Stealing is WRONG, WriterGreenReads, very very wrong. (Also Arya knows she'd probably immediately get caught.) And no braincells shared between the two of them is exactly the right kind of chaotic befuddled energy that I want to create, cruelzy, so I'm glad I had that down. And thank you Guest, reading everything all over from the beginning must have been a bit of a slog! Also, hey again Mitsuo the Universe jumper, I'm happy to hear you liked it. As for ease of coming back for more, (as well as Ksfb1996's question of when I'll update and Guest's lamentations for my lack of updates) I THINK I may…almost have an update schedule down, more or less. Maybe. I'm still not saying I'll have a regular pattern of updating, but after this, WHEN I update, it'll probably be a slew of chapters neatly covering one "story arc," much like this last one. This is less for you guys and more because that's how I'll be writing things, since all of these neat little story arcs rely on having sequential titles for each chapter (really shot myself in the foot there) and I need to see exactly how many chapters will exist for each arc before, you know, I set the sequence. And since I'd HAVE those neat and tidy chapters, it'd be a real shame not to give them to you guys…
So basically there'll be longer pauses, but more content when you get it, since two of my three college courses are being surprisingly involved this semester and that unfortunately takes precedent over writing fanfiction. (Money did not change hands for this, after all. Although I AM a college student and you guys DO really like my stuff…maybe I should set up one of them pay-tree-on thingies. Side note, do you know FanFiction redacts even the mere word that sounds like "pay-tree-on"? Must be annoying for certain breeds of real-world AU writers.)
March 18th, 2021
Arya's POV:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any single person in possession of a student's ID, must be in want of a good gossip.
I wasn't quite sure where the grapevine had even started, since it'd been less than twenty-four hours –most of those sleeping hours at that– since Rex and I killed Shaula, and it wasn't like we had killed her in front of an audience or anything. Nonetheless, after my alarm rang and I killed the noise, I rolled over to see Ao, her irregular eyes full of even more stars than usual, sitting upright burritoed up in her blankets and clearly quivering with the suppressed urge to talk to me.
"Geh." I blinked some of the heavy sleep out of my eyes. "Hi…?"
"You fought a Witch!" Ao said, her star-shaped pupils sparkling even brighter as she scooted a tremulous and badly-balanced few inches closer on the bed. "And you're going to go to the EAT class now, right?!"
It was remarkable how Ao, who to the best of my knowledge was an obnoxiously good student that went to bed early and did her homework ahead of time, somehow knew about something that had been decided only very late last night, not to mention knew that Rex and I had fought a Witch, when to the best of my knowledge the only people that should know that were the teachers, and maybe Anya, Meme, and Tsugumi, since we had technically kill-stole from them and they should probably have been made aware of the fact that they hadn't actually killed a real Witch.
If I didn't know how schools worked, I might've suspected suspect foul play.
"Yes and yes." I said, blinking a little more as I pulled the covers up and swung my legs out. "S'not really that impressive, I mean. She was already weak and a bunch of other people fought her first."
I was sticking to me and Rex's cover story for this. He had all been for saying that she was injured and we'd managed to kill her only because she was bleeding buckets and staggering everywhere, but I vetoed that on account of there being only a very little bit of blood at the scene, some of which was Rex's. Sure, I didn't know if the DWMA would investigate the scene later, but it was always best to be careful. We'd thrashed out a believable story in hasty whispers before and between cleanup with the more official DWMA forces: we'd come across Shaula by pure accident (mostly true), we'd wanted to call for help (true if I'd had time to think), but she hadn't given us time (very true) and we'd managed to kill her without taking any damage ourselves (lie.) The reason our cover story was so minimal –and why we had one at all– was because aside from the fact that the best lies were heavily based in truth, there was really only a few things we wanted to hide.
One, I had magic. Given as we had been fighting a Witch, the actual use of magic on my part almost certainly went unnoticed, but given as my magic walls and my healing had been instrumental in actually winning the fight, we had to fudge our metaphorical numbers a little. Corollary to that, Rex had gotten stabbed through the chest with a scorpion's stinger, and since my magic had been instrumental to him not dying from that, we needed to keep the fact it had occurred at all under wraps. Two, a concern only I had, we had to delicately balance the impression of "good and awesome enough to go to EAT" with "don't seem important enough that Medusa and other bad guys take interest before I'm ready for them."
Hence, us "running into" Shaula rather than seeking her out, but being capable enough to take her out by ourselves. It didn't do to stretch credulity, so we didn't say that we'd defeated her with one casual flick or been completely unruffled by the situation, but we had managed to kill her, which was a solid point in our favor. The balance between presumed innate skill and not-enough-innate-skill-to-be-threatening was a hard landing to stick, and I could only hope we got it right. If we didn't, well…I could probably look forward to a few more suspicious side-eyes from Medusa than was healthy for a person.
Or survivable, for that matter.
Despite my ironclad alibi of hopefully-not-enough-but-also-not-too-much "meh," Ao kept pelting me with gushy questions and overawed encouragement as I plodded through the morning routine of showers and sit-ups. She clearly wasn't the only one who had heard –I caught other students looking at me, and once or twice people came up and shook my hand or patted me on the back, looking right into my eyes and thanking me with deep sincerity for offing the Witch that had brainwashed/injured their friend/partner/neighbor/roommate. It made me feel a bit guilty for stealing the kill from Tsugumi and her friends, as presumably this same adulation would have been directed at them in the series proper, but I could consider all of this a moral victory in their favor anyways. They should have been the ones to kill Shaula, and they would have killed her had things gone the way they were supposed to.
Today was going to be a big day for me and Rex, though. Arguably this would be the event that would make or break my whole future: this was when we were going to get into EAT, or not. Naigus had said that we'd be pulled out of class for a practical exam, which I guessed would involve some kind of fight. It made sense: our killing of Shaula might have been a fluke, a lucky break, and before the DWMA gave us what essentially amounted to a modified license to kill, they should probably make sure that we could actually survive being in a fight for our lives.
I dressed to suit the occasion: hair tied behind my head in a firm tail, my toughest pair of sneakers, light canvas shorts that would reflect the glaring desert sun if we went outside and a vaguely safari-esque khaki shirt that would serve the same purpose. We weren't going to fail this just because I got sweaty and overheated, or my hair fell into my eyes at a crucial moment. Rex, of course, could dress how he damn well pleased, since he would be turning into a Weapon and not physically exerting himself in the truest sense at all.
That did make me wonder, though. So far, all the times I had seen Rex reflect himself on the blade, he had been fully clothed, but almost all the other times a Weapon manifested their image that way in the series, they'd been naked. Tastefully naked, I would admit, with no nipples and shadowed groin areas, and usually only depicted from the collarbones or bust up, but still. Now that I was actually in this world and the anime laws of nakedness-reflecting-a-spiritual-pure-state-of-being weren't actually in play, I was definitely curious about whether Rex's suit-wearingness was an anomaly or otherwise. Did most Weapons actually reflect without clothes because their image was just a reflection of their souls and clothes were a uniquely human contrivance –and Rex was thus just being extremely shy by forcing his to appear– or did they appear with clothes because the anime/manga was wrong and the Weapon's reflection was just that, a visual reflection of their human form inside their Weapon shape?
The idea of Weapons was kind of weird, when you thought about it. They behaved in nearly all ways as ordinary Weapons of wood and steel might, but when you managed to cut into one –as Crona's vibrating broadsword had done to Soul's haft early in the series– they bled, and that injury was reflected in their human form. The pupil of the decorative-seeming eye at the join of Soul's scythe blade and his haft could move around, and apparently perceive, and Tsubaki's smoke-bomb form had a little face that could move and even cry. You didn't really think about those things in an anime, but scientifically the mind had to boggle. How could Tsubaki have tear ducts and cry, but still function as a working smoke bomb? Soul's haft clanged and bent like metal, so how did it have working blood vessels –and that raised the further question, just how did human anatomy shift into metal without nerves or a circulatory system and back again without sustaining any damage?
And don't even get me started on where the human anatomy actually went in the Weapon. Was Maka swinging Soul by his head, his legs, his arms, or what? They had held hands and then he transformed, and she had been left holding his scythe by the haft, but he could poke his whole upper torso out of the curving blade, hands and arms and all, and she'd been left holding the entirety of the long pole of the scythe. To the best of my memory, when Crona cut into Soul's haft, his shoulder had been cut into as well, but he could also easily transform his arm up to and past his shoulder into the blade of his scythe.
Honestly, contemplating the ways that a Weapon's powers should logically work seemed like a bad idea. That way lay madness.
In any case, Rex and I needed to work together very well indeed today, and I was pleased to see him looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I got on the Deathbus with some of the other girls.
"You ready for this?" I asked, sitting down as he handed me a pastry. Rex inhaled deeply and fidgeted with his tie, not touching the other pastry that I assumed he had.
"I…think we can do this." he said after a slow, shaky exhale.
"Relax." I said reasonably. "This is the day you've been waiting for for like what, five years? Now's no time to be nervous, it's a time to prove to everyone what you can do. You've got this."
Rex's look seemed to indicate that he did not find my speech inspiring.
"Alright, look at it this way. I'll be doing most of the work, you just have to swing with me as I move." I said, rolling my eyes. "We've already got the rough idea of working together as a proper Weapon-meister team mostly down, so we just sort of have to recapture the feeling we got when fighting Shaula."
He still looked doubtful, but Rex did finally take out his own pastry and unwrap it, taking an absentminded bite.
"I guess." he said after chewing and swallowing.
"We're supposed to recognize each other's wills, right?" I asked with a shrug, nibbling on my own breakfast. "Right now, we both want to get into EAT more than anything. That's a matched goal from both of us, so we should be able to carry our bond pretty well. I mean…I think, I know we almost had it back there with Shaula, but there was this one bit after I dropped you…"
I remembered that, the half-second before Shaula ended up with her stinger embedded in Rex's chest. There had been a twitch, a tug at the edge of my attention, something like when I used my magic but not quite the same. I hadn't taken note of it at the time, partially because it was so new and subtle, but if I had, maybe Rex wouldn't have been injured. It wasn't much, but it was definitely something, and even something as tiny and subtle as that could be built upon.
"I was trying to warn you." Rex said quietly, looking down at his half-eaten pastry. "I thought if I actually said something, she might switch direction or something and I wouldn't have been able to warn you at all, and I…"
I nudged him with my elbow.
"Eh, all's well that ends well, and I at least felt you trying to get my attention. We've got our partner bond, we just need to work on it."
We spent the rest of the bus ride –which circled around some damaged areas of the city– discussing the test and how we were going to go about taking it. Rex had never tried for himself, since he wasn't confident in his solo fighting prowess, but he at least had a slightly better idea than I did. It wasn't just going to be hitting targets or a spar –they'd test how we planned and thought in the moment, how we reacted to things and how quickly we could change strategies.
We talked over how it was probably better for me to take the lead and him to follow in my wake, since the both of us planning together at the same time had been a recipe for disaster thus far. I didn't really like it –it still felt far too…domineering, like Rex was somehow making himself lesser by only plodding along behind me and not making decisions for himself, but facts were facts. Two people trying to decide what to do at the same time, especially when they were essentially performing acrobatics with each other, was just not feasible. One of us had to take the lead, and perforce, the other one had to be a follower.
Maybe later, when we were more confident in our partnership, we could loosen up. By then, Rex and I would have a better measure of each other's fighting style and general decision-making process, and we could make choices independently or at least in concert with each other, rather than me calling the shots and Rex doing his best to match them.
"As far as this partnership goes, we're weak in interpersonal casual relations." I said, in the midst of ticking off ideas on my fingers as the two of us trotted up the great length of the school stairs. "This test should be a snap, since we both want the same thing very, very badly. Same thing should go for when we start hunting Kishin: I don't know about you, but I kinda like living and not being disemboweled by a freaky-ass monster."
"I think that's a universal urge." Rex muttered, grabbing the edge of his hat as a gust of wind threatened to lift it right off.
"Exactly. Neither of us wants to die, so we should do well when it comes to serious combat scenarios." I said with a proud grin. "Because we want to live and win the fight, we'll be synched-up mentally and physically, so as long as we don't lose our heads or get outfoxed by whoever/whatever we're fighting, we should kick ass. Uh, and I mean, there's a lot of things that can totally overpower us, but generally speaking, we should make a pretty competent team."
"If it were that easy, I'd be in EAT already." Rex said, looking slightly rebellious.
"Ah, but you didn't have me as a partner." I said with a winning grin and the brightest thumbs-up I could manage. "I have spent a while fighting things that want to kill me, my dude, so I have the experience not to panic and lose my head during a fight, and furthermore, the experience to know when we're seriously outclassed and should thus run away to fight another day."
Rex blinked.
"A Witch-"
He quickly cut himself off, glancing all around at the other students climbing the stairs with us.
"You've had to run away from fights before?"
I snorted, thinking back.
"My dude, I've run away from more fights than I've won." I said, which slightly went against the jaunty, self-assured demeanor that I was trying to project to instill confidence in him, but oh well. Practically all my encounters with the wicked nation avatars in Hetalia, fighting the technically-not-zombies-but-c'mon on the Campania, fighting the Grim Reapers on the Campania (that fight had been more of a draw than me running away, but eh), fleeing from Grell on the Phantomhive estate after the Noah's Arc Circus had been obliterated there, the faux-werewolf and the poison gas in Sieglinde's forest…
Gh. How many fights had I actually stuck through and won?
I ran the numbers back in my head again. The fight against the Bizarre Dolls at Weston, our running escape in Sieglinde's forest, the time I'd summoned and sicced a magical dog on a necromancer in England, technically some of my encounters with Bizarre Dolls and Grim Reapers on the Campania, once or twice-ish when I'd outfoxed one of the evil nations in Hetalia, and right here in this world, when Rex and I had fought against those two Traitors and Shaula herself.
That was it.
Every other fight was a draw or something I'd run from.
Not the most reassuring of realizations…but then again, most of my successes were recent, and being smart enough to run away when you realized you were outmatched was a good quality. Live to fight another day, better a live dog than a dead lion, and so on. If I was in over my head –like I'd be if I fought Medusa or Arachne or any of the real heavyweights in this world– the smartest decision would be to run away, come up with a plan, and then maybe counterattack them later, or lead someone more qualified into doing it. Committing to a fight I knew I couldn't win just for the sake of my pride would be such a stupid way to get myself killed, especially when I now had Rex to rely on and who relied on me to a certain extent. I had responsibilities and whatnot now.
"In any case, I know what I'm doing!" I announced loudly, smacking my fist into my palm. "We've got this in the bag!
Rex gave a noncommittal hum. I blissfully took that to mean he agreed with me completely, rather than the other obvious alternative.
***Time Skip***
So, as Rex had predicted, it was going to be a mixture of sparring and simulated combat scenarios. I was curious about who would be administering the test, since Naigus's partner Sid was currently in the process of being resurrected, and even after he was resurrected his existence was kept under wraps for a while. I wasn't sure how long, since Soul and Maka had been surprised by the presence of her dad as a substitute, but hadn't mentioned anyone else that was subbing in for Sid as their homeroom teacher. Since the EAT class seemed fairly well self-governed, it was arguably possible that a teacher would just pop in if there was anything the kids needed to know, say whatever news might be relevant, and otherwise leave the EATs to their own devices, trusting them to do their thing in a quiet and orderly manner. God knows that the straightlaced Maka and Ox –and probably a fair number of the other students– would come down like an anvil on anybody who tried differently. EAT was quite literally a class above: they were front-line fighters as well as teenagers, and most of them knew better than to dick about while they were learning.
Most. They were still teenagers, after all.
Spirit –Lord Death's current right-hand Death Scythe and the only one who actually lived in the city– might be able to administer the test, but I wasn't quite sure how good he was at fighting solo. He'd been willing to on several occasions –when Blair had Maka outmatched, when he ditched the anniversary party to chase after Medusa– but Lord Death had stopped him from going to help Maka and Stein had showed up to partner with him in each respective case, so he'd never actually done anything on his own to my memory. Stein, of course, had yet to be hired.
Sid, Stein, Naigus, and Spirit –these were the only four faculty members that the anime and manga actually showed, at least until some of the other Death Scythes showed up.
A chill rocketed down my spine as Rex and I followed Naigus to a part of the academy that I, at least, hadn't yet seen. Medusa was part of the academy staff too, probably capable of combat, and by virtue of anime logic, by almost forgetting her and leaving her for last-
Rex made a discomfited noise as my fingers dug, clawlike with panic, into his shoulder.
That would be a bad situation. Firstly, I wasn't sure that I would be able to control my expression enough not to raise Medusa's suspicions while fighting. Secondly, Medusa was a supremely skilled hand-to-hand fighter, and although we had never seen her fight in the anime or the manga without the addition of her magic, it was entirely possible that I wouldn't be able to actually beat her.
Thirdly, I wasn't sure I would be able to resist the temptation to try and ram Rex point-first through her stupid sneering snaky face and thus blow any pretense of my cover into a thousand different pieces.
Oh, but wouldn't it be glorious…
"So, uh, who's giving us the test?" I asked, my voice a little high and tight as we stepped into a room that looked a bit like one of those laser-tag arenas, all blocky obstacles with uneven heights and ramps that led up the sides of a few.
"One of the EAT student teams." Naigus said, making me nearly swoon with relief as I let go of Rex's shoulder. He winced and rubbed it, and I managed to cut him an apologetic look before Naigus turned back to us and we both hastily straightened, trying to look like we hadn't been doing anything untoward. "They should be along momentarily. Now, are you absolutely sure you want to do this?"
"Yes." Rex and I answered in a rare moment of complete unison.
"Very well. The EAT Practical Exam is designed to make sure of one thing –that you can survive at this level." Naigus said, her eyes taking on a steely note as she pushed her neat librarian's glasses up slightly with one finger. "There are no excuses for failure. If you commit an error, that's it, that's all: you will not advance to EAT at this time. You cannot afford to make mistakes during combat as an EAT student, as it may very well cost you both your lives…or worse."
I wasn't quite sure what "worse" entailed, but the mind-warping powers of some creatures in this world –not to mention the bizarre grab-bag of powers that Kishin Eggs came with– did not inspire a lot of confidence.
"We understand." I said when she paused, evidently waiting for us to say something. Rex nodded, his expression so pinched and earnest I almost felt sorry for him. He'd been wanting this for years, been sticking it out even through the indescribable hell of being a middle school/high school's pariah, and now he finally had his chance. Granted, he had his chance with a so-called Witch for a partner, but still. His face, his whole posture –if Naigus asked him to jump for this test, Rex looked like he would surgically replace his legs with coiled springs if he had to. "Painfully prepared to overachieve" did not begin to describe it.
While I was much more relaxed, I didn't have any less at stake. If I couldn't advance through the ranks and get those books…
Well, I wasn't exactly sure what I would do. Even the magic spell I had that worked as a search engine to acquire the specific runes for various concepts or materials required a little bit of local fine-tuning: there was no way around the fact that I needed books on magic, from here, about this world's magic and its rules. Getting into EAT and making a Death Scythe was my only viable option for that. I had to do this.
And sure, if we failed here, there was always next time…but I didn't like the battering of confidence that would cause on Rex.
Also I didn't like to fail.
"You will be tested on your reflexes, your pressure under fire, your ability to adapt, and of course, your partnership." Naigus continued. "This will be a live spar, so you are free to use any abilities or techniques you can muster, provided that they do not cause serious injury or death."
Not a particularly "aha!" moment for me, given as my only extra skills at this point involved shooting at the problem –which would obviously cause severe to fatal injuries– and magic, which would probably involve me getting pancaked across the nearest wall by a panicked meister team as Naigus blew a whistle to summon the entire school down on my head. No, my only feasible option in this fight was Rex, since my martial arts skills were more than a little dubious at best. Sure, a month or so of training after school had definitely improved my agility and ability to bounce around the room with a sword in my hands, but I couldn't win a fight on footwork.
I'd lose it, definitely, if I had been neglecting my extracurricular studies, but I hadn't, so at the very least I wouldn't trip over my own shoelaces or be too inconvenienced by the uneven, complex terrain of the room. Worst came to worst, I could hold my own, even if I couldn't stylishly flip off the blocks and run along the walls in true anime style.
"Your proctors for this exam will be Akane Hoshi and Clay Sizemore." Naigus finished up, gesturing to the door as it opened in perfect sync and the duo walked in. "Is this acceptable?"
Hell fucking yes this was acceptable! These were characters that I knew!
Not well, admittedly, but I'd written them down on my list and I'd been studying it at least once a week. Akane, he of the black hair and spiky sidebangs, was a distant relative of Blackstar's, similarly capable of Soul Force to attack someone. Soul Force was an attack that amplified a person's personal Wavelength without the medium of their Weapon, usually administered as a palm-heel strike of some kind, which delivered an immense burst of concussive force, silhouetted by static or lightning-like effects. Its power output could be controlled, from something that could briefly daze or shock a person backwards in a fight, to a sustained charge that could knock someone out –or a powerful one that could blow their body apart. It required a "flexible" and immensely powerful soul, one with the energy levels necessary to fuel the Soul Force as well as the capability to twist it into the proper configurations…whatever those were.
In any case, I remembered Akane was capable of blowing apart a cobblestone street with his Soul Force –not that he'd use anything even remotely that powerful in this spar, but I should definitely watch out for his free hand when he had one. I had no idea what a Soul Force would do to me, as a non-native denizen of this world, nor was I eager to find out. Even putting all that aside, an experienced meister like Maka had been shocked dumb the first time Stein had hit her with his, and Mifune –a samurai so powerful his soul equaled that of 99 others– had been taken down by one hit from Blackstar. Granted, those were both active or supposedly active combat scenarios, but I had the not-unreasonable feeling that even a spar-level Soul Force would be a very disorienting thing to experience. And of course, the one thing you didn't want to be during a fight to prove yourself was disoriented.
Clay was a bit more of an unknown –I remembered his Weapon form as a ridiculously long double-edged sword, but to the best of my memory he and Akane hadn't fought much, either during Not! or when they showed up again at the battle on the Moon in the manga. I didn't know how the duo would fight together, but I could make a few educated guesses on the basis of the fact that Akane came from a fighting dojo and he had an extraordinarily long sword –innuendo not intended. He'd probably be more agile than me, but his longer blade meant that he'd have to expose himself a bit if he wanted to get in close. I could deal with that, maybe. At the very least, I had a rough idea of what I'd be working against, which meant I had an automatic leg up on most of the kids that probably tried to transfer into EAT.
Maybe. With the school's gossip mill, it was entirely possible most of the EAT student's powders and abilities were semi-common knowledge.
"Akane Hoshi. Pleased to meet you." he said, reaching out to shake hands with me.
"Arya Thompson. This is my partner, Rex." I said, returning the gesture. We let go and stepped away, me a little on edge as we turned back to Naigus. It would be exactly like the DWMA to have a match that started without a vocal signal, in order to keep students on their toes.
"The spar will not be timed, but it will end after an hour." she said, giving us a stern look. That made sense: Naigus probably had a shit ton of work on her plate –after Sid's death and the subsequent fallout of the whole Shaula incident, she was probably the highest-ranked and most overworked member of the Intelligence Squad. I felt a bit sorry for her. "Your performance will be evaluated on a personal basis by both myself and the EAT students –defeating Akane does not give you an automatic pass, Arya and Rex, though your loss will result in an automatic fail. You are not fighting for first blood, surrender, or knockout. Your fight ends exactly when I say it does, understand?"
"Yes, ma'am." we all chorused.
"Very well. Weapons, transform –and keep yourselves blunt."
Rex flashed blue and jumped into my hands: Clay did the same with Akane in a flash of yellow. I noticed that Akane caught the abnormally long sword with only one hand, and tried to conceal my wince before it was born. So I had to use Rex with both hands –so what? Even if we did get into EAT, Akane and Clay had way more experience than we did, and their relationship was much stronger than ours. Whether or not I had connected with Rex enough to use him one-handed had no bearing on whether or not we were qualified enough to get into EAT.
Akane flourished Clay in a neat, compact circle down to his side, meeting my eyes with a solemnly neutral expression. I rolled my shoulders and shifted myself a little, tensing and relaxing all my muscles as my awareness spread down throughout my body and I tentatively opened my mind up in Rex's direction. I didn't feel anything definite, but there was…something there, like the awareness of another person reading in the room with you. Subtle and quiet, but most assuredly a presence.
"While you may not be fighting to end this testing session in any specific way, I want you to go at this with the intent to defeat Akane." Naigus continued to me and Rex, unperturbed by the subtle, tense shift in the air as both Akane and I faced each other with Weapons in hand. It looked like Akane was ready for any sudden starts, too.
"Alright." I said with a nod, shifting to straighten up my posture a little more, angling Rex down. We'd have to test Akane a little: I knew he was obviously a lot more capable, but I wanted to get the measure of just how Rex swung before I committed to any full-blooded attacks. Training accidents could happen, and I obviously didn't want to kill or seriously injure anyone.
That was sort of the point, I supposed. Akane and Clay vastly outmatched us, so if we could go mostly toe-to-toe with them, or at least fend off their attacks and launch a few successful ones of our own, we were probably ready for EAT. Their much-higher skill level would prevent us from using any truly debilitating attacks on them, by accident or mischance.
"Ready?" Naigus asked, stepping over to the far wall, where she wouldn't have to dodge any errant moves. "Begin."
Immediately, Akane lifted Clay up a little, running at me and Rex with smooth practice and a slightly swaying path. I recognized the stance of his arm: he was going for a horizontal or diagonal swing, coming in from the right. I could swing Rex up to my left and knock that aside easily enough, but that would leave me wide open for Akane's left hand, and subsequently his Soul Force.
I darted to my left and Akane's right instead, jumping onto one of the knee-high blocks and eyeing him for any follow-up while I did it. Akane accounted for my shift and jump quickly enough, turning to face me almost immediately as I moved. I frowned, tightening my grip on Rex as I scanned for anything we could make use of as Akane paused briefly. We had the high ground, however momentary that might be…Clay didn't have a crossguard, much like Rex, his long black blade instead ending in a hollow diamond shape that was formed seemingly by the extension of the silvery cutting edge. The points of this diamond barely extended past the sword, if at all, leaving Akane's hand on the hilt below vulnerable to any downward scrapes.
That was just about it. We had the momentary high ground, and Akane didn't have a crossguard to protect his hand. He'd grown up in a dojo, so he definitely outmatched me in hand-to-hand combat –disarming him might actually make things worse for us.
Akane's polished shoes scuffed against the floor as he moved to jump up with us, and working with the logic that him seizing the initiative was bad –if I reacted instinctively and moved back to let him land on the block, I would be letting him drive me– I stepped forward, into the range of his sword as I swung Rex at his left side. Up in the air, Akane couldn't dodge, and the surprise of us seizing the initiative should keep him from actually swinging his sword at me until I completed the move.
Should.
A brief flicker of surprise showed in Akane's blue eye, before he changed the angle of his swing and harshly smacked Rex's blade out to the side with Clay, using the rebounding momentum to flip himself sideways and backwards, changing direction and landing in an extended-leg skid on one of the adjacent, higher pads.
Okay, that was definitely a move that I'd have to remember.
Akane didn't give me any time to mentally write that down –as I heard Naigus doing for real in the background– as he leaped off from the higher pad in another rush, cleaving his sword downwards and overhand. He was holding Clay with both hands, though, and that gave me the confidence to take a half-step back and swing Rex like a baseball bat, sparks briefly leaping off where the two Weapons clashed together as Akane angled Clay sideways, trying to bleed some of the strength off that strike. It didn't much matter, though: as I had originally suspected, Rex hit like a tank, and sent Akane flying off again, though he stopped himself on another block before he flew more than a meter, keeping the pressure up as he lunged at me again.
For a while, Rex and I had our hands full with just defending ourselves. Akane was extremely agile, and more than that, very scientific with how and where he struck. Despite Clay's exaggerated length, Akane used him like a surgeon with a scalpel, or a master fencer: I felt clumsy, stupid, and slow by comparison. I didn't –couldn't– let that get to me, though. While I could acknowledge that Akane was definitely far better at fighting than I was, the second I started to internalize that, we would lose. I'd be letting him drive me mentally instead of physically, intimidating me into thinking that there was no way I could win this fight, and it would thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I needed to think I could win, even if realistically it was doubtful.
Our swords clashed and tangled together as Akane and I leaped and ran over and across the many staggered heights of the obstacle blocks, and when I could spare a second, I felt proud of how Rex was –loose in my hands, that was the best way I could describe it. If he was in human shape, I would've said that all his muscles were relaxed and he was deliberately letting me guide the way he moved or stood –as it was, Rex moved pretty smoothly and easily in my hands, not quite at that magical level of no-weight and effortless swinging that we'd had with Shaula, but more than decently maneuverable.
As we jumped onto another, higher block, I felt the surface shift and sink under my feet as there was a faint click. Remembering that Naigus was a special ops officer who just about specialized in setting traps and sabotage, I immediately gathered myself and jumped off, landing on a different block and then taking several more to get out of the blast radius. The block I had set off expanded, all five visible walls jutting outwards sharply as smoke billowed out from the center, presumably mimicking an explosion: if I'd still been on it, I'd have been blinded and off balance, and I presumed a black mark would've been made on my record for failing to avoid/recognize the trap.
Luckily for me, I had, and I narrowed my eyes as Akane and I kept surging against each other, me trying my best to avoid being driven in any specific direction but sadly not skilled enough –or with enough of a plan– to drive Akane anywhere specific on my own. He never stepped on any of the booby-trapped blocks, except once on purpose as he pretended to flee from me and set the explosion of smoke off almost right in my face. That argued that he knew where they all were, which meant that Naigus had probably briefed him on the trap layout before setting up our exam. It made sense: this was mimicking a scenario where a Kishin might have trap-setting abilities, or I was fighting in actively hostile terrain. The fact that I was doing a fairly good job of avoiding the blocks –and quickly jumping off the ones I triggered, never getting distracted from the dangers all around– should be a glowing mark in me and Rex's favor.
I was less successful at coming up with a plan to try and wrest victory away from Akane, though. He was good, and the fact that I obviously couldn't try to kill him was limiting my creative juices somewhat. I was used to the sort of creatures that would grab their decapitated head by the hair and stick it back onto their shoulders with a somewhat miffed expression: my tactics tended to skew heavily towards the more fatal end of the spectrum because of that. Trained by combat with successions of immortal avatars, Grim Reapers, and demons, I didn't really do victory by submission, three falls, or a knockout. I was more used to victory by filling-the-thing-full-of-bullets-until-it-stops-moving or by throwing-something/someone-more-powerful-at-the-problem and ducking out.
Both obviously infeasible here.
A loud clang! echoed throughout the room as Akane and I crashed together in a bodylock, Akane holding Clay far out from his body to keep himself out of my range if I slipped past his guard. I palmed one side of Rex's blunt blade and shoved, keeping him angled and braced with my other hand resting lower, on his handle. For a few seconds our Weapons ground together as Akane and I stared at each other, getting the other person's measure and breathing a little heavily. I saw nothing but cool, measured confidence in the eye behind his glasses –though I did wonder if Akane's star-shaped pupil hidden beneath his bangs was glaring at me any different. Speaking of which…
I tensed as Akane shifted and his free hand swept in low, towards my exposed ribs, a yellowish crackle running along his fingers. I recognized that move very well, and slammed Rex's handle down towards the oncoming hand in an effort to block. Before I finished the movement, though, I belatedly remembered that Soul Force attacks could travel through Weapons and into the meister, but it was too late to stop myself. Desperately, I rammed my knee up –bad angle for a groin shot or not, hitting the inside of Akane's leg would unbalance him at least slightly, which was a bad situation while he was in a bodylock with someone else.
He wavered briefly, stance shifting, hand wobbling, and I threw my weight into it, pushing with both Rex and my body as I shoved at Akane as hard as I could. It halfway worked: he had to abandon the bodylock and take a step back to regain his balance, but as he took that step back his outstretched hand whisked up, running briefly along Rex's blade as Akane retreated.
The sensation was indescribable.
Rex and I both yelped as we were blasted backwards, and for a horrible few moments I couldn't work my legs or my muscles at all as we crashed over and across several blocks, eventually slamming into the top edge of one and falling down to the floor. I felt little currents juddering over my skin, and my flesh crawled as I gave an involuntary shudder. The physical effect was indeed something like electricity –it felt like an amped-up version of those daredevil static electricity machines at arcades and suchlike– but worse was the inner effect. Even though Akane had clearly pulled his punch quite a bit, for a brief second there had been a terrifying disconnect between my soul and my body: it was like the impact of that Soul Force had rattled my soul inside my body like a pea in a tin can, briefly tearing my connections to it loose.
Note to self, never let an attack like that hit me again.
"You okay, Rex?" I gasped as I dragged myself to my feet as quickly as I could, half-using his blade as a prop.
"Yeah." he said, his image briefly flashing over the blade before melting away. He looked and sounded almost as discomfited as I felt, so at least I wasn't having an ominously adverse reaction due to not having a proper soul native to this dimension.
"Yield?" Akane asked, and I looked up to see him standing on the block before us, Clay's sharp point outstretched.
"You know we aren't allowed to." I huffed, bringing Rex up and bending my sore legs a little, preparing to try and jump up to one of the blocks again. "And we wouldn't quit even if we were."
Something like a smile drifted over Akane's professionally neutral expression as I felt Rex pulse in agreement.
***Time Skip***
My legs felt like jelly when I staggered out of the girls' shower room and into the communal lockers, stepping over to Rex where he sat on a bench.
"Well, they didn't say we weren't in, so we've got a pretty good chance." I said without preamble, dropping heavily down onto the bench beside him.
"I dunno…" Rex mumbled, tugging at his earring.
"Look, if we'd sucked bad enough that we were obviously incapable of surviving in EAT, Naigus would've said so on the spot." I said with impeccable logic. "She said if we lost the fight we got an automatic fail, even though winning wouldn't be an automatic pass. Its literally a pass-fail system, which means there's no binary. Either we get in, or we don't. Therefore, there are only two reasons for Naigus or the proctor or whoever to not tell us immediately whether or not we got in."
I lifted a finger.
"One, we fudged something up, but only a little. Being an EAT student means being on the battlefront, so Naigus and whoever else have to judge very carefully if we qualify for this work. If we're almost good enough, like if we are within a teeny, tiny, microscopic inch of being good enough, they've got to do a lot of thinking on whether or not it would be better to just fail us now and have us stay alive, rather than pass us out of misplaced kindness and have that same kind of negligible but key mistake get us killed. If we fuck up on the test, we can train harder and try again later. If we fuck up on what this was a simulation of, we die. Horribly. They've got to take that into consideration, which probably means that if we're within only a hair of passing, they'll be debating about it very carefully for quite a while."
I added a finger.
"Two, we passed and they're just getting the paperwork or something."
"Three, we failed and they're trying to think of a way to break it to us without seeming cruel." Rex said glumly, palming his chin and resting his elbow on his leg.
"Hey." I nudged him. "We can do this. We didn't lose, and we worked together pretty well. Sure, we didn't win either, but that Akane guy is pretty good. Maybe give us a bit in EAT, we'll be able to give him a run for his money."
"And that's another thing." Rex rubbed the hand over his face and looked up, glancing around cautiously before looking back at me. "You're…you, and there's meisters who can track Witches in EAT, aren't there? Are you sure this is safe?"
Not even remotely.
"I can handle that." I said, and at his pale look, rolled my eyes and added "Without bloodshed, jeez. I told you why I'm here, and its not to cause trouble."
"You're a Witch." he mumbled, and I caught the unspoken extension perfectly. Witches lie. How can I trust that you aren't?
Another problem looming large in our partnership was that I couldn't prove to him that I wasn't lying, not right now. The only way I could prove to Rex that I wasn't untrustworthy was to be trustworthy for long enough for him to believe me, and by definition, the key part of that strategy was time. It would take a while, and hopefully not any more dramatic anime moments of near-death scenarios.
I'd just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.
We both jumped to our feet as Naigus came in, straightening ourselves up as best we could. I still felt a little noodle-y from all my running around and whatnot, and Rex was tense enough from nerves that if you poked him he'd probably thrum like a guitar string.
Naigus smiled warmly at us both.
"You passed." she said, and handed two manilla folders over to us both. Rex's fingers trembled as he took his, and he was blinking rapidly, trying to keep the glistening sheen in his eyes away. I looked down to my folder, averting my eyes from the scene of his emotion: not that I was too terribly uncomfortable, but this was Rex achieving a goal he had dreamed about for years. It was an important, personal moment for him, one that I would be intruding on with my nonchalant observations. Best to let him ride it out as I looked over our new paperwork.
It was basically the same stuff as in admissions, with a few extra bells and whistles. We both had new DWMA IDs paper-clipped to the top right of our folders, though they were basically identical. Same photo, same student ID with the last four digits denoting my birthday, same table on the lower right that listed meister/Weapon, gender, classroom, hair and eye colors, blood type, medical details, NOT/EAT, and birthplace. I was still at the lowest-ranked meister level with my single rusty orange star, and this card was still not a viable replacement for law enforcement badges or qualifications in any country.
But now the card said that I was in Class Crescent Moon, and I was an EAT rather than a NOT student.
There was another set of forms to fill out, stuff that, like on the DWMA agreement form, outlined the fact that we would be fighting effectively as soldiers, and any consequences thereof were on us. If we died, were tortured, raped, kidnapped, etc., we could not take any action against the school, and by signing this form, we agreed to that. This form wasn't saying we were on our own or anything, or that any mistakes were our fault, no matter how traumatic: it was more of an acknowledgement that we would be out fighting the forces of evil, and yes, we were absolutely aware that terrible things could happen to us because of it, and the school may very well be unable to help us in time to do anything –or even recover our bodies, in some cases. Our signature basically just meant that we knew what we were getting into, or at least said we did.
Similar slightly-more-hardcore paperwork filled out the rest of the folder, along with what I suspected were several case-specific admonitions about us transferring mid-semester under extenuating circumstances and what we thus should and should not expect. We should not expect to be further favored, or take this as a sign of nepotism, and we should expect to work hard after school hours in order to catch up with the EAT-level coursework. Our schedule had changed, too.
Day A Schedule:
7.00-7.10: Homeroom
7.20-8.00: Art Studies
8.10-10.00: EAT Physical Education
10.10-11.00: Phasmology
11.10-12.00: Psychology
12.10-1.00: EAT Lunch Period
1.10-1.50: First Aid & Health
2.00-2.50: Science
3.00-3.50 English
Day B Schedule:
7.00-7.10: Homeroom
7.20-8.00: Art Studies
8.10-10.00: EAT Physical Education
10.10-11.00: Phasmology
11.10-12.00: Psychology
12.10-1.00: EAT Lunch Period
1.10-1.50: First Aid & Health
2.00-2.50: Forensics
3.00-3.50 Family And Consumer Sciences
Day C Schedule:
7.00-7.10: Homeroom
7.20-8.00: Art Studies
8.10-10.00: EAT Physical Education
10.10-11.00: Phasmology
11.10-12.00: Psychology
12.10-1.00: EAT Lunch Period
1.10-3.50: World History & Politics
It was interesting to note how the focus was already shifting far more in the direction of practicality. Math was dropped entirely, and history and social studies were combined and then shunted to only a single day. Phasmology was being taught every day, as was psychology, and in addition to science, we were going to be taught forensics. This was a schedule that reflected the stark necessities that defined an EAT student's career, and Rex and I were going to have to put our noses to the grindstone –even more– if we wanted to catch up to whatever had already been covered so far in these classes, since it would probably be vital information. Luckily, we'd have a bit of time to go nuts on that, since out of respect for Sid's death, classes were cancelled for the next few days.
"Thanks, Miss Naigus." I said as I looked up from my stack of papers, and she smiled pleasantly at both of us, laying her hand on Rex's shoulder.
"You've earned it." she said, then sent me a cautionary glare. "Make sure you don't waste this chance."
I got the distinct impression that there was a one-sentence shovel-talk buried underneath that statement: Rex has been working hard to achieve this for years, and if you mess it up for him after getting his hopes this high, I will personally ensure that your school life becomes a living hell with no escape.
Since I had no intention of doing that, I gave her a jaunty salute by way of farewell as Naigus swept out of the room with our fulfilled paperwork, with one last reminder that there were no classes for a little bit, since personnel was being reshuffled. When I was sure she was gone, I turned to Rex, who was looking a bit shellshocked, like he still couldn't believe that this was happening.
"You gonna need a minute?" I asked, and he shook his head, expression numb. "Right, because I've got an idea. School's out for the foreseeable future, right? At least for the next few days?"
"Yeah…"
I clapped my hands together loudly, making him jump a little. "So let's go get our first Kishin Egg soul!"
"WHAT!?" Rex sputtered. "Are you crazy?! We haven't even been EAT students for more than five minutes!"
"Ah, yes, but you see, with classes out, we aren't interrupting our education to do this." I told him. "Normally we'd be skipping days, right? And with us already behind, that'd be a bad idea. If we go, say, this weekend, or maybe just before, we can have our first soul done and dusted before classes roll out again on Monday –if they'll start up again on Monday, anyways."
"I'm not concerned with the logistics of it." Rex groaned, giving me a look of purest despair, like I was intent on throwing myself off a cliff and dragging him along with me. "We aren't really a good team yet."
"Team schamem." I scoffed, waving one hand. "Listen, Rex, people yap about you all the time, right? That Shaula bitch said that you not having a partner is the talk of the whole school."
He turned red, staring at his shoes.
"And that's why I want to do this, because plenty people can say us killing a Witch is nothing but dumb luck. They can say she was weak because she'd just taken a Soul Resonance attack to the chest, and even if she used magic to get away from it, she'd still just gotten pounded. They can say that we got into EAT on account of pity, whether by Naigus feeling sorry for you or by Akane holding his punches. They can basically say a lot of things, Rex, and all those things will mean that we aren't good enough. And do you know what will blow that out of the water? If you and me go right now and slaughter a Kishin Egg."
"N-not right now!" Rex said, taking a step away.
"No, no, of course not." I agreed. "But now-ish. Again, like sometime in the next five days or so. Us going out there and hunting down a soul like a proper EAT team will show people that we didn't get in because of luck or pity, and we won't have to walk into the EAT class on Monday or whenever as people stare at us and whisper and giggle."
That was going to drive me nuts, I could tell already. People looking down their noses at me for no good reason –uh-uh. The EAT students had plenty of fodder for sneering at me, starting from combat experience and working outwards, but the one thing they couldn't be snooty about was how much effort I put into this, and how much merit I had.
Plus, I was itching to get going. The key had turned in the lock of the gate, and now I was in sight of the road that would take me all the way up to the top –if not for us needing to find an apartment and such, I would've suggested we go out and try our luck today. But we needed time to, well, just sort of process being in EAT, process the enormity of our promotion, and gather ourselves together before leaping off into the unknown.
"Maybe we're not so hot on a personal level," I admitted. "But you and me, we're professional about it. Maybe you're scared of me ripping you apart after this is all over and such, but you know out there in the field, when we're fighting something, nothing will matter to me as much as keeping you alive. You know that."
Rex perked up just a little.
"I suppose I can understand that." he said, still sounding a little reluctant. "We're definitely a workable team. We can fight things together and probably win, because we're both very interested in keeping each other alive and we'll put aside our emotions to achieve that. That's just about the only thing I can trust from you."
Fucking ouch. I mean, I understood his logic –even if I saw him as nothing but a tool, an important tool was something to be honed and protected– but that didn't mean the statement wasn't unintentionally savage.
"So!" I said, clearing my throat a little and clapping my hands again to noisily clear away any awkwardness. "Basically, we can agree that we'll both be able to set aside our emotional difficulties and work together in the heat of the moment, because while hunting Kishin we can be all business. We can worry about the rest of all that stuff later."
"By that you mean…"
"Our actual proper partner bond. We actually know now exactly what kind of, uh –angle, weight, Resonance, bond, whatever– we're aiming for. We have something to work towards." I said reasonably. "It'll make this whole thing a lot smoother, and eventually someday we'll be able to get it."
Rex gave me a dubious look.
"And we're just…ignoring your diary and everything to do with it, emotionally and historically, in the meantime?"
I wrapped one arm around his shoulders and gestured towards the empty vista of the locker rooms, like a king inviting a diplomat to behold his domain.
"Don't you see, Rex, that's the beauty of it. If we ignore that for long enough, all those pesky emotional hangups will go away."
He deadpanned harder.
"Look, mathematically all you have to do to become friends is spend like 400-ish hours in close company with each other in a positive situation." I rattled off from memory. "The way I see it, if we ignore the emotional entanglement of my journal and your blackmail and so on, and focus on interacting positively, we can put this whole mess entirely behind us and trust each other completely by the time you have to give it back."
Rex's deadpan expression reached the levels of a black hole. I sighed and pulled my arm away, folding them both across my chest as I turned to regard him.
"If you've got a better idea, I'd love to hear it."
Rex wilted wholesale –even the crown of his hat slumped a little.
"It seems so manipulative…"
"Is it manipulative if we're both manipulating ourselves on purpose?" I asked with a helpless little shrug. "Again, if you've got a better idea, I'd love to hear it."
By way of answer, Rex sighed heavily and took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, rubbing a little at the pressure marks there. I was going to take that to mean that no, he really didn't have a better idea, and he didn't like that any more than I did.
"Right…well, anyway!" I said with false brightness. "We can swing back to the dorms for lunch, and then maybe go house-hunting in the afternoon, and with any luck we'll be settled in our very own apartment tomorrow. We can look at the notice board then, and pick out a real good beginner's quest. I mean, we're not gonna go after Hannibal Lecter right off the bat."
Rex blinked as he replaced his glasses. "Hannibal who?"
"He's, um- ugh, its just a person from a book I read, once." I said with a groan. "Let's just go."
Note to self –given how many Kishin Eggs seem to have been based on horror pop culture, tone down on the references.
10.24 AM, USA Central Time