*finger guns* WriterGreenReads, our war of reasonable times continues, I see. M1LK T3A (interesting username change BTW), I'm glad you find Rex adorable. He's a good kid. And unfortunately, Anon, my update schedule is something that bears a suspicious resemblance to a roulette wheel, which I'm sure everyone can tell if you take a gander the timestamps on the last fic. Or any of my fics. To be brutally honest, saying I have a schedule, like, AT ALL is a bit much. I write when I have the inspiration to write, and what's most important to me when I write is A) delivering a specific, usually preplanned amount of content per chapter, and B) ensuring the content is of good quality and, generally, as plausibly canon as I can make it outside of my obvious artistic licenses. Delivering content on a regular basis, like every other Tuesday or whatever, forces me to conform to a time constraint, and some chapters are longer than others. (Longest I ever hit was 15,000 words, I think. Oof.) This means that inevitably, at some point, I would have to either rush content or delay it, two things that would disappoint my readership and make me stressed and unhappy. This way, every time I update it's a pleasant surprise for you and a satisfying event for me, and unless I drop off the face of the earth for another two years, everybody's happy.
The current mitigating factors for this fic specifically is that there's a lot of small but important lore details in Soul Eater, which I have to check over before I publish, and I kinda burned myself out just the teensiest bit trying to get the prior fic finished before my birthday, and I'm also working on the embroidery for my RenFest costume before our 50th anniversary season (hopefully) opens in August. So things will definitely be slow starting out, but as the fic progresses, hopefully I'll pick up the pace. I'd say you guys should probably expect somewhere between one and two chapters a month at this point, which will hopefully pick up more towards a chapter every two weeks or so once I get into gear.
Also literally everyone (but one) who reviewed so far, ON BOTH SITES, has never seen Soul Eater, but are like maybe willing to try this for my sake, and that is the sweetest thing I've ever read. I'll try not to disappoint you guys, and also describe things a little more! (I even went back and edited the first chapter in that direction, since that was also written at the end of my burnout and I wasn't all that proud of most of the stuff I wrote.)
Also, many of these exposition/setup chapters will tend towards the longer ends, because I really painted myself into a corner with my idea for chapter titles and my momma might have raised an aesthetic-thirsty fool, but she didn't raise a quitter. You know the useless lesbian joke? I'm a useless asexual, and my kink is characters having a gorgeous theme and sticking to it through thick and thin. Like RWBY? Hello, yes, I am WEAK. (For disclaimer purposes I should note Arya never goes to RWBY because it does not fit into my overarching plot for her.)
Yes I have an overarching plot. No it is not "make Arya suffer"…mostly.
July 15th, 2020
Arya's POV:
The feeling of Rex writhing and warming in my hand as he transformed back to normal was…going to take some getting used to, and I not-quite-flinched and immediately dropped the hand I was holding as he regained human shape. It was…instinctively weird, since I couldn't remember the last time I'd even shaken hands with someone, so that was going to take some getting used to as well.
"So…where you from?" I asked, rubbing the back of my head and trying to counteract the unintentionally rude message of whipping my hand out of his like he had rabies.
"Oh, um." Rex blinked and shuffled as we pulled away from the line like some of the other aspiring pairs were doing, nearly as awkward as I was. But he inhaled and recovered his courage almost immediately as we got to the wall, starting off on a response so automatic I had a feeling it was somehow scripted. "My family's been living in Death City for generations, we're hereditary Weapons. Mostly swords and blades. I came to the DWMA when I displayed my Weapon powers at 13, I've been looking for a meister ever since."
I blinked. "How old are you?"
"E-eighteen. My birthday was a few weeks ago."
There was a pause as he looked away, avoiding my eyes. An eyebrow slowly rose into my hairline. "And you haven't found a meister in five years?" I asked him, trying not to include any incredulity in my voice.
Rex winced. Palpably.
Oookay, that's definitely some icky sticky drama that I probably don't want to get involved in.
"Uh, anyways, my name's Arya Thompson, as mentioned prior. Don't call me anything else if we wanna be comfortable with each other –I use Arya almost exclusively because that makes it seem marginally less like my parents were some weird creepy Neo-Nazis."
Wait, were Nazis even a thing in Soul Eater?! What historical period was this set in? Wouldn't Lord Death have sent the meisters down on them like a ton of bricks the second they even thought of getting genocidal!?
"I ran away from home almost two years ago," I said hastily, knowing that any brief moment of confusion would be quickly offset by the alarm of hearing someone admit that. "-and I've been on the road ever since. I turn eighteen this October, and I'm here to make a Death Scythe."
There. Nice and ambiguous, but still with enough personal information to start someone off with. I didn't mention where my home was, why I left, where I'd been since then, or why I'd come to the DWMA, leaving me with a nice amount of wiggle room later, if and when I needed to adjust my backstory. The only concrete information Rex, or anyone, had at this point was the fact that I was essentially probably homeless and seventeen years old, and also probably from somewhere in America due to my accent.
Rex had also provided me with a few key tidbits in turn. He came from a Weapon family that lived in Death City, which meant his allegiance was firmly and possibly even fanatically in the DWMA camp, and he also probably had at least some small amount of cultural and social training in being a Weapon/DWMA student, since I seemed to remember attending the academy –for long enough to learn to control their ability at least– was mandatory for anyone with manifested Weapon genes. Having been kicking around the NOT class for five-ish years, he was definitely an experienced student, which meant he personally knew his way around the school and around student life. He was also older than me by a few months, but as of yet that didn't really signify.
All in all, I could do worse for a partner.
"W-why'd you run away?!" Rex asked with his eyes wide with alarm, which was the expected response to such a statement, unfortunately. I shrugged with one shoulder and fished for an excuse.
Be vague, be vague. Don't commit to anything and you can still change your backstory around later if you need to.
"Eh, well."
I shifted a little from where I was leaning against the wall.
"Y'know. Things happen."
Ah yes, nailed it. Nobody would ever consider such an "explanation" suspicious at all. I thought with a subtle twitch of my eyebrow.
"W-wow." Rex stammered, but this time he seemed to trip over his tongue from awe, not anxiety. His grey eyes were still wide when I glanced over in surprise, but now they were shining too, and he was looking at me like I was some kind of action hero.
On the other hand, maybe my erstwhile partner's an idiot who'll eat up whatever I throw at him. I thought with another, less aggrieved twitch of my brow. I could definitely do worse than this guy.
"So do you have an apartment that we'll be sharing or what?" I asked, tapping the pocket of my bag where the paper Sid had handed out resided. "I mean, first years like me are supposed to be in the dormitories, aren't we? Or are you still in the dorms?"
"Still in the dorms." Rex admitted, looking at the ground again and reaching up in what seemed to be a nervous tic to fiddle with one of his stud earrings.
"Eh, cool." I said with a shrug, gently jogging him with one of my elbows in an effort to instigate a feeling of comradeship. "At least this way one of us doesn't have a place leagues above the other."
"The girls' dorms are way better than the boys." Rex mumbled, eyes still downcast and still fiddling with his earring.
Mooootherfucker, I'm trying to carry a conversation here! I wailed in my head. Rex didn't look any better, especially when a sudden blink seemed to bring the realization that he'd been the one to start it floundering.
"Uh, but w-we can apply for an apartment the semester after we join EAT regardless of year!" he added hastily. "Would that be cool with you?"
"Sure." I agreed, relief washing over me. "I've been in dorm situations before, and it's like…okay, but having my own place would be cool. Eh, own place plus one."
Rex smiled shyly and stopped toying with his earring.
"Rent is usually $200 per month." he said, making me do a double-blink and straighten up from my lean against the wall.
"Seriously?!"
Granted, I'd never lived on my own in modern times, but that sounded like it was missing at least one digit, even if it was student housing. Actually, if it was college student housing, it was probably missing more than one digit.
"Well, they don't charge us anything for living in the dorms." Rex said with a reasonable shrug. "Students get a monthly income of $1,200 from the school through our allowance, discounting any jobs we pick up, but we're the ones that buy our own food and any other necessary products, so it evens out, more or less. And apartments are almost always jointly paid by partners, so really its only like $100 per month, and we can arrange for them to take that out of our weekly allowance, so the payments are automatic."
"You seem to know a lot about it for a guy that lives in the dorms." I said with a smirk, and he offered me a sheepish grin.
"I had a partner before…"
DRAMA DANGER DRAMA DANGER DRAMA DANGER DRAMA DANGER!
"That's nice." I said tightly, my voice heightening. "We cool now? I mean, with having me as your partner?"
"Y-yes!" Rex squeaked, displaying the same tension I felt as he shuffled busily and looked any direction but me, rubbing his hands together for no discernable reason. "Cool. Super cool! Its fine!"
We both laughed in unison, trying to replace nervousness with humor, or at least drown it out. I was pretty sure we wouldn't have fooled a blind rabbit with our awkward laughter, but neither of us was going to call each other out on it.
"Soooo…" I said as our hasty, awkward laughter petered out. "We between semesters right now?"
"A-a little." Rex said, tugging at his stud again. "Generally speaking, we run to the Japanese system of schooling, with the year beginning in April and the first semester ending in July. This is the summer provisional orientation for the NOT students –you know, Normally Overcome Targets."
"I'm aware." I said, deadpan. I still didn't get that acronym. Who called their student body targets?!
"The Japanese system isn't the only one in the world, after all, so people who transfer in between years or grades will have to show up, well, now, or at other points of the year. The fall semester starts at the end of our orientation week, but the school's already open for EAT students and so are the dorms." Rex finished. "Are you between, uh, years right now?"
I thought back to the last time I was in school, which was at the beginning of summer (although not this summer) several months ago. It was a private college for British nobility, and I had infiltrated it as part of an undercover spy mission for my pint-sized, eyepatch-wearing boss, Ciel Phantomhive. Given as my brief few months there had begun in stupefying, out-of-date educational boredom and ended in a zombie tea party, I didn't think it counted as a traditional school year.
"I haven't been to proper school since I was sixteen." I told him with a shrug, which was true enough. "Honestly, I just kinda…showed up, today."
Also true, and potentially criminal. Could you be charged with fraud if you tried to enter the DWMA illegally/without paperwork?
Hmm. Problematic. Then again, nobody had questioned my credentials thus far, which was kinda dumb given how many unknown enemies the DWMA had. When any mook off the street could become a Kishin Egg by virtue of enough soul-devouring murder, it would be ridiculously simple for said mook to sneak into the one institution dedicated to hunting them down and, I dunno, murder as many of the people there as they could.
Then again…a number of meisters had the ability to see souls, which included the violent, red fluorescing aura that wrapped in bubbles around Kishin Eggs and other wicked souls. Presumably any one of said meisters would sound the alarm ages before an infiltrator could cause damage.
Then again…Witches, at least, could disguise themselves with the Soul Protect spell. Damn it, why did this all have to be so complicated?!
"Uh, do we need documentation or anything aside from the agreement we're supposed to sign?" I asked sheepishly, scratching the back of my head. Shameful as it was to take advantage of preconceived assumptions, playing the part of ignorant unschooled clod tended to work out in these situations, especially when I was from Virginia. Granted, that only worked with people who understood the (largely incorrect) cultural implications of the Appalachian and Southern accent of American English, but when it did work, oof.
I was also a blonde chick, so…eh. I'd take the negative assumptions for once if it meant I wouldn't get thrown in fraud jail or whatever it would be.
"Do you…do you have a passport?" Rex tried.
"Nope."
"Driver's license?"
"A-nope."
"…birth certificate?"
"You know, I'd love to find out."
A gloom cloud briefly enveloped us. I wasn't even lying: I had a fake passport, labeling me as Ari Thompson, that Romano had gotten for me when we'd been sneaking around in the Hetalia world and that I'd continued to use for the heck of it throughout my travels there. And of course, in Black Butler, passports weren't really a thing, much less viable modern ones.
And as for my driver's license, I'd been sixteen when I'd left my world, so I'd already gotten my learner's permit and was working through the complex red-tape nonsense involved with getting my actual license when, well, wormhole shenanigans ensued. In Hetalia I'd been too busy trying not to die to apply for the actual license, and it was 1889 in Black Butler, so no cars. Hence, I was still license-less.
And of course the good lord only knew where the heck my birth certificate was in my world. Probably in some safe somewhere, or a security deposit box. I didn't actually know, since while multi-world traveling was excellent for life skills like problem-solving, strategy, enculturation, historical nerdery, independent living, and language studies, it was much less excellent for things like socially-necessary paperwork, licenses, the education system and its attendant knowledge, and the broad spectrum of legally-centered knowledge loosely described as "life skills."
Like, sure I knew how to drive, but it'd been long enough that I wasn't at all comfortable getting behind a wheel anytime soon. I didn't know how to pay any bills, and while I had a vague notion of budget management, I didn't really have an acute understanding of how to deal with the distribution of a proper income. I didn't know how to pay or file taxes. I didn't know how to get a passport or any other kind of legal documentation.
So yeah, in stating that I'd basically been itinerant this past year and slightly-less-than-a-half, I was neither wrong, nor lying, nor exaggerating. My highest level of real education was sophomore high school, which for non-Americans was my tenth government-mandated schoolyear out of twelve, since I'd chucked myself into an alternate dimension in the summer break midway between sophomore and junior year. Statistically speaking, I was far behind my peers at this point, which wasn't exactly the fun-est of feelings.
"Um, we can go down to the legal department, and I think you'll be fine if you have a good background check." Rex said nervously, tugging on his earring again.
"Thanks dude." I said with a winning smile, feeling a bit like a manipulative jerk. Rex seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and here I was misdirecting him and sort-of-kind-of-deliberately-on-purpose leading him on with a false premise for my own benefit.
So this is what being a gold-digging bitch feels like. I thought vacantly, looking up at the ceiling. I don't like it.
Sid whistled a little to bring us out of our respective conversations, and we all looked over.
"That'll be a wrap for today." he said over the dwindling murmur of talk. "You're dismissed. For new students, remember how long it took for you to get up the stairs today and factor that into your calculations for your morning tomorrow. If anyone's decided on their partnerships, please come up and have a word with me before you leave."
Rex and I exchanged looks, and I nodded firmly.
We pushed off the wall as the other new students began to file out of the room, waiting politely for three chicks ahead of us to speak with Sid, two in the typical schoolgirl fuku with brown and black hair respectively, and another with a prim blouse that contrasted oddly with her bouffant afro. As we ambled towards them, I caught the flash of Sid's dark eyes again, and experienced a brief moment of worry. Was there something off about me? I mean, I was in a thinly-disguised summer outfit comprised of swimsuit shorts and a T-shirt, which wasn't exactly school-appropriate, but this school was in a desert and also had no set dress code. Was it the fact I didn't belong in this universe? I hadn't signed up for the right stuff to sign up?
Frantic question marks were buzzing around my head as Rex and I stepped up, and I tightened my grip on the strap of my apocalypse bag.
"Rex and…"
"Arya Thompson." I said, anxiety churning in my stomach. Sid nodded slowly and rubbed his chin.
"And the two of you want to be partners?" he said, briefly glancing up from his clipboard before looking back down again. Something in the way he tapped his pen indicated an emotion I wasn't comfortable with, concern or irritation –there was a frisson of tension there that was unnatural and uncharacteristic for a teacher.
"Yeah." I answered as Rex bobbed his head in the affirmative.
There was a brief pause as Sid inhaled slowly.
"On the first day?"
His gaze rose again, something opaque there. My eyes slid sideways, and I stiffened as I realized Sid hadn't been casting glances at me, he'd been casting glances at Rex, who'd been behind or beside me most of this time. Well, alternating glances between the two of us, but since he started with Rex and ended with me, it was obvious where his concern lay.
Shit, what drama have I landed in the middle of now?!
Rex Rayner wasn't a canon character in Soul Eater, not as far as I knew, so why was Sid, who was canon enough to be in both the story and the prequel, invested in him, especially to the point of concern?
I ticked back everything I knew of Sid. When the Star Clan had been raided and destroyed by the DWMA, he took Blackstar in and raised him nearly as a son. He was considered to be a good teacher by every character who had something to say on the subject, including Maka. He'd even given advice on their teamwork to the people that were trying to kill him one time, which was educational dedication if I'd ever seen it. Students and teachers liked and respected him on a universal basis.
He didn't kill anyone on missions unless he had to, but when he did, it was swift and brutal, which was fitting, considering his partner was a combat knife. He was a three-star meister, which by DWMA ranking meant he was the most skilled and powerful, the elite of elite, able –and this I knew from experience watching the anime– to fight off multiple opponents even without his partner or accustomed weapon. He'd beat the tar out of Maka and Blackstar with only an uprooted tombstone, and for all his loudmouthed idiocy, Blackstar was still the most combatively powerful student in the DWMA, no arguments.
Considering he'd also been willing to do that –tricking his students that is, even if it was for their ultimate benefit– Sid was definitely the type of guy to follow the orders Lord Death sent down without question of qualm. He was professional, caring, and paternal, which meant any concern for Rex was probably less in the neighborhood of 'This is an antichrist child or something that threatens the school' and more 'Lord help this poor boy when I cannot.'
Which was good, I guess, but then again…I wasn't sure if I was comfortable with the implied drama that had warranted such concern.
"Yes on the first day." I said firmly, reaching over to gingerly clap my hand on Rex's shoulder, since I wasn't altogether used to like…actual sustained human contact between me and another person, and also I hadn't asked permission for touching. "We like, clicked, dude."
Not the most professional way to phrase it, but even as I winced and readied myself to add another comment, Rex spoke up beside me.
"I'm alright with this, sir." he said respectfully, shifting a little but seemingly fine with the hand on his shoulder. "I think we can make it work."
Sid nodded slowly, and seemed to relax. "Alright then. See the two of you tomorrow."
I took my hand off Rex's shoulder and we left with a happy goodbye.
"So," I began as we went off down the hallway. "Paperwork?"
A shudder seemed to go through Rex. "Um…yeah. Don't take this the wrong way, but do you…do have any, um, anything?"
"Like ID and stuff?" I asked. He nodded. "Nope. Not a scrap of it."
Rex sighed. "Then this is going to take a while. Well, we can go to Medusa's office-"
I screeched to a halt. It was a close thing, but I even managed to keep myself from taking that a step further and going in the opposite direction as Rex continued for a bit, then blinked and hastily turned.
"Arya?"
What was the best way to explain to your oblivious companion that his nurse was an evil mad scientist of a Witch in disguise and you would rather split your skull open with an ax than go to her medical office?
"She the school nurse?" I asked, trying not to seem obviously, well, suspicious.
"Um…yes?" Rex blinked.
"Can't we see a doctor? Like a regular, graduated doctor with a PhD and stuff? I'd feel way more comfortable that way. Can we do that? I'd love to do that. I'd really rather prefer that."
I was babbling here and not ashamed of it. In terms of personal safety, Medusa wasn't that scary at this point: she was at the DWMA in disguise, and she wasn't going to break her cover with nefarious nonsense over one random student. What was scary was the fact that Medusa was sneaky and smart enough to play multiple major global organizations against one another flawlessly, and planned out her moves weeks, even months, sometimes years in advance –and every plan had a counter-plan and at least three contingencies. Medusa didn't have Plan A and Plan B, because that implied the existence of only 26 plans. She had plans A-Z for Contingency 1, 2, 3, and onwards, and about three different diabolical plots on the boil at any given time, with forward-reaching consequences that could shatter nations. Give her a micrometer and she took twenty miles.
For example's sake, Medusa had publicly unleashed the original Kishin, aka the biggest force of evil this world had ever known, from underneath the DWMA where he was imprisoned, then strutted her smug ass back here a little bit later and gotten the DWMA to actively help her with an effortless mixture of blackmail, coercion, and bribery.
So yeah, I was not even remotely comfortable with the idea of going to her office and submitting to a medical exam, since there was a decent chance Medusa would somehow be able to wrangle an inescapable favor out of it in the near-far future.
Also, for what she did to Crona, I wasn't altogether certain I'd be able to resist the urge to try and bury a scalpel in her eyeball, regardless of my own goals and maintained cover. Say what you will about shitty anime parents, most of them didn't replace their kid's blood with a malignant entity, treat them as a science experiment, and chuck them in a dark room for days on end without food or water –and with the aforementioned malignant entity being very, very cranky with said kid.
And also force the kid in a grueling training regime designed to shape them into an apocalyptic destroyer god, ruthlessly strip away their feebly gained support network of friends, and openly admit that their kid meant nothing more to them than a failed experiment, but that was more par for the course with evil anime parents.
"Uh, I guess we can go to an independent doctor." Rex said, blinking in surprise. "We'll have to go down the steps, though."
Mountainous bitch-climb or not, I did not hesitate. "Let's go!"
***Time Skip***
"The heck do I do with my blood type?" I asked aloud as the bus chugged along the cobblestone street, and Rex leaned over in the seat beside me. He'd gotten the relevant paperwork on our way out of the school, and I was currently filling out the stuff I could on the way to the doctor's office, such as name and various appropriate colors –eyes brown, hair blonde, etc.
"If you don't know absolutely for sure, just leave it blank." he said with authority. I clicked my tongue in acknowledgement as I scanned down the list.
It was mostly standard stuff, and the extra twists were, I presumed, due to the fact that the DWMA had a lot more qualifications and responsibilities than normal schools. It was, at least in part, a military academy, and also just international. The people needed to know what kinds of vaccinations and so on that you'd had in your home country, and there was a worrying statement about a placement test that assessed where I was on various ordinary school subjects like history, math, science, etc.
Since this wasn't my world to begin with, I had a very gloomy feeling about the history part of the test, and I wasn't much more sanguine about the rest of it, since again, formal schooling and I had been on the outs for quite some time now.
The physical test was less worrisome, though it was still concerning, because there was a sharp distance between exercising for personal fitness and survival and the unmitigated hell of American physical education.
A tangible shudder traveled throughout my entire being, and I reached out and grabbed Rex by the collar without looking away from my informational sheets.
"This physical test they talk about here. Does it involve," Deep inhale. "-the pacer?"
"The what?" Rex blinked, seemingly and rather oddly okay with me holding him by the collar of his undershirt like I was trying to shake him down for money.
"Pacer. Beep test. The unholy satanic sprinting module."
"Uh…no?"
A relieved ooze that loosely equated to me melted to the floor of the bus, and Rex made a sound of alarm as he grabbed the now-loose pages.
"Arya? What's wrong?! Is it really that bad?"
A deep, shuddering breath convulsed my form on the ground.
"The American fitness grand pacer test is the stuff of whispered and horrified legend." I raised a shaky finger. "Two lines lie across the vast expanse of the gym floor. Between the twain lies a gulf of exhaustion and tear-streaked fear! You must run to the opposite line, my child, before the dreaded beep."
"That's not so bad." Rex said reasonably, helping pull my boneless form back up into the chair.
"It keeps fucking decreasing! Round one or whatever its fine, only a little bit of time shaved off between beeps, and you can jog easily to the opposite end and wait for a bit, but then it keeps upping the pace! The interval of each beep is shorter than the last! And after only a few minutes you can't stop running, you can't slow down, its one continuous run where you pivot and dash back from whence you came! And if you have the audacity to try and break out, like slow to a jog and then stop because the beep sounded before you made it to the line, the gym teacher chews you out! You didn't put in enough effort! You aren't pushing yourself! So what if your lungs are aching and you're all sweaty and you hate every single microsecond of it, push yourself harder you lazy six-year-old bum!"
I waved my hands in the air.
"Fifty laps, sixty laps, seventy laps, the legends that keep going after everyone staggers out in exhaustion, its such bullshit! It doesn't test anything! It just heightens nervous tension, social pressure, and fucking exhausts the kids! We're in elementary school man, why they got us sprinting like that!?"
I flailed angrily.
"Uh, well, we don't do that at the DWMA." Rex said, tentatively reaching out to pat my shoulder. "The physical test is just push-ups and sit-ups and a 2-mile run. They expect you to do about 13 push-ups in two minutes, and 47 sit-ups, and if you can do the two-mile run in under twenty minutes, you're in."
I felt myself relax a little. That wasn't so bad. I'd never counted how many push-ups and sit-ups I did in my morning exercises, but I could probably make the cut if I pushed myself. I hadn't run properly in ages, but I had been horseback riding, which at least meant I wasn't sitting around doing nothing with my leg muscles.
Of course, what with the schedule we'd been given, I was going to finally have a chance to get back into proper shape, since we had gym first thing every morning at 7.10 AM. I'd have to get some desert-appropriate exercise clothes, and also a water bottle.
Shuffling papers aside, I checked our schedule sheet again.
Day A Schedule:
7.00-7.10: Homeroom
7.20-8.00: NOT Physical Education
8.10-9.00: History
9.10-10.00: Social Studies
10.10-11.00: Science
11.10-12.00: NOT Lunch Period
12.10-1.00: Study Hall
1.10-2.00: Mathematics
2.10-3.50: Meister Studies
Day B Schedule:
7.00-7.10: Homeroom
7.20-8.00: NOT Physical Education
8.10-9.00: History
9.10-10.00: Social Studies
10.10-11.00: Science
11.10-12.00: NOT Lunch Period
12.10-1.00: Study Hall
1.10-2.00: Mathematics
2.10-3.50: Weapon Studies
Day C Schedule:
7.00-7.10: Homeroom
7.20-8.00: NOT Physical Education
8.10-9.00: History
9.10-10.00: Social Studies
10.10-11.00: Science
11.10-12.00: NOT Lunch Period
12.10-1.00: Study Hall
1.10-2.00: Mathematics
2.10-3.50: English
It looked like our school schedule was split up into a rotation of three different "days," A through C, with a different final hour for each new day. For the Day A schedule, there'd be something called Meister Studies from 2.10 to 3.50, and if it was Day B, it was Weapon Studies. Day A was Monday and Wednesday, Day B was Tuesday and Thursday, and Friday was taken up by Day C, where presumably our whole class reunited for English.
Interesting. This seemed slightly more like a college schedule than I'd expected, especially considering that most of the other students, aside from me and Rex, were in middle school, or at least around that zit-and-angst-ridden age of 13-15.
Another shiver spiked up and down my body. Middle school was a tough time for everybody, but looking back on even my own experiences was almost as bad. The formative years of becoming and independent individual were a bitch to get through, especially when everyone around you was having the same problem and handling it in a variety of not-so-good ways.
I jumped a little as Rex tapped my arm with a sideways jerk of his hand, simultaneously pressing a button embedded in one of the nearby poles with his other hand. "This is our stop!"
We both stood and made our way to the front of the bus as it slowed to a stop, offering the driver a friendly wave before trotting down into the street. Since we were heading to Rex's family provider, someone who knew the DWMA and would have no problem collaborating on what needed collaboration with, I was putty in his hands as we headed down the street –Knife Boulevard, ha ha– towards a small family-friendly-looking squarish building with the peaked red-tile roof and white plaster walls typical of Death City. My estimation that it was a family clinic was only confirmed when we stepped inside and I saw the bright happy posters everywhere, as well as a role of large stickers on the receptionist's desk.
"Uh, hi." I said as we approached, setting down my bag. "I'm a friend, er, Rex's new partner at the DWMA, and I'm here for…"
"Full physical examination." Rex said, taking over as he saw my uncertainty. "She doesn't have any ID or medical records, so we're building them back up again from the ground."
The receptionist nodded. "I see. The doctor should be available for an exam, however, there is a fee-"
I held up the envelope with my $200 weekly allowance.
"That'll do. Rex, if you could wait while we look your partner over?"
"Um, sure." Rex said, casting a nervous glance in my direction as I forked over the requisite cash. It reminded me of a puppy checking on its brand-new owner…I was half-tempted to pat his head and tell him he was a good boy and I'd be back soon. But he took a seat in one of the cushy waiting chairs calmly enough, picking up a well-worn child's picture book and seemingly content to wait as the receptionist led me through the cool hallways to a small examination office with flattened white window shades, undoubtedly done to block out the bright Nevada desert sun. I sat down on the thin crinkly paper atop the padded examination table, dropping my back on the ground and prepared to wait.
It was a boring few minutes, largely because this office was fairly blank aside from the usual medical paraphernalia. On the right-hand wall next to the door was a rack of the various eye and ear testing instruments, along with the dispenser of sterile tips for them, with my examination table stretching out towards the far right-hand corner. There was a standard office chair for visitors on the wall opposite me, right next to the desk, with a cabinet above the desk and a set of drawers below, and a rolling chair for the doctor. There was also a very large, boxy computer and old-fashioned mouse. The left wall had the window and a box of sterile gloves bolted into the wall, and the wall behind me had a set of scales, a measuring pole for height, and a sink. Not the most investing of views, especially since I'd been seeing one just like it for a decent portion of my childhood.
With perfect timing, a lady whom I presumed to be the nurse bustled in just as I was thinking about diving into my apocalypse bag for a book, clipboard at the ready.
"So you're Rex's new partner?" she asked, and I nodded and reached out, meeting her handshake halfway. "My name is Mchumba, I'll be your nurse today. Before we get started, do you have any medical conditions we should be aware of?"
"Nope." I said, swinging my legs a little atop the table, just like I used to when I was small. "At least, not so far as I know."
She scratched something out on her clipboard. "Any allergies?"
"Also not so far as I know."
"Past surgeries?"
"Uh…" I rubbed my neck and the slash of discoloration there. "Kinda? This, um, this thing happened with a cut on my neck, and I know I had to undergo an operation to like close it back up and stuff. Not sure if that counts."
"It counts." she said, writing busily. "Do you know if there were any complications or adverse effects of the surgery?"
"Nope. Surgery went through fine and it healed clean." I said, which was especially true given the fact that a friend of mine had pulled some haxors crap and healed the wound supernaturally fast with some borrowed regeneration. It was too bad there was still a scar, but hey, it gave me badass points.
"Mm. Ooookay. Do you smoke or regularly consume alcoholic beverages?"
"Nope and nope."
"Do you exercise regularly?"
"Uh, yeah. I have a morning routine that I go through, sit-ups and push-ups and contortions and whatnot." I said, continuing to idly swing my legs. "Stuff to keep me in-shape and flexible, and now that I have the opportunity, I'll probably start running again too."
She nodded, scribbling frantically.
"Do you, or have you in the past, consumed drugs for recreational purposes?"
"Also nope."
"Are you currently on any medication?"
"Nope."
"Is there any history of mental illness within you or your family?"
"Not that I know of. I'm pretty boring, health-wise."
"Boring is good. Right." She clicked her tongue as the frantic scratching of the pen continued, before tapping it briskly against the clipboard and clicking to sheathe the nib. "This is a DWMA examination, so we're going to have to be more thorough than your average medical exam. You're a NOT student?"
"Yep."
"Then you aren't going to be expected to start fighting Kishin or anything like that for quite some time, but all the same, its still DWMA policy for all students to be assessed on the same basis as the conventional army and police forces. You have no medical records, is that right?"
I winced, and slouched a little from where I sat on the table. "Uh, yeah."
"May I ask why?"
"I ran away from home, and I don't even know where my family is right now, never mind remember who or where our doctor is or was." I explained, trying to keep in mind the fact that all this information would be transmitted back to the DWMA. "And since I skipped town before I got my driver's license, I don't really have like…any ID, since everything requires either that or your social security, or both, and I don't know mine."
Mchumba gave me a sympathetic frown.
"Well, we're going to fix that here and now." she said kindly. "Now, since you don't have any records, we're basically going to have to assume the worst and give you everything again from the ground-up. That means blood-typing along with the standard medical exam, and all the required injections."
I stiffened. "Injections?"
"The DWMA is an international school, with students who travel to just about every country in the world and interact with individuals of every age." Mchumba said with the typical blitheness of a nurse who didn't have to get the shots. "Hence, the full battery of vaccination is required for all students."
I shrunk back nervously.
"And…how many is that?"
"27."
Keen ears may have been able to detect the sound of my soul dying a writhing and painful death.
"But that's at the end of the exam!" she said happily, spinning her pen. "First we have to get height, weight, blood pressure, eyes, ears, and heart! You can lock the door while you climb into that hospital gown there, and I'll be back soon with the doctor."
***Time Skip***
Thirty minutes or so later, I was limping out of the doctor's office without a single lollipop to my name, though I had the dubious pleasure of the absolute and irrefutable knowledge that I was 5'10, my blood pressure was 117/77, I weighed 153 pounds, my blood type was O-positive, and I had no current health defects. The doctor had also poked around my body everywhere to make sure of the individual location, size, and tenderness of my inner organs, stuck a thingy in my ear to make sure it wasn't blocked, and then administered a hearing test. They'd tested my vision, too, and pronounced it good, and listened to my lungs and heart to make sure my breathing, rhythm, and valve function were normal. While typing my blood, they'd also drawn some for testing, which I would hear back on eventually –I wasn't worried, given that I was more than fairly certain there was nothing out-of-order with me in the physical sense.
I was also thoroughly vaccinated, with five or six kiddie bandaids (some which had Lord Death skulls on them, which was disturbingly cute) patched over each of my inner elbows and a further dozen plastered all over my aching thighs, once again re-clothed in my swim shorts rather than the paper-thin gown. I also had the paperwork for the DWMA, most of which was now filled out, excepting things like legal ID, place of residence, and other such notables that were basically nonexistent for me.
"Hey." Rex said, blinking a little as he saw the colorful plague of bandaids dotting my arms and legs. One was also wrapped around the tip of my finger, since they'd needed to draw a pinprick of blood for the typing part. I felt like a pincushion.
"Is this all we need for documentation?" I asked miserably. The real bitch of the matter was the fact that I knew I'd had at least a decent portion of these injections before, but without proof and without knowing which specific ones, I'd had to endure them all over again.
"Er, we can drop all this off tomorrow, but yeah, for right now that should be enough." he said, standing up and putting his latest tattered picture book aside. "I can show you the way back to the girls' dorms, and then, um…"
He looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. A subtle pink glow crept up his face.
"…maybe we could…hang out? A-as like a partner thing?"
I blinked a little, then shrugged. "Eh, sure." An idea struck me, and I began to grin a little. "Death City has libraries, right? Maybe we can check them out before we go to the dorms. Eh? Eh?"
"Oh, uh, yeah sure." Rex stammered as I tugged him out onto the street. "Whatever you say!"
Whatever this guy's deal was, I was starting to figure out that it probably had something to do with his past partnership. Maybe he and his partner hadn't clicked? There really wasn't a precedent for that sort of thing as far as I knew in the series…granted, the series followed the best and brightest teams as a matter of course, but even then, Weapon-meister partnerships didn't really…end. Sure, Soul and Blackstar had split off from their respective partners Maka and Tsubaki to make their own team once (for not even one full episode), with hilariously bad consequences, and in the manga, after Kid had been kidnapped, Liz and Patty had briefly used each other, but that was really, like, it. Blackstar had failed to even pick Soul up, and they both lost a schoolyard fight, and Liz and Patty were siblings, which seemed to negate the usual Weapon-wielding-Weapon rule. Oh, and that dweeb Hiro had used Excalibur for a while and then split up after the legendarily annoying Weapon had finally broken him with constant sneezing, but that was the so-called Holy Sword Excalibur, reputedly capable of matching with anyone, so it didn't really count either.
Meister-Weapon partnerships didn't end in the series. All the faculty adults still worked alongside their respective partners, or were strong enough, or in an academic-enough position, that they didn't need them. In Justin Law's case, he'd never had a meister to begin with, which was understandable enough, I supposed. Physically wielding a buster sword like Rex was difficult, but physically wielding a fucking guillotine in a fight was all but impossible.
So in Rex's case, he'd had a partner, but he didn't now. Why? That wasn't normal, by DWMA standards. Rex seemed like a fairly likable guy, so unless he was somehow hiding intensely diabolic tendencies, it wasn't as if he was the sort of person to have scared his meister off. He was a NOT student too, a noncombatant, which meant it was unlikely his meister had died (yikes) or been injured to the point of retirement. And Rex had specifically said he'd had a partner, in the past tense, and been looking for one ever since, and he'd been in the NOT class for years.
I didn't have enough information for a full picture yet, obviously, but it was becoming suspiciously likely that Rex's prior partner had ditched his ass, for reason or reasons currently unknown. That'd explain why Rex was so eager to please and weirdly okay with me manhandling him –other than any specious body-irreverence that came with him occasionally being an inanimate object designed to be held, he possibly didn't want to give me even the slightest reason to ditch him as well. Hence, constant affirmation, acceptance, and placation.
That was concerning, and I'd have to push Rex to have a little backbone for himself, since otherwise it'd be too tempting to constantly run right over him. Meister-Weapon partnerships occupied a weird space that wasn't just friendship but usually wasn't romance either, but there was a definite sense that meisters tended to be the ones that wore the metaphorical pants, and I wasn't entirely comfortable with the notion of a Weapon –of anyone– who was just automatically okay with anything I said or did, solely because I was the socially-accepted dominant partner. I did not want Rex to get into the habit of deferring to me all the time, despite his own personal judgement and past his own opinions.
He was proving useful now, though, chaperoning me around Death City and the public libraries there, flashing his DWMA student ID in place of a library card for the books I checked out, which was a bit nepotistic, but whatever. The less paperwork I had to fill out right now, the better. My elbows were still achy from all the needles that had been stabbed into me.
"So, see you tomorrow on Bus 42?" I asked as we stopped at the gate of the girls' dorm, fenced-in by an ornate iron gate. Rex bobbed his head, still looking a little uncertain. "Partner?"
"Y-yes!" Rex jumped involuntarily, his chin jerking up as his eyes met mine. "Ah, see you tomorrow!"
I saluted him around my stack of books, grinning a little, and we went our separate ways as I trotted up to the doorway, shadowed by an elegant balcony. Palm trees and other desert-suitable greenery provided a lush yard, and I was able to hook a finger around the doors and pull them open with comparatively little effort, which was good, since I was still loaded down with my apocalypse bag as well as the stack of books.
Okay…I could see what Rex meant by saying the girls' dorm was luxurious. The outside looked like a resort, the building looked like a baroque mansion of orange brick and pale columns, and the inside entrance hall had a fireplace hearth, a raised portion behind wooden railing full of chairs and coffee tables for lounging against one fall, and a green fainting couch with another table in front of it, not to mention even more plush furniture scattered about, elaborate paintings on the walls, and an ornate staircase. More hallways opened up into the other parts of the building, which was far longer than it was tall, and the glimpses I caught into the other rooms seemed equally baroque.
Ooooookay. Sweet. What's the boys' dorm like? I feel sorry for Rex…then again, anything would seem sucky compared to this.
"Uh, hello?" I asked aloud. This was a dorm, after all, and I was pretty sure school was out, so there should be at least two or three people within hearing distance at any given moment.
"Oh? Coming!"
An adult woman in a plain olive-green button-up shirt under a dark burgundy dress stepped into the room. She had a thinnish red-bound book under her arm and dark brown hair that fell to her shoulders with a slight curl –and her eyes seemed to be permanently closed. Weird, I grant you, but this was an anime, and it wasn't exactly the first time I'd dealt with someone in that…art style?
It was one of the few meta things I was still fuzzy on.
"Uh, I'm one of the new NOT students for this semester." I said, shifting from one foot to another. "And you are?"
"My name is Misery." she said with a pleasant smile, taking me a bit aback. "I'm the superintendent of this dormitory, I live in my office on the first floor and you can come down anytime you need something. Do you have a partner yet?"
"Rex Rayner." I explained, and watched in surprise as her eyebrows twitched just a little. The motion was so subtle and so quick I couldn't even register what the expression was supposed to be, but it was definitely a change in expression.
Just what the hell kind of drama was between him and his first partner?! I shrieked internally. It wasn't anything illegal, was it!?
"Well, he'll be in the boys' dorm, so we'll have you with one of the unattached meisters." Misery said without a break in her cheerful demeanor, beckoning me up the stairs. I followed, noticing as I did that the landing and hallways were…weirdly skewed. I was used to architecture that took me in a straight line, but everything seemed to be weirdly tilted or angled, like a funhouse. Thank god the floor and walls were flat, at least, even if the way the hallways and roomed joined together was weird.
"Uh, out of curiosity's sake, these dorms are separated by gender, right? What happens if someone's trans or genderfluid or whatever?" I asked as we turned the corner onto the second floor, looking with interest at the narrow piano against one wall and the draped bay window in the corner of the building, with a convenient lounging seat underneath.
"It depends." Misery hummed. "If the student transitions after they've been enrolled in the school, they're usually allowed to switch to the correct dorm, and of course, if they've transitioned prior to entering, they enter their proper dormitory as a matter of course. Genderfluid students can apply to their dorm of choice."
"Neat." I said, which it was. "How many students are there?"
"The EAT students tend to live in their own rented apartments throughout the city, so the dorms are mostly NOTs and first-years." she said as she led me along a long stretch of hallway which seemed to cover the entire front of the building, bright windows on one side and a uniformly-spaced row of dorm room doors on the other. "The division between boys and girls is fairly even, so we're looking at about 580 residents in this dorm every semester, give or take. The dorm has capacity for 590, with 115 rooms on the first two floors and attic corridor of the main wing, with a further 180 in the two side wings, since they have three floors each. We try to settle the new NOT students in the main wing close to the stairs, since you're not used to the DWMA schedule yet."
"Makes sense." I hummed. After all, if school started at seven in the morning, and it took roughly an hour to get up the steps…plus bus time…
Oh Jesus lord fuck. I'd have to get up at like five in the morning!
I am never, ever, again going to complain about waking up early to go to school.
"Basic necessities are provided for, like shampoo and hygienic products, but food expenses and luxury items are on you." Misery continued cheerfully. "The kitchen and bathroom are both communal, as is the laundry. I can get you a map if you like, or show you later. But for now, here's your room!"
She opened a door that was functionally identical to all the rest we had passed, showing me a tolerably cozy room with fancy green wallpaper and two half-poster beds with brass frames against the opposite wall, both at a reasonable distance from each other. There were two nightstands beside each bed with matching small lamps on them, also made of brass and with a dark rose shade, and between those two nightstands was the window, facing out into the backyard of the dorms. On either side of the door I'd come in were smallish student desks, each topped with another lamp and with a comfortable chair parked before them.
There was also a black-haired girl on one of the beds, midway through painting her nails with a sparkly midnight-blue polish.
"You can rearrange the furniture as you like during your stay," Misery said with one hand still on the door, smiling. "But please keep your fellow dorm residents and the noise in mind when you pull everything around."
"Uh, yeah, sure." I said.
"Of course, Miss Misery." my roommate agreed placidly.
There was a moment of silence after Misery left, and I turned to drop my books on the table, then my bag on the bed.
"So, um, hi." I said. "My name's Arya, I'm in the NOT class."
"Ao Hoshino." the girl chirped, continuing to paint her nails. "I look forward to learning from your example!"
Wait a second…
The tickle of memory in my brain exploded into lucid thought. I did recognize this chick –she'd been the one to creep in right behind me after I'd gotten tangled up in the NOT orientation class. More than that, though, she was in Soul Eater Not! –she had teamed up with Tsugumi Harudori at the very very end, like in the very last ending scene of the manga when school reconvened after spring break. The "learn from your example" thing was what tipped me off: she'd said the same thing to Anya Hepburn and Meme Tatane when they'd returned to find that Tsugumi had inadvertently sucked in a third meister for their already-unconventional meister-meister-Weapon triad partnership.
Ao already had her dark blue fuku, which surprised me a little, since we weren't fully enrolled yet, with a small Lord Death-skull pin over her heart where the scarf would've gone and another mask on her left sleeve, though one of the black round eyes was replaced by a five-pointed star…which matched Ao's yellow, star-shaped pupils, surrounded by a deep violet-blue.
That just about exceeded my anime tolerance for weird.
"Uh, not to be weird or nothing, but your eyes…" One finger rose to just underneath my own eye in demonstration.
"I'm from the Hoshino Clan." Ao chirped, which told me absolutely nothing. It hadn't been mentioned in the manga at all, and I don't think she even showed up in the prequel anime. "We're an offbranch from the Hoshi Clan."
"Ah…right." I said, lowering my hand. That didn't tell me anything either.
Ao smiled placidly. "You may not have heard of them I suppose, since our paternal dojo is much less infamous than the Star Clan, another offshoot."
If there'd been anything in my mouth, I would've done a spit-take. The Star Clan I knew –they were Blackstar's family, a clan of assassins infamous for doing anything for money, and the DWMA had wiped them out after they started chowing down on human souls for power as well as murdering for money. Blackstar had been the only survivor, being just a baby at the time, and the DWMA had taken him in –something less disturbing than it sounded, since Blackstar admitted he didn't resent the school and that the whole thing was "a simple case of cause and effect," that his parents crossed a line they shouldn't have and paid for it by losing their souls.
It was coming back to me again –Akane Hoshi was an EAT-class student that had been briefly assigned to NOT to guard Anya Hepburn, who was a foreign princess, which was why the name "Hoshi" had sounded familiar outside anime nerdery. His partner, Clay Sizemore, was a great sword, and they were both subordinates under Sid at the DWMA Central Intelligence Agency. Akane had the distinctive yellow-star pupil underneath his glasses and the left-hand sweep of his bangs, which was why he stood out in my memory, since he was the only other person (aside from Ao) in the entire series besides Blackstar and his father that had the signature star eyeballs.
"A-ah…right…" I mumbled again, giving her a strained smile. Ao returned it happily and continued with her business, while I took up my desk chair and, not without a brief wince for my poor pockmarked arms, opened the first book.
I was looking for anything on Witches and other magic users. If magical manuscripts and other such things were so rare and dangerous in this world, I didn't expect to find anything useful for my world-array in a public library, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have a refresher course on the types of magic-users in this world, especially if I planned to petition Lord Death.
Witches are more long-lived than humans, with many surpassing the century mark. It is therefore difficult to gauge their actual age from mere appearance…
Yeah, yeah, this I knew, Arachne was like 800 years old at least.
Some Witches have the ability to transform into animals, though this is not a universal trait. All Witches, however, have animal themes to their magic and sometimes even their appearance.
This I also knew: Medusa had snake magic, Arachne had spider magic, Eruka Frog had frog tendencies, and so on.
Witches are exclusively female: they can reproduce with humans, Monsters, and Sorcerers, which are their male counterparts. Female offspring are almost always born Witches, whereas male offspring are entirely human or another Sorcerer. Sorcerers are almost never as powerful as Witches, with powerful Sorcerers being extremely rare.
Okay, this was new and good information.
Sorcerers tend to augment their lack of power by experimentation, scientific methods, and calculus spells, which rarely require the natural high levels of magic their fellow Witches are born with. It can easily be said that while Witches are typically instinctual users of strong magic, Sorcerers are precise users of relatively weaker magic. This means that Sorcerers will rarely chant before utilizing their magic, as it is contained in tools or projects.
Also good, and it made sense, given the only male magic-users shown in the series –Noah and Eibon, and technically Giriko, though he was in a different category. Noah and Eibon were both cerebral types who focused on learning and collecting rather than brute force, whereas Giriko's whole (supposed) job was making magic-imbued protective golems.
Each Witch in the world has a specific magic chant which they used to invoke and channel magic power. The nature of this chant varies from Witch to Witch, but is rarely if ever varied by the Witch herself: part of the reason Witches are so dangerous is that a Witch's chant may result in nearly any spell, and there is no verbal and rarely a physical indication of what said spell will be before the Witch actually enacts it.
Yup, that was something I'd noticed in the series, and also totally not fair. The magic I used was way more laborious.
Part of Death Weapon-Meister Academy's duty is to hunt down Witches, with the Witch soul being the final portion for a Weapon to become a Death Scythe, able to be used by Lord Death himself. Prior to consuming a Witch soul, a Weapon-meister team must consume 99 evil souls, colloquially referred to as Kishin Eggs or Kishin, after the original Kishin which caused the school's founding.
Pssh, this was stuff they covered in the first few minutes of the first episode. I scanned down the page, then began flipping through the book, looking for something more relevant. There was a section on the atypical magic users which looked promising, and I stopped there for a moment.
Enchanter:
An individual who uses magic and their specialized gloves to create and control golems. Enchanters may create golems of multiple sizes and methods, but typically specialize in defensive or protective programming. An Enchanter is not a true magic-user as such, merely a manipulator, and are generally regarded more positively because of this. Their trade is based in the Czech Republic.
Lord Death:
The Grim Reaper is technically capable of magic, or at least magic knowledge, though there is no records of it ever being used.
Magic Lifeform:
Exceptionally skilled Witches can create their own subordinate lifeforms, typically in the same style as their animal theme. These lifeforms are much weaker than the Witch in question, but follow orders unquestioningly and may be designed or used for combative purposes.
Monster:
A creature with the ability to transform between human and another animal, and may also possibly use magic. Monsters can be malevolent or benevolent, and their souls may even appear similar to Witch or Sorcerer souls due to their inherent magic power. However, Monsters are a separate species and should be treated with caution until their morality is revealed.
It is theorized that Monsters, Sorcerers, and Witches possibly had a common ancestor, as Monsters share many of the Witch/Sorcerer traits, such as animal themes, magical ability, and longevity, with some Monsters living hundreds of years or even in possession of multiple souls. Monster souls do not replace Witch souls, however, nor do they replace Kishin Egg souls unless the Monster in question has already descended down the path to darkness. Other theories suggest that Monsters may have been ordinary animals exposed to unusually vast amounts of magic, though this has significantly less support.
Well, wasn't that annoying. It seemed like the best I could hope for was being labeled a Monster, which wasn't exactly reassuring, since I had a distinct lack of transformation magic, which meant that trying to claim being a Monster would be proven wrong almost immediately, painting me to be a liar. The other two options were even worse.
Not the most reassuring of realizations. Like yeah, sure, I was pretty sure Lord Death wasn't going to chop first and ask questions later, but the problem was I had no good-faith gifts, proof, or affiliations, so that by taking the risk he wouldn't, I was leaving myself wide open. And there wasn't really takebacksies on revealing oneself to a god, so if I outed myself as a magic-user, what happened next was entirely in Lord Death's court.
Like sure, getting into the EAT class and turning Rex into a Death Scythe would probably take a fuck-long time, but it was also an ironclad guarantee. I'd level him up, he'd be grateful enough, or at least owe me enough, to get the books I needed, and that was my problem solved. In the unlikely event the books weren't at the DWMA, then I could present my case to Lord Death, with the mute reassurance that I was a good guy in the fact that I'd put so much time and energy into helping an entirely-loyal Rex reach his full potential.
Simple, easy, and absolutely guaranteed to work.
And also for-fucking-ever. None of the characters in the anime had become Death Scythes, and in the manga, it had taken Maka and Soul most of the series' runtime, including a dubiously long timeskip.
Well, alright, yes it would take an ungodly long time, but I did have some slight psychological advantages over the canon characters. For one, they didn't have a time constraint to become Death Scythes, it was something they wanted eventually. I was going at this with an ASAP mentality –As Soon As Possible. For another, Maka and Blackstar were both 13 (god that was weird to realize), whereas Kid was in the same range. Sure, four years on them wasn't that much in the grand scheme of things, but I liked to think I was at least marginally more experienced. And lastly, I had a decent amount of meta knowledge, which would probably be wise to write down at some point, which should somehow help me out at least a little, if I wrangled it right.
So for now, I would go along with this whole Weapon-meister partnership thing, and in the meantime, plot for sneaky advancement.
I pulled over a spare notebook and began to write.
9.15 PM, USA Central Time