Sorry to confirm this, but there will NOT be a chapter next week. Everyone remember the Naruto Seed Fic I mentioned a few chapters ago? I've been writing for that in my spare time and have all the way to the end of Wave pretty much done. So starting next Friday I'll start posting those chapters up at a rate of one PER DAY- hopefully writing the next SE chaps at the same time, but writing them and editing these and then editing and posting both would confuse the hell out of me and you'd probably end up with Kakashi testing the Genin by accident instead of the next SE chapter. So I'll post those up until the we get to the end of Wave, then hopefully post the next SE the friday after that finishes.

If you happen to like Naruto, my battle-scenes for it are pretty interesting if I do say so myself.

(And yes, I am fully aware how evil it is to do this on two matching cliff-hangers. But I never said I wasn't evil~)

Oh! And I HAVE to share this: Everyone remember back when Kid was first comforting Star in the infirmary~? Well... SOMEONE MADE FANART! Check out the top of my profile for the amazing KaburagiKotetsu's work over on Deviant Art. Her works have been a major inspiration for me to keep the fic going. THANK YOU SO MUCH, NA-CHAN!

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Sweat beaded on his skin.

"Again."

BlackStar, sword, BlackStar, sword, BlackStar. He bent over with his hands on his knees, panting for breath, head feeling like it was underwater.

"Again."

Sword, BlackStar, sword, BlackStar, sword, and back. His heart raced in his chest and no amount of breathing was calming it down as it fluttered erratically. His body ached like he'd been working out constantly for days instead of just hours.

"Again."

"How about fucking not?!" He snapped with a venomous green glare, gasping for breath. BlackStar stood up and staggered, absurdly grateful for Kid's presence at his side to steady him.

"Are you okay?"

Like hell he was going to admit to not being okay. The instinctive denial was on the tip of his tongue, "Yeah, cour-" Unfortunately, it wasn't the only thing on his tongue. Another wave of work-out nausea stole his breath away and bent him double, "Sh-shit. I feel like I'm gonna-" He ran to the side and puked. BlackStar was utterly certain he managed to up-chuck the dinner he hadn't had in three days.

"BlackStar!" And once again Kid was there in an instant, shinigami-cool hand rubbing his back soothingly as he retched.

A cold, contemptuous voice behind them had BlackStar tensing fit to tear something, "Again. We don't have time to pander to your weak stomach with the enemy prodding for every-"

If Professor Asshat tried every day for the rest of his life, he could still never hope to have a voice as chilling or commanding as Kid's own, "Shut. Up." Kid turned to the man, one hand still on Star's back, "Why don't you go harass the other students and leave dealing with my partner to me? We've been out here all day working, we've done every drill, every exercise, every work-out you could think of, with precious few breaks and no complaints at all. We're doing our best, and, in case it slipped your mind, we're fresh out of the hospital. I think we've done rather well for being nearly infirm, don't you?" And it wasn't as though BlackStar had shinigami healing to fall back on, his healing was all his own stamina and determination- and damned if he was going to show weakness around Captain Clusterfuck there. ...Aside from the arguably weak stance of being worked to vomiting.

The faculty member gave an affronted huff and turned away. Even as wretched as he felt, BlackStar managed a victorious smirk and thumbs-up, "Good man."

Kid ran delightfully cold fingers across his forehead and through his hair, "Mm." He leaned around to try and pin Star with his golden eyes, "Now that he's not breathing down our necks, are you really okay?"

BlackStar temporized, "I am... functional."

"That isn't an answer and you know it. The fact you had to use a three syllable word is proof enough."

Star managed what he considered a reasonable facsimile of his unconcerned grin, "Okay enough. Just, you know, altering my entire molecular structure's a little tiring is all."

Kid physically turned BlackStar's head and leaned down, resting their foreheads together and causing Star's eyes to shoot wide as he stared. He was stuck between his face just combusting from touching Kid's own, or sinking into the other's hold for the glorious sensation of cold on his overheated body. "You're hot."

Shaking himself from his stupor, Star managed to smirk and hold a hand to his chest, "Why, Kid, I never knew-"

Golden eyes rolled, "Oh, shut up." He straightened up and assessed his partner critically. BlackStar didn't have the energy to do more than kneel on the ground and slump down until his forehead rested against his knees. "Wait here, I'll go bring you some water to rinse your mouth out and drink."

Just where did Kid think he was going in this state?

"And don't listen to him, Star, according to what I've been hearing from the others, we've been setting records for progress."

Another thumbs-up in acknowledgement was his response and Kid was gone.

If he was being honest, BlackStar could admit that the biting comments stung, but after hearing them for so long, the vitriol only growing since Tsubaki's death, he was more or less numb to them. Let the bastards talk, they'd shut up quick enough when he beat them and they were left looking up to see him. Screw his own body and its imagined limitations, he was going to show them all. If he had to transform to weapon form and back another thousand times, he would.

He snorted as he focused on regulating his breathing and settling his pulse. These idiots were so impressed that he was willing to work until he puked without a word of complaint. They knew nothing. They had no idea of the years he'd spent pushing his body beyond its limits until he was spitting blood. BlackStar was no stranger to hard work, to pushing himself until he collapsed from exhaustion, and then dragging himself back up after that.

He was raised with the son of Death. Sid didn't pull punches, didn't believe in being too soft- and BlackStar truly appreciated that. He was young, but he was strong, he was a fully trained assassin for Shibusen, even if he loathed killing non-kishin and refused to, he had those skills. The other students had dropped like flies around him and Kid. The vast majority having come from the NOT class, they complained, they walked away when they worked themselves nauseous, several failed to pace themselves and fainted outright. None of them understood the training EAT students went through, or the stress of the life-and-death decisions that came with it. How the hellish training that EAT was put through felt like a blessing the first time one went up against a real life Kishin, how they begged for more classes and practiced ever harder in their spare time.

The NOT students watched in awe and envy as the EAT class showed them what a training session was. And everyone, wary or not, scared or not, EAT or NOT, stared in stunned disbelief as Kid and BlackStar left them all in the dust. Not a word of complaint left their mouths as they were worked into the ground, their efforts inspiring EAT students to work even harder as they tried to keep up. If nothing else, BlackStar was gaining respect with his classmates as he showed exactly how far he was willing to push himself and they saw for the first time that his claims of mastery and goal of surpassing god might not be the groundless bluster they'd always thought.

Several teams were at the edges of the training field, reclining in the shade as they let their muscles cool off, and watching as Star and Kid continued on, with blatant admiration that did more for Star than the false strokes to his ego ever had. He just plainly didn't have time (or breath) for bluster at the moment. He was tired of shouting when no one listened. There was no Tsubaki to soothe his ruffled feathers at being ignored anymore, or tell him to slow down, and Kid was pushing himself just as hard.

They couldn't afford it anymore. Put side-by-side with Kid as they worked together, the student body was left to realize just how even BlackStar was with their resident death god. Even, as Kid had so helpfully pointed out to their so helpless teacher, right out of the hospital. It did leave him to wonder, though, at the irony of life, that he was only finally getting attention when he'd stopped shouting for the world to notice him...

Kid was back at his side several minutes later and holding out a glass of water. BlackStar took it and rinsed his mouth out, spitting into the dust, and drank the rest of it. He frowned for a moment, it couldn't have been only his getting lost in thought: Kid sure seemed to have taken his time coming back. "Water fountain crowded?"

"Mm." And Kid apparently didn't feel the need to share his reason for taking the scenic route. Whatever. It's not like Star really cared enough to bother him about something so (probably) trivial when he had training to focus on, he really wasn't even curious about it. Except he totally was.

...Not that Kid would tell him until his perfectly symmetrical brain had worked it over anyway. He stood up and blew out a breath, tilting his head and testing his limbs, then turned to Kid with a grin, "Ready to get back to work?"

Kid smiled back and BlackStar felt his heart flutter, "Sure." And there was also the thinking that if he just worked hard enough, he wouldn't have the energy to get flustered about Kid being so close. BlackStar stood up with a deep breath and flexed his hands, reaching out to Kid, and went through the transformation exercise again.

Sword, BlackStar, sword...

He hadn't been kidding when he'd said that it was tiring to transform. He was changing his entire body, compressing it into the shape of a sword, then, before it could even become used to the shape, forcing it back into human form. Muscle memory, instinct. He had to get used to this, his first response when danger struck and Kid called for him had to be transforming so they could fight. He had to train himself out of throwing himself into the fight by himself. And it was like every other form of training: repetition, repetition.

It wasn't that much easier on Kid, who had to focus on running his soul wavelength through BlackStar's new form and concentrate on helping them keep up a base resonance to strengthen their bond. If they were going to go out and face those kishin-freaks, they were going to need to be absolutely flawless, or they'd wind up very much dead. That meant they had to be able to move and react like they'd been partners for years, not like they'd only officiated it yesterday like they actually had.

According to the older EAT students, they were making outstanding progress. The fact that BlackStar had been able to go from uncertain he could transform at all to running through shifting-drills amazed many. It wasn't as hard as he'd thought, he'd certainly heard Sid's explanation to other students enough over the years. "Awaken the sharp blade lying dormant in your soul." He'd managed to transform and even had a cutting edge. It hadn't been difficult when he'd meditated and the loudest thought in his head was being strong enough, capable enough, to protect Kid from these new horrors, protect him like he'd failed to protect Tsubaki. He wouldn't fail again, he couldn't. He wouldn't survive losing someone else, he wouldn't survive losing Kid. He'd felt the resolution solidify and the change had come.

Now he had to hold onto that feeling, had to know where it rested inside him so he could change in an instant. He couldn't afford to freeze, he had to be able to shift- and, he thought privately, he wanted to be able to manage the shift-dodging that made Liz and Patty so dangerous and wily in a fight.

Time melted away just like his body. It was such a strange sensation. His muscles ached and tingled strangely, like they had been numb and were just getting feeling back. They were strong, and they showed it off, but that wasn't really the problem, and BlackStar knew that Kid had to feel it, too. Being strong didn't make up for being skilled, and Kid wasn't- at least not with a sword. No amount of melting into gold light and black steel was going to change that. Fuck showing off how fit they were, the teachers should be letting him drag Kid off and beat him half to death with some practice swords to pound some sense of kenjutsu into his head.

Sid specialized in knives, but it wasn't like he was a slacker about other bladed weapons. BlackStar could feel the cloud of discontent hiding behind the shell of Kid's mask everytime the shinigami picked him up. They both got it: put the school through its paces ruthlessly, force the students into harmony with their new physiology, create stress enough to thoroughly test the new partnerships and break up the lesser ones. But the teachers apparently didn't get it: they were BlackStar and Death the Kid. If there was a change to his body and fighting style he couldn't adjust to on the fly, he probably rather deserved whatever gruesome death was coming his direction anyway. And did they not actually check on shinigami reactions? If Kid couldn't deal with something like ears and a tail, BlackStar'd beat him to a bloody pulp himself to get him over it. It had worked for the OCD.

If their physical reports for the day before Transformation Practice were anything to go by, their new appendages were only helping them with balance and detection. The sounds around them were so much clearer now, moving their bodies while keeping their center was child's play (which, probably a good thing since everyone seemed determined to treat them like children as if they didn't fight eldritch monsters on a regular basis).

So... what took so long to bring water? Have trouble finding a symmetrical glass?

Kid jerked with him in hand and BlackStar gave him an utterly unimpressed look as the light reflected off his blade. "No, I got... side-tracked. One of the other teachers had a message for me."

BlackStar waited impatiently before mentally crossing his arms and tapping his metaphysical foot. Annnd...?

"We... have a mission first thing in the morning. I'm not sure how you'll feel about it."

Star rolled his eyes. ...Not like I'm right here in your goddamned hand to ask or anything. I'm up for just about anything if it gets us out of here! He covered his hesitation well as his earlier thought echoed back at him. Kid, wielding him inexpertly at best. Kid and him both out there with their new enemy getting stronger. Kid, dying in front of him because he couldn't use a sword as well as they really needed to. Kid being put in the ground just like-

He shook his head within the form of the blade. He would never admit it, but he, BlackStar the Impertinent, the Impatient, was nervous about taking a mission. And damn Soul Resonance that let his every thought trickle down the bond he shared with Kid and flood the Meister's mind with images of his own death and imagined funeral. They winced simultaneously as Kid staggered under both the inflammatory scenes and the weight of his and BlackStar's combined emotions. Not that he wasn't used to dealing with BlackStar's moods, but he wasn't used to having them inside his head.

Straightening and shaking his head to master the sensations, he looked back down at Star in his hand. "It has something to do with that, actually; getting training for me, I mean. Father said something about only being able to send me since I've got the diplomatic training and the authority to negotiate."

That sounded funny. Why would you even need to negotiate? Negotiate what?

"...The admittance of a young Witch into the school."

BlackStar perked up. Are we taking Liz and Patty with us?

"We are. I just wasn't sure of your reaction."

Aaand, that put him on alert. ...Why? Who are we going to try recruiting?

There was Kid's nervous smile. "The, eh-heh... The Mystical Swordsman, Mifune, and the Witch Angela."

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