A/N: This chapter's a little bit weird because I realized while I was writing it that I needed a time-skip to happen in the middle of the chapter. I indicated where the time skip happens, but I'm not entirely happy with how that part of the story turned out. Still, hope you like it, and hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

A note, Christmas is coming up, and that could either mean I have more time to write, or that I have a lot less time to write, depending on what my family decides to do (at the moment, we're also bent on rewatching all the Star Wars movies before watching the new one, so 'less' is looking a little more likely). If you don't see a new chapter till next week, don't be alarmed. It just means I took a Christmas break.

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

Review Responses:

God of Crossover, it was really only a matter of time, lol.

AmyNChan, multi-variable calculus is evil, and Shelley is doing it, not technically in her sleep, but while half-asleep. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree between her and Stein. Lots of people don't drink coffee! I just can't think of anyone in my cast at the moment…And Ayame is totally a daddy's girl. Glad you liked the omake, and thanks for reviewing!

OfAllTheShizz, thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I'm trying to keep the old cast in the loop as much as possible, and it's sort of necessary to use them at this point because many of the kids don't understand that the plot has already begun.

fanficlove2014, thanks, glad you liked those conversations! I had a lot of fun imagining them in my head, particularly Stein and Shelley, who apparently show affection by snarking at each other.


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Group Resonance; A Test of Friendship!


Rei frowned as a knock came from their apartment's front door, pulling one of his earbuds out of his ears so that he could hear better. The knock came a second time, and he stepped away from the mixing bowl, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel and walking towards the sound.

He was making cookies. He didn't even know why he was making cookies, only that Ayame was cleaning the apartment today and after a while, he felt guilty sitting on the couch and doing nothing, so he had walked into the kitchen. He frowned, pausing in the kitchen's entryway to look back at the mess of flour, eggs, and chocolate he had left on the countertop. Ayame couldn't cook to save her life, but she was surprisingly tidy, so very early on in their partnership, they'd settled into a routine where he did the cooking as long as she cleaned the house on the weekends. It started out as an arrangement that was convenient, but he worried that it was getting out of hand.

He walked through the living room, where the television—still on—was tuned to the cooking channel, further exacerbating his concerns. He felt himself scowl as he shuffled the few steps towards the door, the scowl coming in response to a mental argument with himself. Was it so bad if he liked cooking? They'd both starve to death if he let Ayame have her way in the kitchen.

He opened the door as the knock came again, trying (and not quite succeeding) to keep the surly expression from his face.

"What?" he asked.

He saw nothing at his eye level. Rei blinked, then looked down to see Annie standing there, clutching a little black backpack to herself uncertainly. He looked around, but there was no sign of Cori, and nothing of his parents except the hint of what looked like the family car driving away.

Bad sign, he thought, if they hadn't even bothered to park to drop Annie off. He looked back down at the girl, suddenly conscious of the fact that it was two in the afternoon and he was still wearing the clothes he'd woken up in.

"Hey, Annie," he said, trying to soften his expression. "What's up?"

"Mama and Papa had to go to a meeting," Annie said, blinking wide green eyes at him that seemed surprisingly resigned to all of this. "Mama says she tried to call you, but you didn't answer your phone. Can I stay with you for a bit?"

Rei winced, remembering the phone he had left in his room, upstairs. He pulled the other earbud out of his ear, shutting off the music as he turned towards Annie. "Sure," he said. "Come right in."

Annie stepped into the house, her expression remaining unchanged as she slipped her shoes off, padded into the kitchen, and took her seat at the kitchen table. Since this was where she and Cori normally sat when they were over, Rei didn't particularly mind. He went back to the mixing bowl, glad that Annie's arrival had given some meaning to him being a teenage boy who decided to spend his Saturday afternoon baking double chocolate chip cookies that he had seen on the cooking channel.

The sound of the vacuum cleaner coming from upstairs died down, followed by an abrupt end to the upbeat, pop rock music that had accompanied it. He heard hurried footfalls as Ayame ran down the stairs.

"Rei, did you get the door?" she asked, peeking her head into the kitchen. She drew to a stop as she saw Annie, blinking at her. Annie didn't look up at Ayame's arrival, having already started coloring. She was used to Ayame's presence by now, which meant that she no longer tried to hide behind Rei or Cori when Ayame entered the room.

"Yeah," said Rei, glancing at Annie. "It was Mom and Dad dropping Annie off. Something about a meeting."

"A very important meeting," Annie emphasized, drawing a thick red slash across the page.

"Oh, I see," said Ayame, grinning as she pulled up a seat next to Annie. "So, where's Cori, kiddo?"

"Cori couldn't come because she's playing at Will's house."

Rei tensed. "Oh yeah?" he asked, trying to sound casual about it as he looked over his mixing bowl. "Who's Will, Annie?"

"Boy from class," Annie said. "He gave Cori a flower."

Rei twitched, tightening his hold on the handle of the spatula he was using to scrape the sides of the bowl. "He did, did he?" he said. "So—uh, where does Will live, Annie?"

Annie looked at him sidelong from over her drawing. "You sound like Papa," she said.

"I do not!" said Rei. "I'm just wondering—."

Ayame took that as her cue to step in, drawing Annie's attention back to herself. "So—um—why don't you tell me what you're drawing?"

Annie blinked up at Ayame but seemed more comfortable talking to her at the moment than she did to Rei, which didn't really help his mood. He fumed, but went back to shaping the cookies and dropping them onto a cookie sheet. "I'm drawing Papa," she said, lowering her head again.

"That's cool," said Ayame. "But you know, there are colors other than red and black…"

"I'm drawing him in scythe form," said Annie, drawing a black crayon across the page with a full five-fingered grip. "Papa's scythe form is red and black."

"What's this red spot here, then?" Ayame asked, pointing.

"The blood of his enemies."

"I—I see." Ayame drew her hand back, looking at Rei from the kitchen table. She caught his eye, giving him a look that he had seen many times from many different people over the past few years, one that roughly translated said 'There's something a little off about your sister…'

Rei waved his hand in response, forming a gesture that basically meant 'don't worry', or 'just go with it'. Annie's oddness was too long a story to get into right now. He looked back at the cookies he was making, forming another small ball between his hands and setting it on the sheet. His mind went back to the urgency with which his parents had dropped Annie off, Annie's insistence that they were going to an important meeting. There had been a few other 'important meetings' when he was a child, ones where Maka and Soul had pretty much had to drop everything and go. He'd ignored them back then, not really interested in the inner workings of the DWMA.

Now, he wondered…was something going on? Did it have anything to do with Micah?

He placed his hand over his chest unconsciously, feeling the edge of the bandage beneath his shirt. What was going on here, really?

There was nothing he could do about it now, so he lowered his hand before Ayame or Annie could notice that something was wrong.

"Cookies will be ready in a few minutes," he said, going back to work.


Maka stood next to Soul in the Death Room, watching as Kid established a connection with the East Asia branch through room's large mirror. The room was crowded today, occupied by most of the important staff of the DWMA, including Sid and Naigus, Stein and Marie, Ox and Harvar, her father, Mifune, Liz and Patty, and Angela and Shelley. The latter stood off to the side, on the other side of the circle from her parents, her arms folded as she turned towards the glowing mirror. There was a pause as the connection was made, and then the light faded as Azusa appeared in the glass of the mirror, a grim expression on her face.

"Azusa," Kid said. "You have a report?"

Azusa nodded, adjusting her glasses. "Yes," she said. "Thank you for assembling everyone on such short notice, Shinigami-sama." The thanks was delivered in Azusa's usual manner, without any warmth, as though she was running through a conversational checklist before they could get to the heart of the matter. She took only a moment to glance down at the notes in her hand before diving in.

Maka listened, a frown on her face. Kid had briefed them all on the events in East Asia shortly before Azusa came online to give her report. She didn't know the full story, but she knew some of the details, and the details were grim enough. A small DWMA outpost in the Japanese countryside had been attacked last night. As far as anyone knew, there were no survivors.

"We've conducted autopsies on the remains," Azusa said, in a matter-of-fact tone that belied anything she might have actually been feeling about the attack. "There were no marks on any of the bodies, none that we could see. It's as if their hearts simply stopped beating."

"Any sign of poisoning?" Stein asked, speaking up. "It could have been a gas of some sort. Have you looked at their lungs?"

"We haven't found anything conclusive," said Azusa, frowning at Stein. "We have considered poison, of course."

Stein frowned, glancing at Kid. Kid nodded in response to the unspoken question and Stein half-turned away from the group, probably making arrangements to travel to Japan at that very moment.

"How about physical evidence?" Sid asked, talking over Stein. "Did you find out how the killer got in the building?"

"The assassin entered from the front wall of the compound," Azusa said. "He or she scaled the wall, dispatched the gate guards, and then proceeded into the building proper. As far as I can tell, the killer was able to move unnoticed for some time before an alarm was raised. By then, they had already managed to infiltrate the base."

Ox looked up from where he was tapping away at a small device, the light reflecting off of his glasses. He stepped forward and laid it in the center of the circle, moving back. As Maka watched, a light spread up from it, forming a pattern in the air that quickly resolved into a 3D model of the base. The conversation paused as people's eyes moved towards it, and Ox smirked proudly, folding his arms.

"The R&D team's newest development," he said. "It has the locations of several DWMA bases already pre-programmed." He pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping at it, and the model swiveled around, zooming in on the front of the compound. "You said the assassin entered from the front?"

"Yes," said Azusa, nodding. A red line passed through the front of the compound at Ox's direction, moving through the assassin's probable path. "After that, the details are a little difficult. What we do know was that the alarm was triggered when the attacker found the entrance to the basement, and was located in the second basement level."

"What about security footage?" Kid asked.

Azusa shook her head. "We had one image of the attacker," she said. "After that, the cameras were knocked out. Some sort of electromagnetic pulse."

"The image?" Harvar asked.

"It's here," said Azusa, nodding. "But I think you'll agree that it's not very helpful."

She waved her hand, and an image appeared on the surface of the mirror, time-stamped for 12:49 AM local time. It was a grainy picture, showing a figure robed in black standing just outside the base's front door, a hand outstretched towards one of the gate guards. From this distance, it was almost impossible to make out any details about the killer, including their gender.

Maka squinted, but couldn't make out anything more than that.

Kid frowned, turning his attention to the hologram that Ox had made. It depicted a building with three basement levels, extending down from the surface. Below the third basement level, the light collected into something that might have been a floor, but was too fuzzy to see. He looked back at Azusa. "Did they make it to the fourth level?" he asked.

Azusa's expression grew grimmer. "They did," she said. "They managed to break through the vault there, killing the guards and bypassing the security system."

"And the artifact?" Kid asked.

"It's gone," said Azusa.

"Artifact?" Maka asked.

"The Magatama," Azusa said, before Kid could speak. "An artifact that predates the creation of Demon Weapons. The East Asia branch of the DWMA has been housing it in one location or another for centuries."

"It's a weapon?" Soul asked.

"Of sorts," said Kid, "Although it's fickle. No one has actually managed to use it for centuries. Not because of its personality, or anything like that. As far as I'm aware, the Magatama doesn't have anything resembling a true personality, but it does have some sort of a will. It hasn't chosen to bond with anyone in a long while. With the advent of Demon Weapons, its purpose seems to have become redundant."

There was a long pause while everyone considered the implications of that. Maka took a deep breath, deciding to say what they were all thinking.

"So this assassin has it," she said. "Can they use it?"

"I don't know," Kid said, glancing at Azusa for confirmation. When she didn't contradict him, he went on. "We have to assume that that's the case though." He stopped to think for a moment, lacing his fingers together from where he sat at his desk, then nodded solemnly, looking up at Azusa. "Thank you for your report," he said. "I'd like to ask the East Asia branch to increase its security and continue investigations. We'll send reinforcements from the intelligence branch to assist with that." He glanced at Sid and Naigus as he spoke and Sid nodded, making a note.

"Thank you, Shinigami-sama," Azusa said, inclining her head. "We will, of course, accept any assistance that you can spare."

The connection broke, the mirror becoming purely reflective once again. Kid looked around the room in the silence that followed, looking at each of them in turn. No one spoke, everyone watching him expectantly.

"I suppose, given the events of this week, that it's safe to say we have a situation," he said. "Stein, how soon can you get to Japan?"

"I can be there tomorrow, if I leave now," Stein said, turning his bolt with one hand. "Have Azusa keep the bodies in storage."

"I'm sure she's already working on that," said Kid, tapping something out onto the small mirror mounted into the center of his desk. "I'll let her know regardless. Soul."

"Yeah?" asked Soul, looking up.

"I want an alert sent out to the other branches. Tell them what we know about both Micah and this…Assassin, and warn them about the Magatama. If they see or hear anything suspicious, they're to report it in directly."

Soul nodded. "On it."

"Ox, Harvar, I want whatever you can find on the Magatama in the records."

"We're on it," said Ox, already thumbing through something on his phone.

Kid looked away from him, turning to Maka. "Maka, we can't assume that the attack on Rei was an isolated incident. We aren't going to put a halt on student missions, but warn the students that there may be other attacks on one-star meisters in the future."

Maka nodded in response, her expression grave. Kid moved on, turning towards the others.

"Sid, Naigus, I'll leave the details of the intelligence contingent we're sending to assist Azusa to you. Angela, Shelley, make sure that Kim knows what we're dealing with. See if she can gather any information from the Assembly, in any way she sees fit. Spirit and Mifune, work on increasing our security."

Nods followed each of his pronouncements, a handful of people already getting to work on their phones.

Marie looked up. "And me?" she asked.

"Go with Stein," said Kid. "Azusa didn't say anything about madness, but if this is connected to the isolated outbreaks of madness in Europe, I'd rather you were there. We can't afford any more surprises."

Marie nodded, already turning towards Stein. Kid looked around at the group.

"Any questions?" he asked. When no one answered, he said, "If there are no questions, dismissed. Let me know what you find. And get to work."


"Group resonance is more difficult than resonance between partners," Stein said, walking around the three of them, three weeks later. "As a rule, the more people involved in a resonance chain, the more powerful that resonance is, and the harder it is to maintain."

Morgan, Rei, and Clark stood facing each other, forming a triangle in a clearing in the training forest, weapons in hand. Rei had chosen Ayame's kusarigama form for this, the form he was most familiar with. To his left, Clark stood with one end of Vayne's curved blade thrust into the earth, the other pointing up at the sky, so that the blade was in front of him, parallel with him. To his right, Morgan held the grimoire open, the sun shining down on blank pages as she closed her eyes. It was late September, but still hot enough in Death City that sweat trickled down the back of his neck, the sun beating down on them from just above the trees. He kept his eyes on Stein, doing his best to focus on the professor as he continued to lecture. It was difficult going, considering Stein seemed to have a habit of getting behind him.

He finally found a spot between Clark and Morgan, directly across from Rei. Rei turned his eyes on him, trying to relax and focus as he held Ayame's hilts loosely in his hands. The chain hovered in place around him, Ayame listening as well from within her soul space.

"I could go back over the procedures involved in a group resonance, but we've been over this enough in class," Stein said, his hands clasped behind his back. "The only way to learn how to do it is to practice. So begin."

Rei nodded, exchanging glances with Morgan and Clark. Stein had been leading up to their first practical training for the past couple of weeks, so the three of them had already had some time to discuss how they were going to attempt their first resonance chain. At their nods, Rei closed his eyes, reaching for Ayame. She closed her eyes as well, her soul reaching for his.

Over the past year of their partnership, Ayame's soul wavelength had become intensely familiar to him. They resonated easily, and Rei felt her wavelength boost his, amplifying it until his soul swelled to fill the space around him. He reached out with his Soul Perception, trusting Ayame to maintain their bond, and felt for Morgan and Clark.

Their soul wavelengths brushed against his, entangled in their own separate resonances. He felt the steady beat of Cassie's wavelength lacing through Morgan's more sedate soul, felt the familiar crackle of Vayne's Soul Response as it threaded through Clark's soul like lightning. He drew in a deep breath.

"Clark," he said, the same way they had planned it.

"Rei," Clark echoed, and Rei felt him nod in the fuzzy half-sight his Soul Perception lent him.

He reached for Clark's soul. It was hard, harder than expected, but they had planned it this way for a reason. He had never tried to resonate with another meister, but Vayne's wavelength, while it clashed with his for some reason, was one that he was very familiar with. When they'd discussed this in their theoretical conversations, the hope had been that Rei and Vayne's connection would make it easiest for the two of them to establish a link.

Their wavelengths slid against each other for one annoying, frustrating moment before they connected, a tendril of light connecting his and Clark's soul. Rei felt his own Soul Response swell to accommodate this sudden influx of power, felt the sudden presences that were Clark and Vayne entwined together. It was distracting, and he felt his and Ayame's concentrations waver. Ayame hissed a curse under her breath as their link fizzled and nearly died out, but they quickly reconnected, the resonance link becoming stable again. Rei waited for a few heartbeats, catching his breath, and then felt Clark's intent as he started reaching towards Morgan.

"Morgan," he said.

Morgan echoed him. "Clark."

That had been the second part of the plan. Out of the three of them, Clark was the only one that had the ability to turn his Soul Wavelength into an attack, which naturally made him the best out of the three of them at controlling it. The middle link in the chain would have to juggle two different resonances before participants one and three could get their acts together, so they'd decided as a group to let Clark and Vayne handle this part. Rei felt his link with Clark falter for a moment as Clark concentrated on Morgan, then come back in full force as the two of them established resonance, another tendril of light connecting their souls together.

The only thing left to do was close the circle, a resonance link between Morgan and Rei.

"Morgan," Rei said.

"Rei," Morgan said in return.

He reached for her soul, ignoring the pounding in his head that told him he was starting to push his Soul Perception to its limits. He felt her soul reach for him in turn, a thin tendril of light rising up from the entity that was somehow both her and Cassie at once. He felt Ayame at his back, closer than she had ever been, feeding his wavelength with more power. It was a warmth that blossomed across his soul like fire, boosting it across the extra space between his soul and Morgan's.

They connected in a flash of light and Rei froze, a sudden influx of information pouring into him from Morgan through their resonance.

The resonance chain shattered like glass, shards of light flying apart as their souls retreated back into themselves. The sudden separation was disorienting, and it took Rei a while to catch his breath, a while to remember which way was up. He opened his eyes, breathing hard, his face pale and his skin cold and clammy. Fear, coming from a source he couldn't pinpoint, raced through him, making his heart speed up.

Something was wrong. Something, somewhere was wrong. He couldn't figure out what it was.

"Rei?" Ayame asked, sounding concerned. She opened her eyes, looking up at him through the bright blue void around her. "Rei? What's wrong, Rei?"

He shook his head, sucking in a breath through his teeth and looked up at the others. Morgan and Clark looked confused and a little strained, but not afraid. They exchanged glances with each other and turned towards him. He opened his mouth, his mind already trying to supply him with something to say, but he was saved by Stein straightening up and walking towards them, the professor not looking at all surprised.

"Well," he said. "It's not unusual for it to take a few times. You have the whole hour. Try again."

Clark eyed each of them in turn, then nodded, his meaning plain as he adjusted his grip on Vayne's handle and closed his eyes: Ready when you are. Morgan did the same, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before holding Cassie out again and closing her eyes. Rei hesitated a moment before he let his eyes drift closed, his heart still pounding.

"Rei?" Ayame asked. "Talk to me."

"It's nothing," Rei mumbled under his breath. "Started to lose the link and panicked. We'll try again."

But it wasn't nothing. He thought he knew exactly where the problem had come from, even though he didn't know what it was, remembered the exact instant their connection broke, the moment he felt Morgan's soul come into contact with his.

There was something wrong with Morgan's soul.

He just didn't know what.


"Karaoke!" yelled half the class, the half containing Rhythm and Rhyme, Jonas, Vayne and Ayame.

"Café!" the other, less vocal half, yelled in reply, Cassie and Ophelia taking the lead as Morgan and Yorick, Ophelia's hulking, surly beast of a partner, glowered behind them.

Clark looked on helplessly from the front of the room as the two halves continued to yell at each other, now split equally along the center by an aisle of no-man's land occupied only by Rei and a handful of other fence sitters. His eyes widened as a paper ball sailed across the aisle from the karaoke side, only to be followed by a handful of pencils from the café side.

"C-Calm down," Clark said, holding his hands out to either side of him. "I'm sure we can settle this like reasoning—." He yelped as what looked like somebody's lunch sailed through the air towards him, striking the chalkboard with a splat as he jumped aside. "Maka-sensei!"

Maka looked up from where she was grading papers in the corner of the room, ostensibly moderating the discussion. "Class!" she said, sharply. "We don't throw things to make a point!"

A hush followed, broken by a commotion on the karaoke side of the room as people started nudging each other.

Someone spoke up. "Sorry, Maka-sensei…"

Another voice, closer to the front of the room, coughed a word that sounded suspiciously like 'snitch'.

Rei rolled his eyes, propping his head up in his hand as the discussion resumed around him. The class was arguing about what to do for the Death Festival, the only consensus being that Jonas should be kept very far away from chemicals. At the moment, the jury was split between a karaoke booth and a quiet café. Rei, who normally might have had some sort of opinion, couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. His mind was still wrapped up in thinking about their failed resonance chain, about the darkness he'd sensed in Morgan's soul.

He looked over at Ayame as she led another volley of chants and insults for the karaoke group, wondering why she even cared. The two of them had registered for the tournament yesterday; it wasn't like they would be involved in running the booth regardless. Rei sighed, looking over at Morgan again.

If he activated his Soul Perception, something that in a room like this didn't really take too much effort, but made him go slightly cross-eyed with all the information he was getting, he could see her soul. It looked normal to his eye, a deep-violet orb hanging in the center of her chest, reclusive, but not out of the ordinary.

And yet…that hadn't been what he had felt earlier. He had only caught a glimpse of it, but it hadn't felt normal. It felt…familiar in a way, familiar enough that it had broken his concentration completely.

He looked away from Morgan as a particularly loud yell rose up from the karaoke side of the class, turning his attention back to Clark, who was desperately trying to keep order. He took a step back, his hands upraised towards the class as he turned to Maka with wide eyes.

"Maka-sensei," he said, a note of pleading in his voice. "Don't you have an opinion?"

"Clark, this is your booth," said Maka, offering him a smile from over the papers she was grading. "This shouldn't be about what I want. It should be about what you all want for your class."

"But—" Clark began.

The door at the front of the room opened, Ox Ford poking his head in. Maka pushed herself up to her feet, frowning at him in question as he stepped into the room.

"Maka, do you have any extra chalk?" he asked. Before Maka could answer, Ox turned his head towards the board, taking in the two words written on it, one on each side of the room: Karaoke and Café. He smirked, folding his arms as he turned to Clark and paying no attention to the yelling going on in the rows behind him.

"Trying to plan your booth?" he asked. "That's cute. If I were you, I wouldn't go with karaoke. My class is doing a karaoke booth for the Festival, and it will obviously be better than any karaoke booth this class can throw together." He turned, snatching up a box of chalk from the sill beneath the chalkboard and pocketing it as he left the room. "Thanks for the chalk," he said, as the door closed behind him.

The class continued to argue, but Rei's eyes were on his mother. She had her head bowed, her hands clenched into fists at her side, and he found himself cringing as she stepped forward, swiping the chalk out of Clark's hands and all but pushing him out of the way as she turned to face the class.

"Class, we're doing a karaoke booth!" she said, slamming the chalk into the board loud enough to get the students' attention. "That's final!"

Rei groaned, covering his face with his hands as a wave of dissatisfied mutters rose up from the right side of the room, drowned out by the whoops of triumph coming from the left side. Students started moving to their seats at Maka's direction, Ayame dropping down into the seat beside him with a self-satisfied grin as Clark started dejectedly making his way up the steps. Morgan swept past him as she made her way back to her seat, and he peered at her from between his fingers, absentmindedly activating his Soul Perception.

His eyes widened. He saw her soul, just as he had earlier, but there was something else, something that he only noticed now that she was walking past him, now that she was closer.

The bracelet on her wrist shimmered in his Soul Perception, emitting the faintest glow.


He waited until the end of class to talk to her about it, waited until he could find a moment when the two of them would be alone. He finally caught her at the end of the day, when she was standing at her locker looking through her books and Cassie was nowhere in sight. The hallway was empty now, the setting sun shining in through the large, open windows to his left and illuminating the hall in bright orange.

Morgan looked up as he approached, a frown on her face.

"We need to talk," Rei said, stopping just in front of her locker. He kept his voice low. It was the end of the day, and there wasn't anyone directly around them, but the school wasn't quite empty yet. Indeed, as soon as he approached her, a group of first-year E.A.T. students passed by, talking in excited voices, and Morgan shot them a look as they passed before turning back towards Rei.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, her tone clipped, as if he was suddenly the last person she wanted to see.

"What happened in Stein's class," Rei said, "When we were resonating. There was something strange about your soul."

"There's nothing wrong with my soul," Morgan said, frowning at him. "You must have been imagining things."

"Your wavelength felt familiar somehow, and it took me a while to figure out where I'd felt it before," Rei said, talking quickly before she had a chance to retreat. "In the red house, back during our first mission. I felt a Witch's Soul. At first, I thought it was just the ghost Ayame and I were fighting, but I spent a lot of time with that soul on the way back here, and it wasn't the same wavelength. I always thought it was just because I wasn't used to using my Soul Perception—that I'd gotten my signals crossed somehow—but it was you all along, wasn't it?"

She stared at him, her eyes on his, and he saw her eyes widen, a hint of fear in them for half a second. She looked to her right, as if expecting Cassie to be standing there, and when she wasn't, looked back at Rei, the fear disappearing and replacing itself with anger. Her eyes narrowed and she stepped back, closing her locker door. "I don't know what you're talking about, Rei," she said. "Now, if you excuse me, I'm very tired, and just want to go home."

She started to walk past him. Rei reached out, grabbing her arm. Morgan jerked to a stop, shooting a venomous look at him over her shoulder, but the action had given him time to examine her bracelet a little closer. Now that he looked at it, he noticed that not only was it infused with a soul wavelength, it was a wavelength that he recognized. Without thinking, he reached out with his free hand, running a finger over the knot that bound the bracelet to her.

"You're wearing Kimial Diehl's magic on your wrist," he said, looking back at Morgan's eyes. "Why?"

She jerked her hand back as if his touch had burned her, encircling the bracelet protectively with her other hand. "That's none of your business," she said.

"Morgan, if you're…what I think you are, it is my business," said Rei. He drew in a breath, watching her as she stared at him, and his expression softened, a note of pleading creeping into his voice. "Please, just tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help you."

Morgan shook her head, her own expression softening as well. She lowered her eyes to the ground.

"You can't help me, Rei…" she muttered, almost too soft for him to hear.

He wasn't entirely sure he had heard right. "What was that?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Morgan, her eyes snapping back up to meet his. "Just—just trust me, okay. I can't tell you what's going on, but it's not…whatever you think it is. I would never hurt you, or the DWMA, or anyone here. So…please. Please, just trust me."

He looked her in the eye and was surprised by what he saw there. Fear, mostly, not something that he usually saw in Morgan. She watched him, and he saw the fear in her eyes, saw the realization that he could do anything now, that all he had to do was report her and it would be all over for her. He stared at her, trying to determine whether or not she was lying, and found that he couldn't tell, but he was surprised to find that it didn't matter.

He trusted her. No matter who else she was, she was still Morgan. Still one of his friends, and still the girl that had somehow found her way to France to help him and Ayame.

Rei exhaled, a part of him wondering if he was making a bad choice, and slowly released her. "I do," he said. "I trust you, Morgan."

She nodded mutely, meeting his eyes for a moment more. And then she abruptly looked away, ducking her head to hide her expression as she disappeared down the hallway.