There were occasions when Kyoya Ohtori wished that his life were simpler, and this was one of those times. Perhaps, if he hadn't opened the Pandora's box of alternate universe travel, then things might not have gotten to this point, but he honestly didn't think that they'd have gotten very far without it. Perhaps, if he'd had more success in ignoring the plight of weapons, his father and brothers wouldn't have tried so hard to kill him... though without those assassination attempts, he might never have even met half of those he now counted as allies. Maybe, if his father had assigned him to medicine or business as an area over which to preside, rather than academia, he'd have been better able to build his army...
...and maybe if he were a wielder instead of a weapon, he'd actually have had a shot at inheriting his father's power. What was he doing? He wasn't a tangled mess of human emotions like his sister. Speculation changed nothing, and he had things which needed doing.
Shaking his head, Kyoya finished composing a letter to Yuki Nagato, which detailed the history of the Ouran Alliance and its allies, as well as offering an open invitation to join them in the Fight for Justice. He didn't know much of her, as of yet, but she seemed to at least be a Shinigami who understood the value of madness. It was always good to find sensible gods. It made him feel just a tiny bit better about their collective prospects for not destroying the universe.
Next, he sent a text message to Tamaki, reminding him to stop whatever idiotic thing he was doing and go meet up with the rest of the wielders for today's diplomatic mission to the Demension of Mass Destruction.
A few minutes later, a knock sounded at his door. It seemed as though the three DMD wielders were here. Wonderful.
"Come in," said Kyoya.
"Thank you for coming," he told Maka Albarn, Black-Star, and Death the Kid as they filed in. "I have a favor to ask of you."
"What is it?" asked Black-Star. "Should we go get the rest of our team?"
"That should not be necessary," Ohtori told them. "At any rate, I believe they're at some weapons-only meeting at the moment."
"Oh, okay."
"That's part of why I asked you here," said Ohtori. "Would you be willing to help train our wielders? Perhaps show them around your own organization today?"
"Of course," said Kid. "Such acts of sharing knowledge are part of why father asked us to come here in the first place."
"Is that all?" asked Maka.
"I believe it—ah, yes. One more thing. Ms. Albarn, you might want to tone down the meister-on-weapon violence. Some of the people here are sensitive to that sort of thing."
Maka frowned. "Violence?"
"Quit Maka-chopping people, I think is what he means," offered Black-Star.
"He didn't say 'people', he said, 'weapons,'" said Maka. "By which I assume he means my weapon, since he's counting me as a meister. That means I can still hit you, so watch what you say."
She turned to Ohtori and bowed. "Sorry about that. It didn't even occur to me that I was being insensitive. I'll try to do better in the future."
"It's understandable," said Ohtori. "From what I gather, your organization takes a lighter view of combat than does our own. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to get to."
"The 'weapons-only' one?" asked Black-Star.
"As far as most members of this organization know," said Kyoya. "I am nothing more than a human weapon, so I am included amongst their ranks."
Kid paused, uncertain about something. "It's need to know, your... nature, that is," he said, trying for delicacy. "Who exactly knows about it?"
"Those who were at the meeting, Yuki Nagato," replied Ohtori, "and my family. That's all."
"This," said Ayame Ayanokoji, "Is an intervention."
"A what?" asked Liz, eyes narrowing in suspicion, looking around at the gathered weapons of the Ouran Alliance.
"An intervention," she said. "For the four of you. You need to find new wielders."
"Haha, yeah, sorry. No." said Tsubaki, looking deadly serious. "That's not going to happen."
"Over my dead body," said Liz.
"They're abusive," said Ayame.
"No, they're not," said Patty.
"Yes, they are." said Renge. "Look, I get that they're nice people, in general, but there's a certain kind of person that doesn't do well as a wielder, because they can't see their weapon as anything other than an object... and those three fall squarely within the profile."
"Screw your profile," said Soul. "It's our choice, and we're not changing partners."
"It's weird," sighed Ayanokoji, glancing at Soul. "It's like you're the masochist in whatever sort of sick relationship you've got going on."
"Well, first I don't know what you mean," said Soul.
"You see..."
"I don't want to know," he clarified, making a face. "Are you saying that you think Maka and I are... together?"
"I'm not saying anything," said Ayanokoji. "I just wanted to let you know that, in Ouran, things are different. You don't have to... submit... to your wielder the way you might be expected to do back home."
"What? No, it's not like that—we're partners!"
"It's consensual?"
"We're partners, but not like that!"
"Okay, fine," said Ayanokoji's mouth. Her tone said, 'I don't believe you.'
"Look," began Soul. "It's not like that, and—if we ever decide to make it like that—it's nobody's business but ours. My relationship with Maka has always been one of back and forth: I insult her, she hits me. You wouldn't think it was weird if we were siblings, would you?"
"Black-Star doesn't abuse me," said Tsubaki, feeling that her statement was obvious.
"He treats you as an object, spies on you in the bathroom, and issues commands in a degrading manner," argued Ayanokoji.
"He's... kind of a handful, I'll give you that," admitted the Shadow Weapon. "The washroom thing is just because we're both Assassins and he has no sense of decorum. Age-old adage is that an Assassin is on guard, even when in the shower. He knows he can't sneak up on me any other time. And it's not like I don't lodge throwing stars into his skull every time he tries it..."
"They command you to transform. They don't even say 'please,'" Ayame pointed out.
Tsubaki sighed. "It's not degrading. It's just easier, in the heat of battle."
"And in practice?"
"Well... yeah," she said. "Look, we don't mind. Isn't that the important thing?"
"Not if you've got Stockholm Syndrome."
Tsubaki facepalmed, and Ayame moved on to the last two weapons.
"The death-god was sexually harassing you two," she said.
"What?" asked Patty.
"He was objectifying you!"
"He was obsessing over our bone-structure," said Liz, recalling the incident to which Ayame was referring. "That's completely normal for him. He's actually come a long way. Patty, remember that time he had a nervous breakdown because our chests were different sizes?"
"Ah, the old days..." said Patty, shaking her head fondly at the memory.
"He what?!" said Ayanokoji in outrage.
"Look, it doesn't matter," began Liz, "I'll have you know that, when we were forced to take a hiatus from our partnership with Kid, we each had eighty-nine souls—" But the red-haired Death Scythe wasn't finished.
"I know things are different where you're from," said Ayame, "but we're a weapons' group. You don't have to let them dominate you," she said to Liz and Patty. "You don't have to become romantically involved with technicians." Here, she glanced at Soul. "You don't have to call them 'meister.' We have our own wielders here, so you have other options."
"You really don't get it," said Tsubaki. "Look, they never looked down on us or tried to hurt us, or treated us with anything less than respect in any of the ways that matter."
"But they're dangerous and unstable," pointed out Renge.
"So are most of us," pointed out Patty.
"You people are all insane," said Ayanokoji, shaking her head.
"What do we have to say to convince you guys they're good people?" asked Liz in exasperation.
It was at this point that Kyoya Ohtori entered the room.
"What we have here," he told the four DMD weapons, "is a failure to communicate. You four seek to show that your wielders respect you, but you're using cultural examples that don't translate.
"If I'm not mistaken," he continued, "your team was nearly dissolved because of an altercation with Witches? Perhaps that would be a better story, if you're trying to convince people from our dimension."
"Okay..." said Patty, looking at Ohtori like he possibly had a screw loose. "Well, these two Witches turned our meisters into weapons, so we had to finish turning ourselves into Death Scythes before we could help Kid, Black-Star, and Maka... and now we're all Death Scythes and still a team?"
"What?!" exclaimed the Ouran Weapons.
"You're Death Scythes?" asked Renge.
"Yeah?" said Liz.
"Your wielders were turned into weapons?" asked Kanako.
"So?" said Soul, somewhat defensive. "They're still more qualified to be meisters than half the 'wielders' I could name."
"And this was before all of you were Death Scythes?" asked Ayanokoji.
"Does this mean that you're going to get off our case about finding new meisters?" asked Patty.
"I believe I can steer things from here, yes," agreed Kyoya Ohtori. "If you have other things you need to be doing."
"Okay. Bye, crazy people!" said Patty. The other three also left the room, uneasy expressions on their faces.
When they were gone, Kyoya Ohtori straightened his glasses and addressed the room.
"Six months ago," he began for his silent audience, "their three wielders were transformed into weapons. After that, do you know what they did?"
"Stepped aside and let their weapons become Death Scythes?" asked Ayanokoji, still incredulous at the notion. That never happened. Either the wielder committed suicide, or they insisted that nothing had changed and tried to continue on as they normally would. Come to think of it, those people also usually wound up dying...
"No," said Ohtori, to the vast confusion of those in the room. "As it turns out, Soul Eater Evans was already a Death Scythe at that point. They stepped aside so that he could form a team with the other three weapons who weren't yet Death Scythes, forsaking their own progress in the interest of not slowing down their teammates. Once those four were Death Scythes, they allowed themselves to be used as weapons until they'd consumed a hundred souls and regained their own abilities."
He snapped his notebook closed and glanced over the gathered weapons. "As near as I can tell," he said. "There is no particular dignity associated with the role of the weapon, or of the wielder, in the Dimension of Mass Destruction. By their own standards, these people are not normal: they are legendary: a team known for their courage, compassion, and, camaraderie, who took on an S-class Kishin and came out victorious.
"Find new wielders?" he said, looking amused. "You would sooner convince Sting to forsake Bilbo, or Iris to abandon Ra..."
He turned and walked towards the door, leaving them with one final remark:
"I've said this before and I'll say it again, there is a reason we are allied with these people."
There weren't many meisters in the Ouran Alliance, as it turned out, but Tamaki Suoh seemed to be their leader, along with his young 'apprentice' Shiro Takaoji. Coven Nekozawa and the Hitachin twins were also included, as well as Hani and Mori (though they were weapons they usually acted as meisters). There was also a group of three girls that those in the DMD hadn't met before.
"Hey," said Haruhi, as they passed through one of Shibusen's larger corridors. "Where did Maka and Black-Star go?"
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Whooooooooooo!"
**Crash**
"I believe they are chair-jousting." said Kid, shaking his head.
"Not bad," said Stein to his kids. [Stein thought of his students as his kids (either that or his lab rats. It was hard to tell sometimes)].
"Maka," Stein said, "you need to get going faster, if you want to take out a more massive opponent. And Black-Star? Someday you're going to have to learn the importance of aim. Again."
"Yes, Stein-sensei!" said the two, snapping off salutes and wheeling their chairs to opposite ends of the hallway to begin another round.
"This is a typical day of training for you?" asked Nekozawa.
"More or less," said Kid. "Once you reach a certain threshold of power, being able to psych out your opponent and catch them off guard becomes a much more significant part of combat. Would you like to try?"
"Yes," said the twins.
"Too bad Kyoya's not here," said Tamaki, as the two Hitachins found chairs and began careening down the hallways themselves. "A rifle would be just the thing to add some insanity to that game of yours."
"Ohtori carries a rifle around?" asked Kid.
"Oh no," said Tamaki, "he is a rifle!"
"Oh, you mean his 'weapon' form..." said Kid carefully. "Suoh, how well would you say that you know Ohtori?"
"Very well! He's my weapon!"
"Your... weapon," said Kid, not sure what to make of that. He knew that Suoh was unaware of Kyoya Ohtori's status as a Shinigami, but he was less certain about whether he truly believed the cover story.
"Have you ever been on a mission together?" Kid asked, fishing for information.
"No," replied Suoh.
"Have you ever trained together?"
"No."
"Have you ever seen him transform?"
"No," admitted Tamaki, "but he said that if he ever does fight, I can be his wielder!"
"Right," said Kid. "Well, you have fun with that."
At this point, however, Tamaki had become distracted.
"Hey, look a vending machine! Who wants to play kick the can?"
"I'm up for it," said Kasanoda, eyeing the swivel-chair brigade with some amount of disbelief, willing to jump on board with the first sane idea that came around.
And so, as Tamaki Suoh and the other wielders of Ouran learned, an average day of training for the Shibusen meisters was not, on the whole that much different than a day of slacking off.
A few days later, it was back to business as usual. After a day of training with the various weapons who requested his assistance, Tamaki spent another day trying to bring some semblance of charm to the Time Wasters Society.
It always helped to maintain some measure of awareness over the conversations in the room around him. In the center, Blair and Black-Star seemed to be discussing some aspect or other of magic.
"If Kirimi's a cat, then why does she have ice powers?" asked Black-Star.
"Why not?" said Blair. "A Witch's powers—they're taken with what the human associates with their animal self. Medusa must have been doing calculus in the cradle, to realize that snake heads look a little bit like vector arrows. I lived on a pumpkin farm as a kitten, and the farmer was the only human I knew during childhood. Kirimi, though she's a cat, has always had a thing for snow-leopards. It's a personality thing more than an animal thing."
"Huh," said the Assassin. "Go figure."
"Wait," said Liz, who was sitting with her group along the south wall. "You guys don't have a pool?"
"Or a garden?" asked Patty.
"We're a military organization," said Haruhi, shaking her head.
"So are we!" said Patty.
"We have no money," said the Dragon Witch. "The income from that play you put on? We spent it stockpiling food for a siege..."
And, ah yes, those two fairies appeared to be back, and were over in the corner, nursing hangovers.
Maka Albarn, who had been looking into Celtic mythology recently, was questioning them about their origins.
"We were kicked out of fairyland because we stood up for this group of poor defenseless humans," said Silver.
"Yep, not because we were drinking at all!" added Sapphire.
Silver shook her head. Well, there went that story's credibility...
Later on, in an extremely well-thought out plan (Tamaki's idea), the strongest of the Ouran Alliance's fighters (and Tamaki), were exchanging combat tips and techniques with their visitors from the DMD.
He honestly hadn't been expecting to see what he was now looking at.
Team Death Scythe seemed to be trying out complex interchange maneuvers that involved switching out wielder-weapon roles in order to throw opponents off guard. Liz and Patty took the lead, as they had the most experience in such matters.
Then, Maka partnered with the Thompson sisters for a demonstration, once they'd gotten the hang of it.
"I can see this being very useful in the future," said Maka, a self-satisfied smile on her face, as she changed from whip to human, trading place with Liz who was at that same time turning from human to pistol. "Oh," she said, realizing something. "You guys have that taboo about public transformation, though. So this might not really be applicable..."
"Actually," said Renge. "Not all of us care. I'm French, for example and, for us? Transformation is completely natural and nothing to be ashamed of."
"Cool," said Soul. "It's nice to find something familiar. What with no one ever transforming, it's kind of hard to tell who's weapon and who's meister around here."
"Why are all the weapons girls anyway?" asked Patty.
"Well," said Haruhi. "Research indicates that the Y-chromosomes aren't great for weapon tendencies... but it could also just be that female weapons tend to have a harder time of it, since most wielders are male, and that the majority of those desperate enough to join the alliance are female."
"Oh, just shoot me now." said Maka, putting this together with Ohtori's warning about violence. "We've been steamrolling through a cultural minefield again, haven't we?"
"Big time," agreed Soul, recalling the recent 'intervention' attempt.
"What's the damage?" she asked.
"Not as bad as the incident in Thailand," said Tsubaki. "But not a whole lot better either."
"What happened in Thailand?" Tamaki wanted to know.
"While chasing after a pre-Kishin, we kind of toppled over a procession of monks that were going out on alms rounds," said Death the Kid.
"They fell over like dominoes," added Black-Star, helpfully.
"Apparently, you're not supposed to do that," said Maka. "Although they didn't seem all that bothered: just got back up and walked on. It was the spectators who were glaring at us the whole time. Apparently, lay people are supposed to hold religious figures in high esteem, so..."
"The point is, we don't do well with other cultures," said Liz. "We go in with little-to-no research and usually wind up causing an international incident, or destroying something priceless. Although, you'd be surprised about how often those two overlap..."
"What we're trying to say," continued Tsubaki, "is that we know that we tend to do this, and we're trying to do better. Both us and our meis—wielders. See? We're learning."
"So, look out Ouran-verse!" said Patty. "We're about to show you how Team Death Scythe does cultural sensitivity!"
AN: Thus ends the 'yay, I'm done with finals!' writing party. Not sure if I can get anything else written before school starts, so updates will likely slow back down again. Thanks for sticking with me this far! Excelsior!