I WROTE SOMETHING SELLABLE!
Ahem, anyways, I'm breaking my usual chunk-of-chapters update pattern to announce that I have an ebook out on various sites now. Its called The Business of Creation, and it's a fluffy and wholesome collection of short stories in which the gods' process of creating their fantasy world is examined from the very moment of its beginning. You can support it by moseying on over to my profile page and the link there to buy a copy, or by just leaving a five-star review to boost the book's prominence in its category. The more profits it brings in, the more time (and less stress) I have to work on fanfiction! (Which is also why I'm going to be extremely annoying in plugging it at the end of every chapter from here on out, but c'est la vie.)
Anyways, Lukas and Tessa Johnson are M1LK T3A's OCs and I claim no moral or legal ownership over them. And I won't say Soul Eater is a super tropey series, WriterGreenReads, but it is certainly more of one than Black Butler or Hetalia, so that sort of thing will be a bit of a running theme in the story. And she can't avoid the mains forever, cruelzy, I'm pretty sure people would hate me for that. And PaperWorld! Been a while, nice to see you again.
Also, Arya refers to Crona with he/him pronouns at this point in time because the canonization of Crona's they/them pronouns in the English manga translation was fairly recent, and the anime dub uses he/him. After meeting Crona, she'll revert to using their proper pronouns.
July 25th, 2021
Arya's POV:
As prophesized, both of us spent most of the plane ride home slumped in our seats and trying to sleep when we were more vertical than horizontal, me curled up with my hands tucked under my armpits to try and warm up my still-chilled fingers. Still, barring my omission of gloves, this had been a very solidly successful mission, though we weren't technically supposed to count our eggs as hatched until we touched down in Death City again and handed our counter-signed paperwork to Auntie. I didn't exactly blame the series for not mentioning all the legalese involved with whacking monsters, but that still didn't make me any less cranky at having to give an oral report to the guy that had hired us at 1.00 AM and then needing to read through and sign a hefty pile of paperwork.
Ugh.
Given the length of the plane flight and when we'd set out, the sun was just starting to rise over the mountains and arid plains of Death Valley as we coasted down onto the tarmac, and Rex and I shuffled out of the tiny plane in a sort of state of benumbed gratitude. We mumbled something that might've been thanks and might've been a yawn to the pilot before making our bleary way to the buses that ran into the city proper, including the Deathbus 44, which connected the airport to the DWMA specifically. We weren't the only students on it –I didn't recognize any specific faces, but the Lord Death mask that essentially served as the school's logo peeked out from beneath plenty of collars or was incorporated into many fanciful outfits, and for those students who like almost everyone in EAT –as I was now coming to realize– didn't plaster themselves with Lord Death's mask, well, they all had that distinctive "stood in Hot Topic as a bomb went off" fashion sense of your typical anime protagonist.
Rex wasn't nearly as groggy as me, something I put down to the fact that I'd been doing most of the (literal) legwork during our brief fight, so it was me that was nodding off against his shoulder rather than the other way around as the bus chugged into the city, the strap of my apocalypse bag wrapped tightly around my wrist and my fingers clenched firmly on the remainder in my hand. I actually got a pretty good nap in, and was thus able to rouse myself and face the Olympian-level staircase with something approaching the usual resignation rather than a crying attempt to make Rex take the paperwork and walk up by himself.
I decided not to be offended by the fact that Rex kept a hand gingerly clasped on my sleeve to guide me as we walked up the stairs together. With how hard I had to concentrate just to put one foot in front of the other, it probably was a good idea to make sure I wouldn't accidentally walk off the edge.
Handing over the paperwork to Auntie was nearly an orgasmic relief. The grin that spread across her face and the hearty words she congratulated us with fell against my ears like snow, intangible and fading, and my robotic stare would probably be a lot more terrifying to Rex as he all but dragged me back out if not for the developing shadows under my eyes.
"Are…you gonna be like this every time?" he eventually asked as I swayed my way down the stairs with him, and I grunted.
"Short sleep the day we came to investigate, we stayed up, and then we fought something." I said around a jaw-aching yawn. "Next time, we probably should just stay the night and report in the morning."
"Makes sense." Rex said contentedly, and left me in my own groggy world for the rest of the way back to our apartment, where we both slouched off to our mutual beds posthaste. I collapsed facefirst into mine, not even bothering to roll some of the blankets over myself, and knew nothing more for a solid few hours.
Awakening from a death-deep sleep sometime in the afternoon later that same day, we ordered pizza and spent the rest of the evening hashing out our plans for going forward. We'd already set boundaries and duties for living together in the apartment –those mostly consisting of "don't go in my room on pain of death/exposure" and things like "wash the dishes you use yourself"– but we were both feeling revitalized by our success with our first Kishin Egg, and wanted to hammer out more productive rules.
"I go on runs in the afternoons after school and stuff." I said from my place on one of the three couches in our living room. "You're coming with me from here on out."
Rex sighed, but didn't argue. It'd be a good –well, not bonding activity, since we'd both be suffering, but we'd be suffering together and that was half the battle of making this whole partner thing work. He knew that as well as I did, hence his lack of protest.
"You're also going to learn how to shoot a gun."
"Are you sure about that, though?" Rex asked uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm a Weapon, using a weapon myself is…weird."
"That's precisely my point." I replied, and paused a second to chomp down on a deliciously greasy, cheesy bite of pizza. There was nothing like the flavor and warmth of modern cooking. "You're a Weapon, and anyone fighting us will know you're a sword, which means they'll also know that your long-range capabilities, when separated from me, are nil. You need to have a backup, and yeah, I know you can fight in human form with a partial transformation, but you're still melee-only. A gun is a sound investment to keeping you alive, which means it furthers my totally-not-diabolical plans, which is good on all ends as far as I'm concerned."
"So where do I benefit in all this?" Rex mumbled, taking a grouchy bite of his breadstick.
"That's implicit in the 'gun keeps you alive' bit." I said. "Unless life with me is such a crushing burden of social awkwardness that death would be preferable."
"Nope." Rex said, which was gratifying, and then went on heedlessly. "I mean, are you kidding me? You've gotten me this far already, and that's amazing. We killed a Witch and took a Kishin soul less than a week later and-"
I raised an eyebrow, and that was enough to remind Rex of what he was saying and more importantly who he was saying it to, and he coughed and studiously looked the other way, flushing.
"I mean, a-anyways…"
"Anyways," I said dryly. "-flattery aside, we can't rest on our laurels. The more successes we get under our belt, the more potential enemies will begin to not only notice us, but treat us as genuine threats to their wellbeing, and begin to make plans to deal with us. The more surprises we can throw out –like the fact that you'll be handy with a gun– the likelier our continued survival will be."
"Plus your, um, family business." Rex coughed, his eyes still mostly averted. "Though I get what you mean, since that's not really something we can use unless we're both about to die…"
"Damn straight." I toasted him with my glass of lemonade. "You learning how to shoot a gun is practical, sustainable, and if we're lucky, not something any of our enemies will discover until it's too late."
Rex paused.
"'Our' enemies? I don't have anyone after me yet." he said in a very inconvenient flash of perceptiveness. "You have enemies?"
It was my turn to flick my eyes aside as I tried to figure out a way to answer that. True, if things were going as they should, there was no way Medusa or Arachne or any of the other big bads of the series would even know I existed yet, but with the things I planned –namely making sure Crona didn't fall onto the path of darkness and punching Medusa in the face at least once– I would certainly put myself and Rex on their radar sooner or later. So while they weren't enemies now, they'd surely be enemies later, and explaining that without explaining my dimension-travel shenanigans was a tall order.
"The Witch we killed had sisters." I finally said, going for a shading of the truth. "Powerful ones who don't like the DWMA one bit. Granted, they're a trio of scheming bitches who've all stabbed each other in the back at least once, but they don't need to like Shaula to want to deal with the team who managed to kill her, and they're always happy to fuck over someone from the academy."
Rex had a very odd look on his face as he stared at me –I wasn't sure what it was, though I could definitely see some elements of concern, suspicion, and doubt mixed up in his expression.
"Uh, hello?" I said blankly, staring back at him.
"S-sorry, okay." Rex blinked and shook his head. "I guess I can't really ask about the Witch Mass and what goes on there?"
"No…?" I said hesitantly, not really sure if I remembered what that was or if it had been mentioned in the series. That was like, some kind of annual Witch meeting, right? Medusa had planted her snakes in Eruka and one of the Mizune sisters there, and Kim had been revealed as a Witch at the end of one in the manga. That was what he was talking about, right?
I really did not get what had just happened.
"Whatever, believe me or not as you please." I coughed into my fist. "In any case, take it as read that the more skilled we get, the more talented people are gonna be coming after us, and since I'd rather not die when that happens, we're going to need to have a few surprises up our collective sleeve, since lord knows neither of us have the skill or experience to fend off heavy-hitters right now."
"But that means we have to get me a gun and stuff, right?" Rex said vaguely. "Since I doubt you'd trust me with yours.
"I've got an extra." I said, thinking of the pistol Mey-rin had given me as an ostensible going-away present. "And plenty of ammo."
Rex stared at me in dumbfounded shock, but at least this was more normal dumbfounded shock.
"Why?" was all he could manage, after a few seconds. "Why would you possibly need more than one gun?! You're a- you- have- why?!"
I grinned and sipped my lemonade, pleased that I was still able to keep him off-balance.
***Time Skip***
Thankfully, it wasn't hard to get Rex to settle into our new proposed schedule. With classes still out when Monday rolled around, we spent most of the day in the same batting cages we'd been practicing in before, building up a sweat as we worked to memorize some basic moves. Our fight with Charlotte's Kishin Egg had taught me that even though I knew the right way to swing Rex, the movements still weren't anything like instinctive or even all that solid in my brain. It was sort of like I knew the steps to a dance, but I wasn't going through it anywhere close to full speed. The best way to make all my chops and slices something my muscles had memorized, though, was practice, practice, and more practice.
Later in the afternoon, when the sun had begun to sink and the city wasn't baking and shimmering with heat, I waited for Rex to change into jogging-appropriate clothes before we set out along our route, one that was mostly in shadow and ranged over several large hills. We actually met up with Blackstar and Tsubaki several times, which helped us set our route to begin with. As I had mostly expected, Blackstar all but bowled over my more subdued partner, leaving me and Tsubaki to gently sip our water in the background and make pleasant comments about the weather, like a pair of PTA moms watching their toddlers scuffle happily together in the dirt, except it was Blackstar putting Rex in a headlock as my dorky partner begged at me with despairing eyes to help him.
Better him than me.
Still, I was pleasantly surprised in how…decent Blackstar was. Like, don't get me wrong, he was still a narcissistic loudmouth, but he threw out a surprising amount of useful fitness-related advice amongst his boasting, and he welcomed me and Rex immediately without reservation. As far as Blackstar was concerned, we had made it into EAT, and that was that: we were on the same level as him (though, typically, he insisted that no one could ever possibly be as strong or as cool or as etc. as him) and therefore deserving of his respect as moral if not combative equals. It was surprisingly reassuring, since I had some reservations about how the school and our fellow EAT classmates would treat me and Rex when classes opened again. After all, success did not a non-pariah make: the persistent rumors about Rex being unlucky weren't going to go away overnight. The fact that Blackstar accepted us both as EAT student as a matter of course was…nice.
It was nice.
Tsubaki, of course, was a people-pleasing angel, but I hadn't really expected anything else out of her. Don't get me wrong, Tsubaki was a skilled fighter and a courageous person in general –as proven by her joining the academy solely to track down and kill her brother, which she'd manage in a few weeks or months– but as quoted by Stein, she also had a "calm and accepting soul," which meant that she was more than content to fade into the background. Though really, I wasn't sure how anyone who felt otherwise would've been able to stay Blackstar's partner.
I think Tsubaki helped Rex out a lot too, in her own placid way. While Blackstar and I were draped over a bench and talking about the benefits of various routes through the city, she and Rex would commiserate over the ins and outs of having such a gung-ho meister. Tsubaki was also from a fairly infamous Weapon family, if I remembered correctly –something about an especially old or pure bloodline descended from the first Weapons that Arachne had made, since they retained the ability to multishift. Tsubaki was a throwing star and a short ninja sword and a smoke bomb and a kusarigama, and later, after she defeated her brother, also a katana. Being a Weapon and having her mutely reassure you that you were just as good as she was probably felt quite reassuring, and since this was Tsubaki, I knew she was probably spending every spare moment reassuring Rex both verbally and nonverbally.
So we jogged, practiced cutting and slashing, and I dragged Rex up to the DWMA firing range to practice shots with the double-action semi-automatic pistol (affectionately nicknamed Cherry, after Mey-rin who had given it to me) I had in my bag. We didn't exactly do much bonding and snacking, but I supposed all the physical exercise counted as spending time together, in its own way. Hanging around the apartment together in the interim between meals, sleeping, and going out was still a bit awkward, but like so much with our relationship, I figured it was something that would be fixed with time. What else were we going to do? Have another near-death experience?
No fucking thanks.
Between making sure Rex and I were in tip-top fighting shape, I was doing my best to keep an eye on where and when we were in the greater plot. Since it'd be the devil's own luck to try and somehow figure out whether I was currently in the anime or the manga, I was currently settling for just eyeballing my position. Since we were now in EAT and we hadn't been called back into class, I figured that the whole arc with Stein faking out Sid's resurrection hadn't happened yet, because that kicked off on the same day that Maka's dad subbed in for the reconvening EAT class. Ergo, if we weren't in class, we were still in the fuzzy phase between Soul Eater Not! and the introductory arcs for the main three teams. Possibly after that? It was kinda unclear just when those missions took place.
Alas, all good things came to an end, and we received the summons to come back to class by the end of the week. Rex spent the most of the afternoon beforehand pacing our living room and chewing his nails, and it took a semi-serious threat of unspecified Witchiness from me to get him to actually go to bed, and I was fully confident in the fact that he spent most of the night tossing and turning. As for me, I lay staring at the ceiling for a long time for an entirely different reason. After all, I was exactly where I wanted to be, and since I was a literal newbie, there wasn't a lot of gossip the school could dish out on me –not to mention I'd kinda gotten past the point of my life where I gave a shit about petty gossip. It tended to happen after the third or fourth near-death experience.
No, my trepidation and insomnia were triggered by the thought of the further near-death experiences I was sure to collect in the future. Even if I somehow pulled a bullshit genius gambit straight out of my own ass (not entirely impossible, in a shounen series like this), it was highly unlikely that my existence/shenanigans would go completely unnoticed by the enemies the EAT class and the DWMA as a whole would be dealing with in the future. Whether I meant to or not, being competent enough to create a Death Scythe would attract enemies.
Even in that sunshine-and-rainbows delirium world where I didn't pull the attention of the various baddies of the series, well, I would still be dealing with a career in monster-hunting and demon-slaying, potentially even after a near-apocalyptic event. Hell, if my existence fucked things up enough, I could completely skew the results of the series so that Asura won. After all, I had a soft spot for Crona and didn't want him to suffer if I could help it, and in the manga, him becoming a sort of living cage for Asura was kind of crucial to locking the Kishin away on the moon. What if my plan of using the Book of Eibon didn't work? What if my misguided attempts to shelter Crona doomed the world?
With such fun thoughts as these swirling around in my head, it was hardly surprising that I was awake. Rex just ("just") had to worry about social anxiety –I was worried about stacking meta bullshit on top of long-term plans on top of complex deception, and all of it was currently teetering on a cliff and a point of no return. If I backed out of the EAT class at this point, people would want to know why, and I'd probably give Rex such intense trust issues that they'd be passed onto his kids –if he ever had any, that is. This, right now, tomorrow, would be the tipping point where I crashed headlong into my proposed future, and it was probably pretty normal to feel trepidatious. Right? I wasn't being paranoid again, right?
Ugh.
Unsurprisingly, Rex and I were both gallows-eyed and wobbly when we staggered out of our rooms the morning of resumed class, and we stared at each other for a moment of mutual suffering in the hallway before zombie-shuffling our miserable way to the living room and kitchen area. Cupboards clattered, and I wordlessly set a mug on the counter and slid it sideways before reaching in for my own glass. The mug hit Rex's hand smoothly, and he picked it up and turned on the sink to fill it with the water he'd boil for his tea. Once the water was done, I swayed out of his way as he headed for the stove, missing him by inches as Rex leaned groggily in the other direction. We'd learned to work around each other like this while making breakfast a few days ago, since we both woke up at the same time for school and thus couldn't avoid each other in the small space.
"Anybody gives you shit, you can direct 'em towards me to punch." I said between mechanical bites of my cereal, not bothering to specify who or why. Tension was probably sitting in a solid knot in Rex's stomach right now, and it was hard to imagine him thinking of anything but the looming class. "Or Blackstar and Tsubaki."
"I don't think anyone's going to be that mean to me on the first day of class."
"Don't jinx it, dude." I said wearily. "Now you're probably gonna be jumped by thugs as soon as you walk into the classroom."
"Your weird family superstitions don't come into this." Rex said in what might be firmness, after he had a few more hours to wake up.
"I was right about the thing where a bunch of idiots challenged Blackstar when you thought he was just showing off, wasn't I?"
"Once! And who could've expected that some EAT students would show up right after I said that?!"
"Anyone who's read TV Tropes." I muttered under my breath, and noisily crunched my cereal to make up for it.
***Time Skip***
Good news, a wave of tittering and mockery didn't spread throughout the EAT room, Class Crescent Moon, when Rex and I walked in. In fact, most people didn't even seem to notice us, not even Blackstar –who, upon investigation, wasn't sitting on any of the tiers with Tsubaki. I blinked a little at that, considering that the only reason I could think of was him and Tsubaki being out taking care of Al Capone or confronting Mifune for the first time, and that was supposed to have already happened. Wasn't it?
My hysterical inner musings about already bending the timeline aside, Rex quickly tugged me down into a seat, evidently the closest to the front and the aisle as he could manage. Thankfully, even though we were in the center of the three sections, where the main characters sat, Maka and Soul were two tiers above us, and more in line with the center –something I discovered after hearing a semi-familiar shriek and whipping around with half the classroom, only to see a scowling Maka –sans black trench coat– lifting her book up from Soul's head as a vaguely skull-shaped wisp of smoke drifted up from his indented cranium. That dweeb Hiro was on the level below them, as were Ox, Fire, Thunder, Kilik, and Kim; and Harvar (Ox's partner) and Jacqueline (Kim's partner) were on the tier just above me and Rex. We had some distance from the mains and the named, something I couldn't help but be grateful for.
"Did you seriously have to hit me again…?" Soul groaned as the rest of the class lost interest in the dancing tick mark on Maka's forehead and Soul's face being practically implanted into the desk he was draped over. I would guess that he'd been talking with her about Sid coming back as a zombie and supposedly attacking students, and had just freaked her out with his zombified-Sid impression. But then again, shouldn't Blackstar and Tsubaki be in the class for this? But wait, hadn't Maka's dad only called her and Soul down…?
"All right kids, quiet down! Class is about to start!" came Spirit's brisk voice as the door creaked open, distracting me from my wonderings. He stepped in, all easy confidence and professional attire, though I was pretty sure that the only thing he had done was straighten the lapels of his suit and tuck a clipboard under his arm. He tapped that down onto the desk with one hand as he spoke, facing the class. "I'm not going to bother taking attendance, but I will tell you one thing right now. Anyone who thinks the bell decides when class is over –is wrong. I do, clear?"
"Try-hard." I muttered under my breath, rolling my eyes as Spirit gave us all a thumbs-up and sent a charismatic, background-twinkling smile towards Maka. I glanced aside to see Rex, and blinked as I saw him scribbling furiously on his notebook. I caught the words "Death Scythe," "presence," "personal aura," and "posture" before I groaned and rolled my eyes even harder.
"What's up with this, Death Scythe?!" Soul called down from the back of the classroom, clearly about as impressed with Spirit as Maka was. "Are you supposed to be our new teacher now or something?"
"I'm just a substitute, until they find someone who can find Sid's position permanently." Spirit said, picking up his clipboard in one hand. He raised his eyes slightly to glare at Soul. "But that still means I'm in charge of this class, so as long as I'm here, you will call me Professor Death Scythe."
Spirit's irked expression smoothed over as he then offered an easy smile to the class.
"All right then, let's take attendance." he said cheerily.
"You said you weren't gonna take role!" Soul growled down from the top of the tiers.
"I'm not going to take attendance for the guys," Spirit said, waving his free hand as the whole class watched this exchange without interrupting, enthralled by the two scythes arguing. "-but I think I will for all the ladies…"
"Damnit, quit being a creep!" Soul shouted, planting his hands on the desk and standing up.
"Oh please." Maka scoffed under her breath.
"He doesn't know when to quit, this one!" Spirit muttered, licking the nib of his pen and scanning down the list before he quickly wrote something out and put the clipboard back on the desk. He briskly clapped his hands, as though the past five minutes hadn't happened. "Okay, let's get this class started now."
"Hey old man, what did you just write down?!" Soul snarled, one leg halfway over his desk and with Maka making no moves to stop him or even hold him back at all. I caught a sort of ripple of anticipation through the class, an unspoken tension and excitement that said nobody else was going to stop Soul either –in fact, the other kids might be looking forward to seeing a Death Scythe come to blows with someone, since this was the top 10% of the school and these kids were all combat-ready.
Soul vs. Spirit.
Eh, I'd pay to see it, even if I was pretty sure Spirit would whoop Soul pretty quickly. He was a Death Scythe, after all.
"Ah, I almost forgot." Spirit said, staring calmly up at the enraged Soul. "Maka and Soul, Lord Death would like to see you in the Death Room. You've been excused from class, so get going. Shoo, shoo!"
The interested tension in the room spiked as Maka and Soul blinked, looking both nervous and confused. After all, the Death Room was ordinarily forbidden to students, so this was like being called down to the principal's office to the nth degree, and more than one eye fastened sympathetically on Maka and Soul as they quickly got up and hurried out of the room, Maka tightening her tie on the way out of the door.
"Now then, to start class." Spirit said, putting his hands in the pockets of his slacks. Another excited murmur rippled through the room as he struck a pose, several students gulping as they clearly wondered what phenomenal technique an actual Death Scythe was going to explain to them. "I'm going to introduce you to a field you know nothing about yet."
Spirit tilted his chin up with a confident smirk.
"You're going to learn all about the cabaret club business. What do you think?"
A stunned, incredulous silence fell over the room. I sighed and swiped a page from the bottom of Rex's stack, picking up a pencil of my own and waiting for something useful to fall from our womanizing teacher as Spirit flinched just a little, subtly, before beginning to try and explain himself to the class. I could see in theory how knowing how cabaret clubs worked could help us on missions –people flirting and drinking were a great source of information– but Spirit, of course, had to wax rapturous about a bunch of stupid, useless trivia on the women in said clubs before he got to the useful nuggets of fact.
Unsurprisingly, Rex was looking a little haunted by the time we finally made our way out of class, obviously questioning everything that had led him up to this point and the wisdom of the so-called heroes that taught at this school. I bought him a triple-fudge sundae during the lunch break and considered my duty in making him feel better done –the DWMA was uniquely bizarre in its staff, and that was something I would've thought Rex would've been reconciled to before. Then again, Sid and Naigus were very much the straight men of the bunch, and they'd been the only canonically-named teachers that the NOT students had interacted with. For all I knew, this was Rex's first experience in how balls-to-the-walls stupid some of the teachers here could get.
Lookin' at you, Marie, Stein, and Spirit.
Now that I had firmly centered myself in the timeline, though –as proven by Blackstar and Tsubaki's continued absence as we moved from lunch to First Aid– I was able to relax and bit more and actually focus on classes, which was good, because the curriculum was entirely different than the one in NOT –different unit, different topics, and even different teaching methods. If I thought things were hands-on before, it was no comparison to now, and thank fuck for the obliging other students, who whispered a few pointers to me and Rex to ensure that we weren't completely lost upon being thrown into the deep end. I spotted the redhead from the batting cages, who was introduced to us by her partner Lukas, a blond, blue-eyed, glasses-wearing dude who was in close competition for Rex with dorkiness. Turns out her name was Tessa, he was a nata –my inner Higurashi fan gave a spasmodic twitch– and they were totally willing to be friends, take nothing Tessa says as an insult.
I had to raise an eyebrow at that one, but his little side-note rapidly became apparent when we were partnered for CPR on the hauntingly vacant-eyed dummy head-and-torsos. Tessa took absolutely no shit –not even the suggestion of shit– and if I wasn't more than used to lapsing into dry sarcasm myself, I would definitely have taken her somewhat abrasive mannerisms as an indication of hostility rather than brisk efficiency.
"You really haven't taken this class before, huh?" Tessa asked as I pumped up and down on the plastic torso with faint clicks, hands locked together on top of the real-world position of the sternum.
"That obvious?" I grunted, trying to keep on pace of 110 beats per minute.
"Well, its not like we've seen either of you in EAT before." she snickered. "What'd you think I meant?"
"Something horribly insulting, no doubt." I said, my mouth curling up slightly at the side. Lukas, meanwhile, was giving Rex a lot kinder of a rundown on how to accurately perform CPR, including thumbing out a battered Walkman and playing what I could only presume was Stayin' Alive, or the this-world equivalent, as they each took an earbud.
"Oi, don't get distracted."
"I am sticking to a real-world scenario." I said loftily. "If I was seriously giving CPR, there'd be a lot more and a lot louder stuff happening around me. This is true-to-life."
We grinned at each other over the CPR dummy before I refocused my attention back on counting out the beats for the chest compressions. Aside from Blackstar, who I was starting to realize with dread was becoming a friend of ours, Tessa and Lukas seemed like good Plan B options for friendship and general hanging-out, especially considering the fact that eventually, if we stuck around in EAT and the plot didn't get fouled up, we'd have to create a three-team unit of other meisters and Weapons. We also, at some point after Crona attacked Soul and Maka for the first time, would have to go on paired missions with another team for safety reasons.
You could certainly do worse. I thought, glancing across the room again to see the other EAT students, including Hiro, who had just tried to give rescue breaths to his dummy and somehow had the air rush back into his own chest as he spluttered and choked. Yeah, you could do a hell of a lot worse.
10.09 AM, USA Central Time