A/N: I think I've outlined this arc so that it lasts 4 chapters, so we're about halfway through unless I decide to add another one. And this chapter reveals something that I've been sitting on for a long time, kind of excited to see how you guys deal with it~ Enjoy!

Just a heads up, I'm out of town this week so the next chapter may be a little delayed, but hopefully not too much!

Review Responses:

pokelover01, thank you! Glad you liked it! Yeah, Shelley wasn't thinking 100% clearly at the time, but well…Micah got under her skin in a lot of ways. Cori definitely inherited Maka's bravery and a dash of recklessness, although in this case, it might get them in trouble. Or not. Mwahahaha. Enjoy the chapter!

Diana Raven, hmm…I wonder what I'll do? Thanks for the review, and read on!

Arcane Student, thank you so much! It really means a lot, and you're spot on with your description of this arc. It is the end of the second act in a three act play, although the third act might be the longest of the acts. I'd put us at…oh about halfway to 2/3 done, at least as far as my outline goes.

Mighty Guy, fear not, it's not over yet~

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Attack Pt. 2; Into the Black


The elementary school's second floor was empty, the morning sun gleaming through the wall of windows to Cori's left. She ran quickly through the empty halls, headed for her classroom, the shaft of Annie's scythe form clutched in both hands. Her heart was pounding, her mind racing. Despite her earlier bravado, she had never actually been in a fight before.

Not that she could ever let Annie know that she was scared. If Annie figured out that she was just as terrified as she was, she would give up. Cori knew it. She had to be brave, for her sister's sake as well as her own.

And she couldn't turn back now. So instead she stopped to crouch outside of the classroom door, peeking around the corner at the inside of the room.

The classroom was a wreck. The windows had been smashed open, shards of glass littering the ground. Something small and dense had slammed into the desks nearest the window, splintering them and sending them crashing to the ground in a small crater around it. As Cori watched some…thing lifted itself up from the wreckage, hopping around. A small monster, barely as high as Cori's knees. It was fuzzy, covered in a thin coat of what looked like black fur. If it hadn't been for the razor sharp teeth inside of its mouth, Cori would almost have said it looked cute.

The sight of the small monster bolstered her confidence. She pressed her back against the wall, wringing her hands around the handle of Annie's scythe form as she prepared to attack. "It's only a little one," she told her sister, keeping her voice low. "We can take it."

"I don't know about this, Cori…" Annie said, looking up at her sister uncertainly. "Maybe we should go back…"

"But what if that thing finds the other students?" Cori asked. "Or what if it has friends?" She shook her head. "No, this is our chance. We have to help out—we can't just let Rei and Mama and Papa fight alone."

Her mother's face filled her mind again, the day that Cori had caught her tying a mourning band on her arm. Her mother's tears…the feeling of them against her hands. The memory brought some of her courage back, made her tighten her grip on the scythe as her eyes narrowed. She'd made a promise then, a promise to grow up and grow strong so that that would never happen again. That started today.

"Just trust me, Annie," she said, feeling all the weight of that revelation settle onto its shoulders. She straightened up. "It's going to be okay."

Then, before she could change her mind, she charged into the room, letting out a battle cry.

The monster jumped as if startled, turning towards her, but Cori was quick. She lifted the scythe easily over her head, sweeping it downward and swinging the point of it down at the top of the monster's head. It leaped to the side, snarling at her, and the scythe-point sank into the classroom floor, pinning itself there. Cori braced her hands on the scythe's shaft like she and Annie had practiced and leaped off the ground, using the shaft as leverage to swing her legs at the monster. Her foot crashed into it, throwing it back into a desk, and the wood splintered beneath the weight of it, the desk sliding back and crashing into another one. Cori landed on the ground, Annie's weight comfortable in her hands as she drew the scythe out of the floor, slipping it easily through a twirl and charging at the monster.

The monster let out an angry growl, jumping to its feet. It leaped at her, mouth spread wide, and Cori poured her heart and soul into a battle cry, tucking the scythe's shaft under her arm and swinging the scythe blade in a wide, horizontal arc. The blade caught the monster's side as it leaped towards her and Cori spun with enough force to fling the monster into the wall, the creature leaving a small crater in the drywall before crashing down on top of the desks, kicking up a cloud of plaster and dust. She finished her turn, breathless, and looked down at the scythe in her hands.

"You didn't cut," she said.

"I tried," said Annie, arms spread wide to either side of her as the scythe's movement came to a stop. She looked uncertain, a worried frown on her face. "It didn't cut. It…was hard. Like—like armor."

"Huh…" said Cori, frowning at the crater where the monster had crashed. She could see the monster's carcass now, already beginning to dissolve. The glowing light of its soul appeared, a deep red orb. "Well, either way, it looks like we did it. I'll let you take the soul, since—."

The shadows around the monster's carcass halted, then coalesced, slamming back down onto the small monster's body. Cori's eyes widened as the ground began to shake, shadows pooling around the monster's soul. She tightened her grip on the scythe, spreading her legs and crouching down into a stance as Annie let out a startled shriek.

"What is it?" Annie asked. "What's happening?"

Cori didn't answer, her heart jumping into her throat. An arm formed out of the shadows around the soul, followed by another, massive arms, almost as big as she was. They ended in clawed hands, and those clawed hands scrabbled on the tiles, pressing flat against them as the creature's head began to form.

"C-Cori?" Annie asked. "Wh-what…?"

Cori took an involuntary step back, eyes wide as the shadows gathered in the creature's face, forming eyes, gleaming red eyes that turned to look at her.


The school shook and rattled from the force of the blasts, plaster falling from the ceiling in places and startling the students that ran through the hallways below, looking for cover. A network of security personnel had already spread out through the panicked crowd, forming escape routes and guiding the students towards the relative safety of the dungeons. A few students, mostly from the EAT class but with a handful of brave NOT students mixed in, had run outside after Shinigami, weapons in hand to join the fray.

Stein threw his arm out to stop Marie as a chunk of stone fell from the ceiling, landing on the ground directly in front of them. He looked around at the chaos and the sound of the screams, eyes narrowed as his hand reached up, cranking the bolt.

A group of hulking figures had entered the school through the DWMA's doors, further adding to the panic of the crowd. Stein's eyes moved towards them from behind his glasses, narrowing further as he took in their shapes. They moved on four legs, like dogs, but there was fire in their eyes, flames erupting from their open mouths.

Hellhounds, he thought, his eyes moving past them to the security personnel, who had already drawn weapons and were facing down the beasts, protecting the fleeing students. Two of the dogs leaped past them, ignoring them completely as they raced down the hallway. Another three waited a few feet in front of Stein, hackles raised as they growled at him softly.

Behind him, Marie let out a sharp gasp. Stein looked over his shoulder to see her looking back down the hallway, her eyes wide as she watched the hounds' passage.

"The first years," she said. "I think some of them might still be back there."

Stein bit back a curse, cranking his bolt more fiercely in an attempt to drown out the noise. He looked up, eyeing the dogs in front of him. The security personnel had their hands full protecting the students, and the creatures in front of him would attack the minute he tried to move. There was only one thing to do.

"Be careful," he said, sinking into a crouch.

Marie nodded, turning and running back down the hallway as the hounds charged, fangs gleaming.


A massive, crescent-shaped blade tore through the air, slamming into one of the crows that had taken flight over the city. The crow was giant, large enough to comfortably seat a person, with six red eyes, three on each side that glowed brightly in the morning light.

The blade sheared straight through the crow's neck, the creature dissolving into shadow as the blade's edge caught the sunlight. A thin chain was wrapped tight around the handle of the blade, connecting it with its wielder, who stood on the street below.

Clark tugged sharply on the chain, arresting Vayne's momentum and bringing the blade back towards him. He caught the handle in one hand as the blade fell back towards earth, the other hand carrying the loops of chain. He raised that hand to his face, adjusting his glasses.

"You alright?" Vayne asked, glancing at him sidelong from within his soul space.

"Fine," said Clark, propping the blade up on his shoulder and scanning the skies. He could hear the sounds of destruction coming from one street over, not too far from here. Clark kept the blade's handle propped up on his shoulder, taking off at a run towards the sounds. The streets were empty, Death City's citizens having gone to ground the moment they heard the alarms ringing, and the two of them made good time.

He breathed hard as he ran, feeling his injuries from yesterday's match start to sting, and sucked in a breath through his teeth. Vayne eyed him with concern, his partner's face momentarily reflected in the flat of the blade. His body and soul felt bruised, exhausted from yesterday's exertion, and the sharp edges of Vayne's soul wavelength grated on him, rubbing his spirit raw, but he felt more alive than he had in a long time, certainly more alive than he had been in the past few weeks.

He'd done enough moping around, he decided, and everyone had been more than patient with him. He wouldn't abandon his friends anymore.

Clark drew to a stop as he turned the corner onto the street where the noise was coming from, squaring his stance as he eyed the shadow crow that was currently tearing its way into the top floor of a building. Then, he lifted Vayne from his shoulder and gripped the blade's handle with both hands, spinning around to build up momentum before hurling it at the crow with a loud shout.

The chain, a mark of their resonance, bound him to the pendulum blade as it tore through the air, Vayne letting out a battle cry. It struck the crow somewhere beneath one wing, tearing it in two just as it broke the surface of the roof. Clark caught a brief glimpse of the people inside as the shadow dissipated, saw a woman run forward to grab a small child, drawing her back away from the hole. The sight was lost as the pendulum blade caught the sunlight, the flash of light momentarily blinding.

He stretched out his hand as the lengths of chain fell back towards him, catching the blade again.

"What's our count?" Clark asked, breathless with exertion.

"That makes five…" Vayne replied, and then after a pause, glanced back at him. "Good to have you back."

"Glad to be back," said Clark, although his expression was still solemn. He glanced back at the sound of yet another crash, glancing at the plume of smoke that rose into the air, another couple of streets over. "Think you can handle six?"

"You know it," said Vayne with a tired grin, settling back into stance. In spite of himself, Clark felt the beginnings of a smirk tug at his lips as he adjusted his glasses, glancing down the alleyway towards the crashing sounds.

He hefted Vayne back onto his shoulder, taking off down the alley at a run.


The Cloak of Shadows' kunai shot towards one of the crows as it sped past Rei and Ayame, the pair of kunai striking the crow's back, just above the wings. The tines retracted sharply, pulling Rei up onto the crow's back. He stretched out a hand quickly and Ayame transformed, becoming a sleek black katana as he sliced down at the crow's neck from behind, severing its head. Before the crow could dissipate, Rei was already moving, pushing off the crow's back and leaping towards one of the nearest houses. The Cloak of Shadows formed around him just as he began to fall, helping him hoist himself back up onto the roof.

Rei paused for breath, one hand braced on the peak of the roof beside him as he looked around at the city. The alarms were still blaring in the background, alerting the populace, but most of the civilians had managed to find cover by now, with only a handful still out in the street. Mifune's security forces were quickly swarming those people, defending them from monsters and covering their escape as the crows continued to attack the city. The DWMA was out in force, students, staff, faculty and even alumni crawling the streets, weapons in hand as they struck at the crows and assorted monsters. Despite that, the crows didn't seem to be getting any less in number. Rei's eyes moved from the scene in front of him to the sky above, where that bright light and power still waited, shrouded from view in its position above the school.

"This isn't any good," he muttered, half to himself as his fingers tightened their grip on the rooftop beside him. "They're just going to keep making more crows. Someone needs to stop them."

"You wanna be the one to do it?" Ayame asked, frowning at him. She was looking up at the sky, her expression determined, but uncertain. Rei followed her gaze, aware that while they were linked like this, she could see what he saw. A shudder ran through him involuntarily.

"Hell no," he said. "But someone has to."

Someone would, he thought, glancing back at the bright lights of their parents' souls in front of the school building, at Shinigami in the air, high above. His eyes moved from them back to the source of power, then back down to the skyline of the city. Someone would take care of it, he told himself, feeling cold. It wasn't their fight.

Instead, there were things he could do. He inhaled deeply, reaching for his Soul Perception, and let it expand, letting it travel over the city. He could feel the pulse of Clark's soul a few blocks east of him, could hear the steady rhythm that accompanied it, louder than it had been in days, and could hear too the faint, but powerful melody coming from Morgan, coming from the west. His Soul Perception overlaid his sight and he could see them, Morgan in the west, Clark in the east. Both of them still seemed relatively healthy, both seemed to be fighting. He had a choice to make.

"What do you think?" he asked Ayame. "Morgan, or Clark?"

"Morgan," Ayame said, without missing a beat. From within her soul space, her eyes moved eastward, tracking Clark's wavelength without even feeling it. There was a desperation to that wavelength, Rei noticed, a determination and a strong, burning desire to rise again. "Clark and Vayne have some things they need to work out. Probably best to let them go at it for a bit before we barge in."

He couldn't deny that. He looked away from Clark's soul wavelength, facing Morgan's, and gauged the distance between this rooftop and the next.

A crow swooped down from above, flying through the gap between the rooftops, and Rei sprang into action, using the Cloak to pull him across the gap to gain momentum, then slicing the crow in two using Ayame's kusarigama form. He landed crouched on the rooftop across the street, the crow dissipating behind him. Rei paused just long enough to glance back at the crow to see if he had done any damage, then leaped, running towards Morgan.


By the time Shelley reached the DWMA, breathing hard, the school looked almost overrun. She came to a stop at the top of the stairs, resting her hands on her knees as she looked out at the courtyard. The DWMA's forces had been mobilized, students and staff fighting to hold their own in the courtyard as Shinigami warred with his foe overhead. She paused for just long enough to catch her breath, then adjusted her glasses, darting into the building.

Something darted at her from her right, some kind of canine monster, fangs bared in anger. She barely even glanced at it, pausing only to settle into a stance and shift the fingers of her right hand into scalpel-like blades. The blades sliced through the hellhound's belly as it charged, dark blood splashing onto the floor of the lobby. The wind picked up around the blades, razor sharp, and tore the monster to shreds. She shook the blood off of her hand, nose wrinkling in distaste, and turned, looking at the school through the haze of her Soul Perception.

Souls blinked at her in all directions, bright, shimmering points of light, some of them familiar but most not. She could see Micah's soul, now that she knew how to look for it. In some ways, his soul and the power surrounding it had changed in the years since Shelley had last seen him, but in some ways they could never change, in some ways she would always be able to find him. He was deeper within the school, moving quickly. No one else seemed to have noticed him yet.

She also saw her father's soul, standing still amid a small circle of hellhound corpses. Stein was unarmed, fighting barehanded against a small, dwindling contingent of hounds. One of them leaped at him and he ducked underneath the blow, slamming the heel of his hand into the hound's neck and crushing its throat. He let the hound fall to the ground and turned to the side just in time to grab a second hound and knee it in the chest. Shelley heard the sound of bone cracking, saw the hound's soul, misshapen and deformed, rising up from its body to join the small crowd around Stein. She jogged over to him, frowning at the blood that splattered her skirt.

He barely gave her a glance as she drew up next to him, scanning the lobby for more opponents. The look he gave her was short, a quick glance in her direction and back, and the look in his eye was a look she recognized, half-crazed, as if his grip on sanity was a little more tenuous than usual. It didn't scare her at all. Shelley sank down into a defensive stance beside him, her bladed hand held out in front of her.

"Mom?" she asked.

"Gone back for students," said Stein.

Shelley nodded. It made sense, and it would have been just like her mother. She looked at the entrance for a little while longer, the both of them pretending in that moment that more enemies would be coming when it was clear that there were none. When she couldn't wait any longer, she drew in a deep breath.

"Micah's here," she said.

Stein nodded, still not looking at her. "In the dungeons." Where he belongs. He didn't say that last part, but it seemed implied. She took in a breath, gathering her courage, and smoothed out her skirt with her human hand.

"So," she said, straightening up.

Stein nodded, then turned his head to give her another glance. His head was tilted slightly to the side, a little too far than could be excused by 'normal' conversation. "So," he repeated. She knew him well enough to know what he wanted to do, to hear the words and questions unspoken.

Marie wasn't here. Micah was here. Stein would need a weapon.

She didn't say anything more, just exhaled, long and slow. Her body dissolved into light.


"Ventus, ventum, venti!"

Wind howled around Morgan, rustling through the pages of Cassie's grimoire form and slamming into one of the crows. It let out a screeching cry as the wind tore through it, tearing it to shreds. The shreds dissolved into shadows, fading from view as the wind around Morgan started to settle down, her hair and clothes falling back into place.

"Behind you!" Cassie warned, her eyes wide.

Morgan spun, facing a second crow as it dove down on top of her, claws outstretched. She leaped back, avoiding the initial blow as she looked down at the blank page in front of her, words inscribing themselves onto the page as she spoke them. "The earth rose up and fell like a wave on top of the crow, crushing it."

Beneath her, the street buckled, cobblestones cracking as the earth rose up to follow along. The ground shuddered as it crushed the crow, settling back into place around the shadows, and Morgan quickly ducked out of the street, running for the relative safety of an alley.

She paused for breath, her back to the wall as around her, the battle continued to rage. Her mouth felt dry, her body slightly numb as if she had used too much magic. She knew that on some level, Cassie was using her witch's soul as fuel for these feats, but it had been a while since she had felt the effects.

She raised trembling fingers to her face, wiping away sweat and looking up at the sky. Cassie watched her with concern.

"Are you alright, Morgan?" she asked.

"Fine," said Morgan, a little too quickly. "Just—fine."

Except, she wasn't fine. Because if she didn't know better, she would have said that those crows were specifically targeting her.

Cassie could be unobservant at times, but she wasn't stupid. Her eyes moved up, staring at something through the pink void of her soul space, scanning the sky. "You don't think she knows…do you?"

"If she did know," Morgan said, "I wouldn't be here."

Cassie fell silent, momentarily mollified, and Morgan let her eyes move back to the sky, feeling a shiver run through her. She hadn't lied, if the Morrigan knew of her presence, she would doubtlessly have sent someone to collect her much earlier, but that didn't mean that she understood what was going on. How could the Morrigan not know she was here?

Her eyes moved away from that source of power, landing on the pair still locked in battle in the sky above them. One of them, bearing two silver guns and a soul powerful enough to lay waste to a city, was the shinigami she had supposedly sworn allegiance to in order to attend this school. The other, dark hair streaming behind him and a serious, determined look on his face, was Mordred, the sorcerer who was supposedly her uncle.

The sorcerer who, defying everything that she had ever known about him, had let her escape her grandmother's castle in the first place.

Somehow, she sincerely doubted that he would do that again.

She drew in a deep breath, giving him one last glance from the safety of the alley. Then, eyes narrowing in determination, she opened the book in her hands again, stepping out into the fray and beginning to chant.


The shadows coalesced, becoming a giant of a monster, with large, gorilla like arms and glowing red eyes out of a nightmarish face, with black, curved teeth gleaming. Cori took a step back, her heart jumping into her throat and her grip faltering on Annie's handle. Annie looked behind her from within the deep violet of her own soul space, eyes wide as she sensed her twin's fear.

"C-Cori?" she asked, her own voice starting to shake.

Cori drew in a rattling breath as the monster loomed over her, then forced herself back under control, gripping Annie's handle harder to keep her own hands from shaking. She couldn't break down. She couldn't. If she broke down, if she wasn't confident, then Annie…

"It's—it's going to be okay," she said, staring at the monster with wide green eyes as it turned to face her, baring its terrible fangs. "We—we're going to be okay."

"B-But Cori…"

Cori shook her head fiercely, trying to banish all of her fear. Her heart pounded in her chest, so quickly that she was half-afraid it would burst. The fear threatened to take over her, overwhelm her. She wanted to run away, wanted to stay rooted in place like a startled animal, just in case the monster wouldn't attack if it couldn't see her. Instead, she did the one thing she least wanted to do.

She charged.

The monster—the ogre—raised an arm to block the blow. Annie's scythe blade sliced into it, releasing a gout of thick, dark blood. For a second, Cori's eyes gleamed with triumph.

And then the monster's other hand slammed into her side, with enough force to throw her across the room.

The blast knocked the wind out of her, her grip on Annie's handle loosening. "Cori!" Annie shouted in alarm as the scythe clattered to the ground, Cori slamming into the wall on the far side of the room.

Pain erupted from her side, and her vision went black as she struck the wall hard, the world wavering for an instant as she settled back down to the ground. She gasped for breath, one hand wrapped tight around her side where the monster had struck her, the other hand outstretched towards Annie. Towards her sister, so far away, three feet out of reach even as the ogre advanced on her, grunting softly with each step. She looked up at the ogre and felt her breath catch in terror, staring as the creature stopped in front of her.

She couldn't move, couldn't do anything but watch as it reached for a broken and twisted piece of metal on the ground, a piece from one of the desks, and drew its arm back, ready to swing at her. Cori squeezed her eyes shut, throwing her arms up to protect her face. From somewhere in front of her, there was a flash of light, the sound of hurried footsteps. She heard someone scream her name.

She opened her eyes just in time to see Annie leap in front of her, arms outstretched protectively. The metal rod came down, catching Annie in the side with tremendous force. There was a loud crack, like something breaking, and Cori could only stare as her twin was thrown off of her feet by the force of the blow, hurled bodily into the pile of desks in the back of the room. Wood splintered as the girl crashed into them, and Cori's heart stopped.

"Annie!" she yelled, trying to get up. The ogre snarled, raising its metal rod again.

And was interrupted by a droplet of black liquid, hanging in the air just in front of its face. Its eyes narrowed as it stared cross-eyed at it, its movements halting somewhat. The air was full of those black droplets, hovering just over the ogre, coating the metal rod that it held. Cori watched, wide-eyed, as Annie sat up among the broken desks and blinked, as she reached a hand towards her wounded side.

Her fingers came away wet, darkened with the same black liquid. The same black blood.

Annie stared at the blood coating her fingertips, her hand beginning to shake. Her lip quivered, her eyes widening. She opened her mouth and let out a high-pitched, bloodcurdling scream.

The droplets in the air narrowed into needles, slamming into the ogre and tearing it into shreds.


Maka shifted her grip on Soul's handle as she fell through the air, the scythe blade cutting through the giant's shoulder and slicing a line diagonally across its chest to its hip. From below, Black Star leaped up to meet her, gripping Tsubaki's Masamune form and slicing an identical line, from hip to shoulder, on the giant's other side. It let out a loud bellow of rage, stumbling back from the blows, but the two of them didn't let it recover. Maka leaped back on top of Soul, wings spreading from either side of the scythe blade as they rose. Above them, Black Star flipped over in the air and kicked off of one of the school's spires, launching himself at the giant.

Black Star's strike pierced straight into the giant's chest, at the same time as Maka's slice sheared off its head.

The giant's carcass fell to the ground with a thud, its soul rising into the air above them. Maka frowned at it, her eyes narrowed as she and Soul circled the area before settling gently back down onto the ground. The soul was a deep red, and it pulsated oddly, looking deformed somehow, misshapen. As if it had been altered.

She barely had a chance to study it before Black Star launched himself at it, the red soul disappearing as it was absorbed into Tsubaki. Maka frowned, stepping lightly off of Soul and landing on the ground. She caught the scythe in one hand, giving it a spin to shake the blood off of it and turning to face the warrior as he landed on the ground beside her.

"I was looking at that, you know," she said.

"Too bad," said Black Star, grinning. "You'll just have to get another."

"Maybe I will," said Maka, looking back out over the city. She looked at it through the filter of her Soul Perception, searching for and marking the locations of her students, and as she did, she noticed another thing that was odd. The crows didn't seem to have souls. An illusion? Or some kind of magic spell?

She looked back at Black Star, who was already facing the city, Tsubaki's sword form held loosely in one hand. "Hey, where are the good fights anyway?" he asked. "That was kind of lame. No offense."

Maka smiled faintly. "None taken." The smile faded as she looked up at the sky, towards that glowing pinprick of power. The Morrigan's soul, she knew, but muted somehow, as if she was seeing it through a curtain. "The Morrigan's up there somewhere," she said, in response to Black Star's question.

"Up there, huh?" asked Black Star, scanning the sky. "Well, I mastered the sky years ago. Come on, Tsubaki."

"Right!" said Tsubaki, the two of them leaping into the air. Maka watched them go, glancing at Soul in his weapon form.

"Think we should join them?" she asked.

"You never know," said Soul, grinning at her. "We might need to keep them out of trouble."

She smiled back, her eyes narrowing in determination as she made to jump onto the scythe again. Before she could, Soul's expression suddenly changed, and she felt something spike in his wavelength, something almost like pain. Within his soul space, he hunched over and sucked in a breath, one of his hands closing over the skin of his scar.

"Soul?" Maka asked, alarmed. "Soul, what's wrong?"

"Annie," Soul said, his breath catching. His eyes were wide, staring into nothing. "We need to—Annie—the girls."

Annie, Maka thought, her mind slowing to a crawl as she stared at Soul. Black blood.

And then, terribly, she thought of the twins, thought of them alone in this melee, thought of the sort of situation that might make Annie lose control.

Her eyes widened, her head immediately turning in the direction of the elementary school, to those two bright pinpricks of light that she now saw in her vision. She stared at it, felt the darkness in Annie's soul wavelength even from this distance, and her heart leaped into her throat. She threw Soul down so that he was hovering in the air above the ground, Black Star and the Morrigan forgotten for an instant as she leaped onto the handle, her mind frozen with fear.

"Hurry!" she told Soul.

Soul nodded, sucking in a breath through his teeth. He raised his head, some of the tension leaving him as the scythe shot forward like an arrow, aimed towards the elementary school.


The two of them clashed and came apart, clashed and came apart. Kid scowled in frustration as the sorcerer he was fighting darted out of the way of his shots, hovering in the sky. Light pooled in the sorcerer's hand, coalescing into a violet spear that shot straight at Kid's chest. Kid banked sharply to the right, dodging the spear without much difficulty, and raised his pistols with both hands, firing sharply at the dark-haired sorcerer.

The sorcerer simply danced back, his expression calm as he raised his hands, forming a sphere of deep violet light around himself. The shots struck the shield and rippled across it, light crackling where the wavelength hit. They struck hard enough to drive the sorcerer back through the air, cracking the shield, but he only dropped out of the way as the shield fell, dodging Kid's next attack.

"Is that the best that the reigning Shinigami can do?" he asked, a mocking lilt to his voice as he drifted backwards in the air, narrowly avoiding an uppercut as Kid tried to close with him.

Kid scowled instead of responding, raising his guns and firing off another blast. The sorcerer raised his palms and formed a circular shield of light in the air, just large enough to block the blasts. The force behind the blasts drove him back, and Kid saw him grit his teeth against the blow as he flipped over backwards in the air, hovering a few feet away. Before Kid could get a lead on him, he started flying around Kid in a wide arc, shifting directions before Kid could fire. A vein started to pulse in Kid's forehead and he tightened his grip on his guns.

"Dammit, what's his deal?" Liz asked, scowling at the sorcerer from within the space she shared with her sister. "He's just playing around!"

"Come on, Kid!" Patty said. "Shoot 'im out of the sky!"

"I'm trying," Kid said, scowling. He squeezed the triggers, wavelength pouring out of the gun barrels in a steady barrage of shots as he spun, bright light tracing a circle around him like fire. The sorcerer's eyes widened and he raised his arms, vanishing in the barrage of light. He appeared in the air a moment later, hovering just above Kid.

"Damn it," Kid swore, mostly to himself. The sorcerer's soul pulsed at the edges of his vision, tracing an orb around the dark-haired man. The sorcerer was strong, but not strong enough that Kid didn't think he could beat him if he tried, it was just that he was so damn slippery. Like he didn't actually care about fighting Kid, like he was more concerned with…

Kid's eyes widened and he looked behind him suddenly, looked out over the expanse of the city. At the little lights that assaulted it, at the souls of those that rose to protect it. A collection of weak monsters, not too strong to fight, but just strong enough to keep the students busy. A handful of stronger monsters, set to engage the stronger members of DWMA's staff, again not to fight them, just to keep them busy. No actual sign of the Morrigan herself besides her wavelength, just this sorcerer that almost immediately engaged Kid.

"So you've figured it out?" asked the sorcerer, pausing to hover in front of him. His fine coat was tattered from the blasts, and blood coated one of his sleeves, but beyond that, he seemed unarmed. Kid snarled, turning back around to face him.

"What have you done?" he asked, his tone dangerous.

The sorcerer didn't answer, only tilted his head to the side, facing the school. An explosion rocked it, coming from the basement. Kid's eyes widened as the school building shook, a crack appearing along one of the spires. The spire clattered to the ground, forming a crater in the courtyard as the school building tilted to the side, leaning precariously to the right. From below, people screamed.

He spun back around to face the sorcerer, but the sorcerer was already beginning to fly away, a trail of light in the air below him.