A Qiang is that famous Asian-style spear with the fluffy red tassel just below the tip.
Two original characters this chapter: Dzida and Teg. (Fun way to get foreign names? Run a word through Google Translate~)
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"Dzida!"
"Right!"
There was an instant commotion and Blair ducked under the Meister and Weapon's overreaction, losing her hat in the process; her light-tipped ears and flexibility as she expertly backflipped away afterward only highlighting her inhumanity.
"Fiend! We'll hear no more of your lies!"
Blair's ears flattened into her hair defensively, claws lengthening in preparation. She gave her response in a feline snarl, the growl vibrating from her chest viably as she bared her teeth and hissed. No queen that wasn't in heat put up with any tom's attitude. She hadn't ever as a cat, like hell she would as a woman. Her tail-tip flicked warningly against her leg, fluffed up intimidatingly.
"Enough!"
No, it wasn't, because he was still threatening her. "Who do you think you are to stand up to me?"
"Teg, stop it."
"Not a chance." The big buffoon and his spear-partner launched into motion and Blair jumped straight up in the air, mustering the magic within herself to create one of the flying jack o' lanterns she'd favored in her battle with Maka and Soul, rising up out of reach.
But he didn't stop at her: he made a break for the exit of the Death Room and Blair leapt from the gourd to land directly behind him, sending the pumpkin to block his path, "Where do you think you're going?"
He smirked back at her, "You've just said there's a witch on school grounds and it's injured. We're an institute that kills witches, I'm going to do my job."
He swung his weapon partner around, the unusually long blade on the end of the qiang smashing through her pumpkin easily. Blair's heart kicked into overdrive and she slammed her hands onto the ground, recklessly reaching out and grabbing the over-abundance of entropic energy around her and funneling it through her soul, down her arms, and across the floor to spring up as a great barrier across the exit hall. She panted raggedly, feeling torn and raw inside.
Small expenditures of energy, such as changing her form or clothing, could be done with her personal energy, not even needing an incantation, but stronger magics drew on the energy surrounding the user, which needed to be converted into her own before unleashing. The more energy that needed converting, the more time and effort it took, and the longer the incantation had to be to shape the spell. Blair hadn't given the energy she'd ripped from the very air around her enough time for conversion: in her panic, she'd run the smothering power directly through her soul and forced it into the shape she'd wanted, and it had taken its toll directly from her.
She stood up, legs trembling minutely from the shock, "No one... is going anywhere... until I'm satisfied... or dead."
He turned back to her, falling into an aggressive stance, "That works just fine for me."
Blair willed herself to stop shaking, even if she didn't use any magic at all, she needed to be able to count on her own reflexes. She mustered her powers, already fondling more of the death energy surrounding them, getting it used to her so it wouldn't be so difficult to draw on in a few moments when she needed it, "You're about to go up against a magician so powerful I was mistaken as a witch. Bring it on, little boy."
He ran at her, and Blair dropped down, moving forward in a feline motion to avoid the deadly edge of the spear, forcing it up into the air with a hand on the shaft and spinning around and lashing out with her leg to take her opponent's feet out from under him. Blair only saw the flash of light in her peripheral vision before a foot planted itself in her back and sent her tumbling forward, the Weapon grabbing his partner's hand and using his momentum to spin him around, correcting his stance, before he was once again took the form of a qiang in a second flash of light, leaving Blair's back exposed.
In an instant before the tip of the spear would have found her spine, Blair disappeared, shifting to her cat form and than instantly back to woman, now crouched before her opponent, a smile she hadn't worn since her battle with Maka resting on her lips, one of satisfaction in a threat about to be neutralized. Her hand was held out, the massive amount of energy she'd already gathered making it glow as her enemy couldn't stop his forward movement, his eyes widening, "Pum-pum-pumpkin... Halloween Cannon!" The glowing sphere in her palm transformed into a shining little jack o' lantern, and there was only a moment to see the horror on his face before everything exploded in light and thunder.
The floor shook, the walls of the hall trembled, the barrier she'd placed over the hall flickered with the clash of tumultuous magics, several telephone poles, already askew, collapsed. None of those watching reacted to anything, however, except for the forms sent flying through the air by the blast. Blair flipped around in midair, already summoning a pumpkin to catch her, landing on it on her feet, scuffed and scorched, her right arm particularly burned, but she could still fight, if she had to.
The two male forms, one blond and the other brunet, didn't get away so cleanly, skidding across the ground and leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. Golden eyes narrowed on her opponents. The weapon had transformed back into his human form and taken most of the blow for his partner, clearly unconscious and the back of his clothing burned away, his skin obviously suffering from severe burns. If he didn't get treated, he was going to die from the shock alone, to say nothing of infection or the wounds themselves. The brunet was on his feet again in under a minute, beyond furious if the shaking of his body was any indication, apparently willing to do battle without even a weapon.
Blair tensed, gritting her teeth, canines showing, and began gathering what little energy remained in the room after the massive explosion.
"ENOUGH!" Suddenly she and her opponent both were looking at pitch black scythe blades and a head of red hair.
She didn't particularly like Spirit Albarn. He was fun to tease- like a mouse: prey. But as a man he was too unpredictable, and she didn't know just how far his loyalty to Maka actually went. Would he step up to help protect Patty like Maka would undoubtedly want? If not, she knew his weakness, and being, at heart, a cat, Blair had no issue with fighting naked if it would give her an advantage.
The redhead glared between them and Blair's heart skipped a beat at the authority he wore like a second skin. No, this wasn't Spirit Albarn speaking, it was the leader of Shinigami's own weapons: Death Scythe, "You will show respect for Lord Death by not fighting in the Death Room!" the redhead turned her way, "Blair, remove that barrier so the medical staff can enter." he turned to the other combatant, "And you, Teg, will cease and desist. Go with your partner, Lord Death will talk with you later about your actions here."
The brunet scoffed and turned away to attend to his partner as the barrier came down and nurses rushed in. He was silent as they loaded his Weapon partner on a stretcher and carried him out.
"Oh, and one more thing." Cutting blue eyes bored into the other man's back as he stilled, "Keep away from Patty Thompson unless Lord Death specifically gives you permission otherwise." There was a moment of tension, hinting at the easily re-startable violence that had taken place, eased only when he eventually nodded.
The air was tense and silent until they and the medical staff were gone. Blair tried to keep on her guard since she had been accused of greatly displeasing the god of death in his own place of power, but as her adrenalin rush left, she had no more energy to spare and slid to the ground, pumpkin at her back to lean against, focusing on just breathing.
"Now that the excitement is over with, explain yourself, please. What do you mean 'tainted' to a witch?" Golden eyes blinked open to see who spoke. It was the boy with earbuds.
Another blonde, this one a woman with an eyepatch, spoke up, "Yes, wouldn't her sister have been more open to this taint you speak of? Elizabeth was impaled through the shoulder, wasn't she? Her sister was only struck by one of the limbs."
Blair relaxed her shoulders slightly, keeping a wary eye on her audience, "Maybe I used the wrong word. 'Taint' is not exactly correct. Why would Liz be the witch because of a wound? That has nothing to do with how magic works."
"Didn't you say that was how you got your magic?"
She sighed, but honestly was relieved that at least they were making an attempt to understand- and not attack her again, "You're not listening to me. As you were all so quick to let your fellow point out, I am a cat. I would never have been able to absorb my master's magic had I not had human blood in my veins. Patty has no such restrictions. Her cat himself is magical, and it's prolonged exposure to this that was responsible for priming her. She has spent an inordinate amount of time around magic every day of her life for months, held it to her chest as she slept at night. It's changed her, just as it changed me.
"As for the other part, I'm not certain, because I've never seen it happen before. I can only guess at the specifics."
"Anything is better than nothing. What's your best educated guess?"
The purple-haired woman ran a hand through her scorched hair, thinking things through very carefully, grateful that no one pushed or hurried her, "When a witch dies the final death, her soul returning to the After, her magic, if there is none around capable of bearing it, will disperse into the land. It will gather again and be born into another witch with those aspects the previous one had. A witch cannot have two animal aspects, they would tear her apart. Among witches, this is the natural cycle, and undisrupted as they have no use for each other's souls, only their place of magic and the patterns left behind.
"But when a witch's soul is devoured by one of your kind, you, humans, absorb the magic in their souls. You do not become witches this way, though, something about devouring their souls the way you do subjugates the magic to your Weapon abilities. It's why you have different abilities depending on the witch's soul that makes you a Death Scythe. When one of you dies, that soul and it's magic is released to start the cycle again. But those primed by exposure can inherit that magic at the moment it's released.
"I'm more worried about where Pushi got his magic from. If he were at all like myself, he'd have seen it as it was worked. This whole fiasco wouldn't have happened because he'd have known how to work the energies. How he has it, but no working knowledge of it... How he looks like a cat but is not one, almost in the way I look like a human but am not one, is what troubles me. That he is male and has magic troubles me. Even if a male were around magic all his life, it wouldn't be able to change him enough to wield it: there are no male witches. How that Kishin got its magic troubles me. There is more afoot here than just strange Kishin."
"When you put it like that, that, indeed, is all very concerning. But it fails to address the most immediate issue we face that Teg brought up: we now have a witch in our midst. What do we do with her?"
Blair glared, "Are you stupid? You train her."
"She's a witch, though. You, yourself, said how dangerous they are. A force of nature I believe you called them."
"Have you humans not found ways to harness the power of the wind and the oceans? The power of the heat within the earth? Here you have access to an unprecedented opportunity. A force of nature does not mean a force of evil. Look at what we've done, look at what your own kind are doing. Being human doesn't preclude being evil as the Kishin very well show, having magic doesn't guarantee the one who wields it will go down the wrong path. The danger is there, but the danger is there for everyone."
"You suggest we keep her? Train her? A witch in Death Weapon Meister Academy?" He was lucky he asked it sincerely instead of incredulously; her patience was at its limits.
Blair struggled up to her feet and faced them completely, injured, blatantly inhuman and unashamed, "I'm a cat, as half your students are now. That kitten has been loyal to you since she joined this school. What makes her less trust-worthy now? Magic? Lord Death had no issue accepting me with my magic, he let that-" she had to visibly get control of herself, "He let Pushi stay under his own roof though he had to know how strange a creature he was.
"Did we deserve to live? Does Patty deserve to live less?"
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