A/N: I.

Have.

RETURNED.

To absolutely no fanfare.

But, seriously, I apologize for the long wait for a new update. I started a new (horrible) job that I'd probably trade spots with Chrona over.

However, that's not important. What is, is that we have new chapter and the start of a new arc.

Unrequited Fire

"Why him?"

She wanted to scream.

How many times was she going to be asked that? It had gotten old after the first hundred times. Unfortunately, she didn't have the luxury of not answering this time. The one asking was her headmaster after all.

"Because, he…" Fidgeting with the, admittedly delicious, cup of tea she'd been served, she faced the same problem that question always presented. She didn't know.

Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had all been demon weapons. It had been expected, demanded even, that she be the same and, when the day came her weapon blood awoke, she'd already spent years preparing to join Shibusen. She had earned a place in the exclusive EAT Class with ease and had her pick of talented meisters. And, out of all of them, she'd pursued that infamous boy…

Abandoning his weapons when he got bored of them, causing trouble for everyone and running at the fight sight of danger, putting on airs of being a delinquent just to look cool... Though few did it to his face, he'd gotten himself a rather meanspirited nickname from his classmates.

Black Cat.

Teaming up with him was bound to bring misfortune. The rumors surrounding his previous partners didn't paint a particularly nice image of him either. 'He made his last one take the fall for one of his pranks and got them expelled!', 'She left Shibusen after he did something unforgiveable to her!', 'He abandoned them to a witch to save his own skin!'… She'd heard them all.

…that's probably why she'd sought him out. Self-sabotage.

But, in true Law fashion, he'd made it difficult. Avoiding her like the plague. Insulting her constantly. Rejecting her so many times she'd entertained a few other meisters just to make sure that the problem wasn't her. In the end though, she had gotten him to agree to it. And, even more surprising, is that when she finally had, she'd realized that her reason for pursuing him had changed to something else entirely.

"…I couldn't help myself." She didn't even try to hide her shame. He could probably read her soul like an open-book anyway.

"Oho! Young love!"

The tea in her glass had begun to boil. For a God, Shinigami-sama seemed way too amused about all this.

"Well, I can't blame you for wanting to partner with a boy you like!" And, really, he had no tact whatsoever, did he?! "Still, that just makes me more curious! Why would you split up if that's how you feel?"

Nosey. That was what Shinigami-sama was. A part of her wanted to storm out, but she wasn't some immature child who couldn't handle her own emotions unlike certain weapons. "…because." She squashed her feelings down, down, down into her soul and took a sip of her tea. The burn was a nice distraction from the miserable feeling she'd endured for months now.

"…he seems really happy with her, doesn't he?"

…when that large hand came reaching across towards her, she reflexively braced herself. She had seen that crack her meister- ex-meister's skull open enough to know what it was capable of. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited. Rather than a devastating chop, a gentle pat came instead.

"Being considerate of others' feelings is nice… but don't sacrifice your own in the process."

It was good advice. Still…

"…then, why did you choose to partner them together in the first place?" She squinted her eyes at him, waiting for an answer.

She hadn't known that someone could sweat through a mask before.

"U-uhm! W-well, I'm sure that you'll find a new meister in no time! Right! No time at all!"

It's In Her Genes

He really must have been getting soft in his old age.

The results on his screen should have thrilled him for all the questions it raised. How? When? Who? "Sitting in the dark again?" A recently divorced someone flipped the lights on and he turned away from his desk to look at the disheveled Death Scythe.

"Spirit." He injected as much annoyance as he could into that single word as he believed was possible. "Is there something that you need?" The older man was the last one he wanted around right now.

Hurt. Regret. Unease. Loneliness. Determination.

It was as easy as ever to read the redheaded man's soul, much to his own detriment as he couldn't ignore the effect his own words had on his former weapon. He had always been sensitive, but with his split from that woman, Spirit was like one big raw nerve.

"I, uh, picked up a pack of your favorite smokes. I was just in the area, so…"

Stein considered telling the Death Scythe that he had several cartons in his desk. The longer he looked at the grown man, shuffling and staring at his feet, in front of him, the less that seemed like an option. "…thank you." That was the appropriate thing to say, wasn't it?

He didn't have to wait for the other man to speak to get his answer, his upperclassman's soul lighting up in a way that he was sure others might describe as endearing. On the other hand, when he considered why his former weapon was so desperate for affirmation, he was forced to give his screw a few particularly rough cranks to avoid thinking more on the topic.

"So! What are you working on?"

Damn.

Stein turned back to his monitor. "…there's a student in Shibusen with some abnormalities in their blood." Keeping it vague was better than lying.

"…a-abnormalities?! We're not talking about some weird disease, are we? I've gotta to protect my Maka!"

Ha.

"No, nothing like that." Hitting a few keys, the sample on screen lit up in red. "What do you see?"

"…blood?" You would have thought after all these years that Spirit wouldn't sound so queasy seeing such a small amount of blood.

"Good. You're not colorblind." He tapped his keyboard once more and blues and greens joined the mix. "Weapon genes become active around puberty."

Squinting, the somehow significant figure of a school on this very topic looked at him cluelessly.

"…however, we do know that not every weapon produces a child that has an active weapon gene." It was tiring enough teaching this to his students. Had this man ever paid attention in class?

"Right. We weren't sure which way it was going to go for Maka." Mn. "It can skip a generation or two sometimes. Students whose parents were weapons, but they're meisters. Students who didn't know they were carrying the gene because their parents and grandparents stayed dormant."

At least he knew that much. "All weapons alive today can trace their ancestry back to the weapons that Arachne created."

"Right." Spirit was trying very, very hard to sound like this was something he'd known.

"What can you tell from looking at the sample?" The pained look on Spirit's face as he strained to spot the obvious was enough to make him light another cigarette. If there was one thing to be grateful to that woman for, it was that Maka hadn't inherited her father's intelligence.

…though, given her choice in partner… perhaps it just expressed itself in different ways.

"…it's… there's a lot more blue then green?"

While not wrong, Spirit had phrased it like an idiot. Sigh. "…the green are active weapon genes. The blue is the dormant. In the case of an average weapon, we'd usually expect to see the opposite. The weapon in this case is just barely past the threshold that would even allow them to transform."

"Huh." The Death Scythe's eyes has glassed over.

"In cases where someone's weapon gene remains dormant, we wouldn't see any active at all. So, this particular student can be considered deficient." An aberration to be sure. "…the problem is when comparing their active and dormant genes, they're entirely different."

Spirit cocked his head to the side.

"One can be traced back to the same roots as all the others. That's the dormant one. The other one…" Shinigami-sama was not going to be pleased. "…well, it appears someone put it there."

"…'put it'…?"

"This student-" unfortunately for her "- possesses a weapon gene totally unique to her." "Her…?!" "The weak presentation of her abilities makes sense then, whomever made her-" "M-made-!" "-may have done so improperly. Though, we have too little information on the first generation to say whether this is actually normal and she'll develop more over time or-"

"STEIN!"

…in his excitement, he might have said a bit too much. Spinning around in his seat, he didn't even need to read the man's soul. The emotions he was feeling were written plainly on his face.

"…what student are we talking about?"

Was there really any reason in telling him? Spirit had clearly already guessed. Was he just desperate to hear any other name than the one they both knew it to be? He chose to say nothing and let that be his answer.

Hoard

The wind carried the loose piece of paper right to the boy's feet. "Eh?" The child's expression went from surprise to blinding rage in an instant, snatching up the litter and glaring at it with so much intensity it wouldn't have been surprising if it burst into flames. "HEY!"

From his place on the bench, he could hear the boy stomping towards him and he lowered his book just enough to peer over the pages at him.

"Did you seriously just litter?! What the hell's the matter with you?"

The page was crumpled up and hurled at him. He didn't flinch even as it bounced off his head. He did raise an eyebrow as the boy picked it back up, sprinted over to the nearest recycling bin to place it in, and then sprinted back to thrust an accusing finger towards his face.

"People like you are the absolute worst! Consider how all the trees that died to make that paper would feel!"

He half-expected the child to take a swing at him, but instead he just sucked in a deep breath and stormed off spouting obscenities. Snapping his book closed, he headed over to the bin to retrieve the crumbled page. "No reaction at all…" It was disappointing. One plus one should have equaled two.

Adjusting his hat, he looked off in the direction the boy had fled and the ostentatious school that was undoubtedly his destination.

"Are you worth collecting or not, 'Law'?"

A/N: It was so much easier when their biggest challenges were their preteen drama...

Also, I should, at some point, probably get a Beta to help me.

Also, also, I know it was a long wait and I apologize again.

I hope you can maybe forgive me for this short chapter because right after this one is the longest chapter yet.