Episode 34: Happy Holidays 3

With only a minute before seven o'clock, Liz and Patty were frantically preparing themselves to start the party without Blair.

"What do we do? What do we do?" Liz started to panic. Despite her personality, Liz wasn't the type of person to suddenly take charge. Sure, so far she's done quite well in preparation for the party. But all of it was only in accordance to Blair's instructions—which, by the way, ended with: "Make sure to seat Kid and Maka away from the stage before the party starts" an instruction that doesn't seem to apply with the current situation.

"Is there something wrong?" Blair leaned in beside her to ask.

"Yeah, there is! We only have a few seconds before—Blair!" she gasped, finally noticing her.

"So, is everything alright? Are we good to go?" she asked, looking around the stage.

"Y-Yeah," Liz sighed with relief. "I did everything ya asked except for the last one 'cos Maka showed up with Chrona and not Kid. But I still placed them far away from the stage, is that alright?"

"Perfect," she smiled, peeking through the curtain.

"Is there anything else, we should do?" asked Patty.

"Yes, do your jobs and whatever happens, make sure you have that book handy at all times," she pointed to the Book of Exorcism lying on the table.

"Yes, ma'am!" the Thomspon Sisters saluted.

"Alright, looks like all that's left is to get this party started!" she picked up the mike and was about ready to signal the curtains when…

"Hello! Hello!" the Shinigami suddenly appeared on stage, greeting them with his usual easygoing demeanor.

"Shinigami!" Blair was taken aback.

Why the hell is he here? The party hasn't even started yet!

Blair didn't expect him to appear so soon. You see, to make sure all goes smoothly, she created several measures to limit any potential threat to her plans, among which was the neutralizing of Stein and the death scythes.

Having concluded that the best way to take down several of them at once was during afternoon tea time when they lowered their guard, having felt a false sense of security around the Shinigami. But of course, she also had to consider a contingency plan for those individuals who did not attend the afternoon gathering.

As one would've already seen, the results were more than adequate. However, even without the death scythes around, the obvious fact remained that the Shinigami was still the biggest threat to her plans. Unfortunately, unlike his death scythes, he wasn't someone she could easily dispatch using conventional methods.

Luckily for Blair, a solution to this problem just arrived recently in the form of his beloved, Kid-kun. With the way he's been acting, it was only a matter of time before the Shinigami confronts him about his behavior. Besides, considering the amount of bad publicity the school received due to the Paris incident, the Shinigami cannot afford to have a scandal especially now that the whole world was watching them. In any case, she can only hope that their little father-son talk distracts him long enough for her to complete her mission.

This doesn't make any sense. Kid-kun isn't here, so why the hell is this old man here?

Sneering underneath a polite smile, she asked, "Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for Kid-kun. Have you seen him?"

The Thompson Sisters shook their heads.

This is bad! If Kid-kun isn't here to distract him, then he'll probably go back to the Death Room and discover everything!

"H-He's probably walking about somewhere," Blair said, nervously. "Can't you use Soul Perception to find him?"

"I did. But he isn't in the city," he answered as he looked towards the sandy dunes, "He isn't out there either. Though, it looks like a lot of people are still coming here. I can sense a lot of souls way out in the sand."

"A-Anyway, if Kid-kun did go somewhere, I'm sure he'd leave some sort of clue back home," she chuckled, sounding even more nervous than before.

"Maybe," the Shinigami seemed unsure as he flew off.

That was close!

Blair was relieved.

"Are you okay?" Patty asked, seeing her sigh so heavily.

"It's nothing," she quickly composed herself, "But change of plans. Stop what you're doing and go look for Kid-kun. I'm sure he's still here."

"Eh! But didn't he just say Kid-kun wasn't here?"

"Forget what he said. If Kid-kun left the city, I would've known about it. So get going! It is very important that you find him quickly."

"Oh come on! He could be anywhere! It's a big school, you know?" Liz pouted.

"Way, way, waaaay big!" her sister added.

They protested even more, but Blair wouldn't hear any of it. "Start searching on the upper floors. That's where I last saw him. Now get going!" she commanded. And so, the Thompson Sisters trudged towards the entrance, perhaps seeing how futile it was to complain any further.

With their departure, Blair could calmly rethink her situation: So far, she just completed her first objective of neutralizing the potential threats to her plan. All that was left now was to start the party and it would be smooth sailing from then on. However, with the recent development of Kid's disappearance, the whole plan was in danger of falling apart.

"He's still got to be here somewhere. He can't have…" she paused. A sudden realization came upon her as she looked towards the desert, "those idiots better not have screwed anything up!"

Author's Notes: Happy New Year everyone! First of all, I'd like to thank you all your patronage in the previous year, I seriously couldn't have gotten this far with you, my dear readers. :) This year, I hope to be able to further improve my writing skills and be able to give you guys even better fanfics to read and enjoy! :) So, HAPPY NEW YEAR! XD