a long sword? Why keep it in his off-hand, while his dominant hand dangled to the side, useless? Those questions would burn in his mind, keeping him distracted by the fight, until…
He lifted his eyes from Rei's own, drifting towards their crossed blades, towards Rei's right hand. An opening.
Rei lunged in with his right foot, keeping Ayame's ninjatoform right where it was as he moved forward, holding his right hand so that it was parallel with his opponent's side. Then he opened his hand, fingers forming the signal Ayame would have been waiting for. In her soul space, she grinned, the ninjatoin Rei's left hand dissolving into a flash of light. The light streamed towards Rei's right hand, reforming the ninjato there.
His opponent's eyes widened as the resistance vanished, his own sword crashing down, but Rei had left that space light-years ago, the sword slicing through empty air. He squeezed Ayame's hilt once, a silent signal to dull her blade if she hadn't already, and spun around, swinging his hand upwards to score a deep slash across his opponent's unprotected side.
Sharpened, the dagger would have cut to the bone. Dull as it was, the blow still knocked the older student off his feet, forcing him to leap to the side to keep his balance. Rei finished his own leap, spinning to face him. The older student was clutching at his side with his free hand, the curve of his sword gleaming wickedly in the morning sun. "Bastard," he hissed at Rei.
Rei shrugged, keeping his grip on Ayame's ninjato blade reversed as he sank down into a crouch, holding his hand up in front of his face so that the blade was parallel to his arm, tip pointing towards his elbow. It was a defensive stance, about as defensive as it was possible to get with the ninjato. It was an invitation to attack, and his opponent seized it, gripping his weapon's hilt tight in his hand as he leaped forward and whirled, the curved blade slicing through the air towards Rei.
Rei unfolded, blocking the strike with his ninjato as he darted forward, angled towards his opponent's side. His mind raced, cycling through plans and strategies as he met his opponent's eyes over their crossed blades.
Ninjato, he thought, remembering the notes he had made during his and Ayame's training, short-ranged, good for offense, poor defensively.
He ducked beneath his opponent's blade, the short blade sliding out from underneath it as he continued to move past. He tapped out a quick rhythm across Ayame's hilt, the blade shooting out and extending into her katana form.
Katana. Slightly longer range. Good offensively and defensively.
The dulled blade of Ayame's katana form smacked against their opponent's chest, hard enough to knock the wind out of him. His eyes widened, and before he could recover, Rei was already spinning, twirling the sword in his hand as it dissolved into light and shifted into her shuriken form.
Shuriken. Unwieldly at short range, but powerful.
The tines of the shuriken, dulled but still spinning quickly, slammed into their opponent's back, sending him pitching forward. He gasped as he stumbled forward, then quickly whirled around in rage, swinging that curved sword that was almost a scythe blade at him.
But Rei was already gone. He'd danced back from the initial blow, then made the signal for the Cloak of Shadows, the shadowy tines of the cloak's kunai embedding themselves into the spikes of the school building, behind and above him.
Cloak of Shadows, he thought as the cords retracted, pulling him backwards through the air. Good for mobility. Offensive and defensive capabilities limited.
He hoisted himself up on one of the spires, landing in a crouch on the tip of it. Ayame started to shift almost before he signaled her to, the familiar weight of her kusarigama form settling into his hands. The chains hovered in the air around him as he gripped the scythe handles, looking down into the courtyard below at his opponent, who had leaped through the air towards him, bellowing in rage. He tightened his grip on the hilts slightly, feeling the scythes' comfortable weight in his hands.
Kusarigama—
The ground shook suddenly, a hole seeming to tear itself open in the sky. Students screamed as bolts of energy poured out of that hole, bombarding the ground and sending it shaking, and Rei's eyes widened as he was nearly thrown from his perch, clouds of dust and smoke filling the air. He quickly wrapped the chain of one scythe around his arm and threw it down, the scythe and chain wrapping around the spire below him a few times and securing him to his perch.
His eyes narrowed as he saw his opponent dodge one of the bolts of light, the motion making him lose his momentum and fall backwards through the air.
"Ayame!" Rei yelled, throwing the other scythe towards him.
"Right!" Ayame said, the chain extending as the scythe flew through the air. It quickly wrapped around the other meister's waist, and Rei let out a grunt of pain as he felt the chain go taut, the weight of the other meister yanking him in two directions for a moment. He gathered up his strength, sinking down, and managed with some effort to swing the two of them beneath the spire and up the other side, grabbing the other meister by the back of his shirt and hoisting him up on the spire with him.
The other student stared at the courtyard below as he flopped onto the spire on his belly, eyes wide, their fight forgotten. Rei turned towards him, wiping the sweat from his brow.
"Are you alright?" he asked, offering the student a hand. The student blinked at him in confusion before taking it, hoisting himself up to his feet.
"Yeah," he said, still looking shocked. "I think so."
"Rei!" Ayame said in alarm.
Rei turned suddenly, lifting his head and looking up at the sky. There were forms streaking through that hole now, dark-winged shapes that reminded him of crows, except much bigger. As he watched, they circled through the air, spreading out through the sky above the city, swooping down and raking the tops of buildings.
People screamed. A wave of power pulsed through the tear in the sky, strong enough to nearly throw Rei from his perch, and he gripped tightly onto Ayame's chains, crouching down on top of the spire. His eyes widened, the power brushing the edges of his Soul Perception, and he looked back up in the face of the wind, looking through that glowing light that hovered in the air just above them.
Was that…a Witch's Soul?
A bolt shot out of that glowing light, shooting directly at him. Rei's eyes widened, and he threw his arms up in front of his face, crouching down. He squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for impact.
It never came. Instead, through the ripples of power that he sent out using his Soul Perception, he sensed someone leaping onto the tip of the spire in front of him, their back towards him as they faced down that glowing nexus of energy. He sensed a familiar, powerful wavelength, and his eyes snapped open.
Black Star had caught the bolt of light in his hands, holding it tightly in both hands as it writhed and crackled, like a snake made out of lightning. He looked over his shoulder at Rei, a grin appearing on his face. "You alright, kid?" he asked.
"Rei!"
Rei looked to the side at the sound of his name, eyes widening as he saw his parents flying up to the top of the school building, wings sprouting from the base of his father's scythe blade. Maka drew up beside him, her eyes narrowed in determination as she looked out over the school.
"This isn't good," she said. "Black Star!"
Black Star nodded. "Way ahead of you," he said, reaching up with both hands and hurling the bolt of energy towards one of the crows, like a spear. It pierced straight through the creature's heart, the creature dissolving like shadow. Before Rei could react, Black Star reached back, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. "Alley-oop," he said, lifting Rei up.
Ayame's chains slackened from their hold around the spire as Black Star leaped off the tower, the scarf he was wearing extending until it was just long enough to allow them to bounce on the ground. Above them, Maka had pulled the older student onto the scythe handle behind her and was flying back down. She landed, depositing the older student on the ground and turning towards Black Star.
Something detached from that pool of light in the sky above them, a single soul, brilliant and powerful. Rei's eyes widened as it streaked across the sky, hovering in the air just above the school.
And someone else darted past him, moving to meet it.
Rei stared as Shinigami moved past them, firing a volley at that glowing soul. It darted to the side, avoiding the shots, and Shinigami crouched down, guns held at either side of him. "Students, protect the city!" he said. "Don't fight battles you can't win. Everyone else, you know what to do."
And then he leaped into the sky like a rocket, a glowing light beneath him resolving itself into a hover board as he rose up in the sky to meet that threat.
"That Kid," Black Star muttered from somewhere behind him, looking up at the sky. "Always taking the good fights."
Rei watched him, and then jerked as a thought struck him, drawing him back to reality. He looked around, his eyes moving over the chaos in front of him. Where were Clark and Vayne? Cassie and Morgan? He spread out his Soul Perception like a net around him, but he couldn't find them. It had always been shorter-ranged than his mother's, and there was so much going on—
There!
He felt a pulse of power coming from somewhere at the foot of the steps, to his right and then another, directly ahead of him and somewhere in the city. They had heard Shinigami's order, it looked like, and were already fighting. His shoulders sagged in relief at the feeling of their souls, whole and alive.
A creature landed on the ground in front of him, with enough force to crack the stones of the courtyard, shaking the earth. A giant of a monster, nearly as tall as the school, carrying a club that looked the size of one of the spines. It had a single eye, and Rei froze as that eye focused down on him. He shrank back from it quickly, tightening his grip on the handles of Ayame's kusarigama form.
A hand on his shoulder steadied him, and Rei looked back, his eyes wide. Black Star stood beside him, grinning again as he looked up at the monster. "Huh," he said. "Not bad. This might be fun after all."
"We can finish this quickly," Maka said, straightening up. She moved her scythe in a rapid twirl, catching it in one hand and bracing the butt of the shaft against the ground.
Black Star frowned, glancing back at her. "Tch," he said. "You're no fun, Maka."
To Rei's surprise, his mother only smiled, tightening her grip on the handle of his father's scythe form. She turned towards Rei. "Rei," she said, still smiling. "I think Kid gave you an order."
An order. He'd forgotten. He looked past the monster, his eyes fixing on the crows attacking the city. "Right," he said, drawing in a shaky breath.
Black Star grinned at him, patting him on the back hard enough to send him stumbling forward. "Go on, get going," he said. "Don't you have friends you need to find?"
Clark and Vayne. Cassie and Morgan. The thought of them, and those faint pulses he could still feel, somewhere on the edge of his Soul Perception, those faint melodies, brought him back to reality. He nodded, his eyes narrowing as he crouched down.
"Ayame!" he said.
Ayame transformed, becoming the Cloak of Shadows. Its tines shot forward before Rei could direct them, moving past the monster and slamming into the nearest rooftops in the distance. He was yanked towards them as the cords retracted, the motion flinging him through the air, past the monster, and into the city at rapid speed.
Black Star watched the two of them go, then turned back towards Maka, the flat of Tsubaki's Masamune form resting on his shoulder. She was watching Rei go, her scythe at the ready.
"Kids are out of the blast zone," he said as she looked up, turning towards him.
She nodded, meeting his eyes. "Right."
Their souls flared up in resonance, a whirlwind of power that moved to encompass the entire courtyard, consuming them and the monster.
The force that emanated from the resonance behind him was strong enough to slam into Rei, upsetting his momentum and forcing him to roll onto his shoulder on one of the rooftops to avoid slamming into the ground. He looked back at the school, his eyes widening as he felt the waves of power coming off of the courtyard, his parents' wavelengths mingling with Black Star and Tsubaki's.
Even at this distance, he could still feel the power rushing off of them, an immensity he could barely comprehend. He had always heard that his parents were strong, but he had never seen this. His breath caught. In her soul space, Ayame stared at that power, her eyes wide.
"Wow…" she breathed.
"That's only two-thirds of their team," Rei said, unable to stop the awe from creeping into his tone. "The other third is…"
He looked up at the source of power that suddenly flared into existence above him, a power so great that for an instant it was more blinding than the sun. Shinigami hovered in the center of that power, his eyes narrowed and his hair glowing as he ducked and wove beneath his opponent's blows, guns firing shots of concentrated wavelength through the air. Ayame followed his gaze and he felt a shiver move through them both, the two of them staring up at the display with wide eyes.
Rei shook his head and tore his attention away from the fight, looking back out at the city. He could stare later, he reminded himself. Right now, he had work to do.
It happened in an instant.
One minute, Corpore Evans was sitting at her desk by the window, biting her lip as she worked her way through her multiplication tables, and in the next there were explosions and shouts coming from outside and their class was quickly being hurried through the hallways by their teacher, the harsh buzz of an alarm ringing through the corridors above them. The next thing Cori knew, she was standing in a small room with an entire group of panicked kids, Annie holding onto her hand tightly enough to cut off the circulation as Ms. Connell, their teacher, stood a little ways apart, one hand over her ear to blot out the noise of the room, the other holding up her phone so that she could speak urgently into the mouthpiece in a hushed tone.
All around her, students were starting to cry, a handful of them that were weapons like Annie and Cori beginning to lose control and transform halfway, hands becoming blades or hammers or other implements of destruction as they shook with fear. Cori didn't, but she was aware that she was breathing very fast, that she was holding on to Annie's hand about as tightly as Annie was holding on to hers. Overhead, an explosion rang out, distant enough to be nowhere near the school and just close enough to send up another wave of panicked cries, students holding onto each other or ducking for cover. Ms. Connell's eyes widened, startled by whatever it was that she had heard on the other end of the phone, and she ran for the door.
"Stay right here, class!" she said, looking back at them. "Don't leave this room. It's going to be okay."
There was a man on the other side of the door, someone that Cori had seen talking to their teacher before and after school on some days. The door closed before Cori could get more than a glimpse of him, but she saw light from the little strip beneath the door, heard the distinctive ringing sound of someone transforming into weapon form. She tightened her grip on Annie's hand. She'd known—they all had—that their teacher had once been a student at the DWMA. With so many children with weapon or meister abilities concentrated around Death City, it made sense to have a teacher like that at the elementary school, but Cori had never seen her in practice. She never thought she'd have to.
But now…
"What's going on?" Annie asked, her eyes wide with alarm. "Cori, what's going on?"
Cori looked into her twin's eyes and made a conscious effort to calm down, to slow her own breathing. It was hard—she was so scared that she was starting to shake—but looking into Annie's eyes helped. It grounded her in reality, reminded her that she was supposed to be the brave one, the one who wasn't scared of anything. It peeled back some of the layers of fear, so that her mind could start working again.
"It—um—I think we're under attack," she said. "Something's attacking the city."
Before she could elaborate, a distinctive crash sounded, coming from close enough to rock the building. Something thumped into the floor upstairs, rattling the ceiling and causing the children in the room to scream again. Annie let out a whimper of fear, collapsing into Cori's chest as Cori's eyes narrowed, her eyes drifting upwards towards the ceiling.
That crash…it had sounded a lot like broken glass. The second floor windows? That sounded like it had come from their classroom. Had one of the attackers gotten in? Someone would deal with it, Cori knew, but if the teachers were too busy fighting off the other attackers…
She looked around the room, at all of the other panicked children, and suddenly being in here felt stifling. She didn't want to cower in here and wait to see if they were going to get attacked. Rei and Ayame were probably fighting, her parents were probably out there fighting. Wasn't she supposed to be the strong one? The prodigy who could fully transform before her fifth birthday? The Death Scythe's daughter? Was she just going to sit in here while everyone else fought for her?
If she had to stay in here and wait for something to happen, Cori thought that she was going to be sick.
"Come on," she said, making her decision. She released Annie's hand long enough to put both of her hands on her sister's arms, drawing Annie back so that she could look into her eyes. "Let's go. We're going to check it out."
Annie's eyes widened in terror. "Ch-check—Cori, we can't! We're supposed to-to stay here…"
"It'll be okay," Cori said, and although it still felt like her hands were going to start shaking again, she felt better for having made this decision. She gathered up her courage with her breath, turning towards her sister. "We can do it," she said. "You just transform. I can do all the work."
"B-B-But…" Annie began.
"It's okay," said Cori, tightening her grip on her sister's arms and looking into her eyes. "I won't let anything hurt you, Annie. I promise, okay? Trust me."
"But—I—okay." Annie lowered her eyes to the ground, her shoulders slumping in resignation. She transformed in a flash of light, transitioning into her scythe form. A black handle appeared in Cori's hands, forming into a sleek black blade that almost seemed to flow as if it was made from liquid metal. A single wavy red line streaked horizontally across the blade's flat, straight through the middle of the blade. The scythe's handle was just a little shorter than their father's or grandfather's, but for Cori's height, it was perfect. She gave the scythe an experimental twirl, spinning the blade to the side and around her head before gripping it in both hands, straightening up to her full height.
No turning back now, she thought, her eyes fixed on the door.
She took a deep breath and ran out of the room, turning the corner and taking the stairs two at a time.