Chapter Five:
Breaktime is Over!

"Okay! Go finish that as quick as you can! Shouldn't take the two of you long!" Shinigami said happily.

He had just finished explaining a mission that had been given to just me and Kid and his weapons.

"We'll take care of it right away, Shinigami-sama." I said with a little bow.

"We shall be back soon, father." Kid said, bowing as well.

"See ya!" Patty exclaimed.

Liz said nothing. She had seemed a little freaked out after our mission briefing. To be honest, I wasn't too excited about it either.

I walked out of the Death Room with Kid, Liz, and Patty. We walked down the hallway until we came across the Mission Board and slipped the "taken" dog tag onto our mission panel. Then we began to make our way to the exit of Shibusen. I was certainly nervous since this would be the first mission that I would ever be going on without Vergil... Though I was extremely curious to see what Kid could do. After all, he was the son of Lord Death, himself.

"Are you excited to go on this mission, Sai?!" Patty asked in an excited manner, as usual.

"Well eh... Are you?" I asked.

"Liz isn't! She's scared! She's scared of ghosts and goblins and spiders and clowns and-"

"I am not scared!" Liz yelled at her sister.

"Yes you are!" Patty said, laughing and pointing her pointer finger in her face.

"I just... would rather... be...- WELL! LOOK AT THAT! HERE WE ARE!" Liz said, as we arrived on the north balcony.

"Why'd you take us over here? Don't we need to drive to Alaska or something?" I asked. Alaska was where our mission was.

"Can you drive?" Kid asked.

I got a sweatdrop on my head. "No..."

Kid raised his hand in front of him and summoned a skateboard.

"Liz, Patty." He called to his weapons. Liz nodded and turned into her weapon form, a hand gun, spinning in mid air. Patty giggled and followed her lead, turning into the same exact weapon. Kid caught both of them in his hands. He held them in a weird way with his pinkies being his trigger fingers. Then he got on top of his skateboard and it lifted off the ground like a rocket.

"Show off..." I said as he finished his little show with a smirk.

"Hope those goggles around your head aren't just for show." Kid said as he was floating in mid air on his skateboard.

"Don't worry, they're not." I said before I lowered the goggles to my neck. I quickly put my hair up into a ponytail and then pulled the goggles over my eyes.

"Ikki." I called to my machina.

"I'm fancier than his weapons." Ikki said to me.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" Liz yelled after hearing Ikki speak.

Her sister laughed. "She's getting scared and we haven't even reached the castle yet! We're still at school and she's scared!"

"Don't be mean!" I answered Ikki.

"What language is that?" Kid asked.

"Al Bhed... My native tongue. It's how I talk to Ikki." I answered Kid.

"Ikki?" Kid asked, even more confused than before.

"You'll see..." I answered with a smile. If Kid thought his little display that he put on impressed me... Boy would I impress him.

"You should count yourself lucky that you don't have to carry me!" I said to Kid as I pulled on gloves to make sure they wouldn't fall off.

"Are you that heavy...?" Kid asked.

"HEY!" I yelled at him.

He laughed a little.

"Yeah, he really is lucky... You'd crush him..." Ikki added.

"I DON'T NEED YOUR COMMENTS RIGHT NOW! YOU'RE KILLING MY 'COOL FACTOR'!" I yelled at Ikki. I must've looked crazy to Kid... To him, I probably looked like I was yelling at my shoes.

"How exactly are you going to get there without me carrying you?" Kid asked.

"Don't worry about that... Hey, wanna make a bet?" I asked Kid.

"Depends what it is." Kid answered.

"Last one who gets the the castle pays for food when we get back." I said.

A smile swept across Kid's face. "You're on. You better get running to the bus if you're going to make it."

"Time to fly, Ikki." I said.

"Roger that." Ikki answered as he started to glow a little.

I climbed up on top of the railing of the balcony and looked down... It was quite a long fall.

"What are you doing...?" Kid asked.

"Hope you have your wallet on you. I'm probably gonna be starving on the way back." I said right before I jumped.

"SAI!" Kid, Liz, and Patty all called.

Kid went flying after me. I closed my eyes as Ikki quickly made his way down to my left foot. I spread my legs apart and bent my knees to my chest as he materialized under me. My left foot was hooked into Ikki's trigger guard of his large gun form (authors note: pics on my site, aeonsoul234 . webs . com) as my right rested on his large barrel. I gripped his barrel with my right hand as my left remained in the air to stabilize myself. I took a deep breath in as I pushed Ikki's over-sized trigger with the left side of my left foot and angled Ikki upward by pushing down with my right foot. As my compressed wavelength shot out of his barrel, the energy looked much like the flames of a flamethrower, except they were a solid vermillion color. As the flames spewed out the Ikki's barrel, they made a sound that resembled the whistle of a firecracker.

"WOO!" I yelled in exhilaration as I raced up past Kid.

When I was about fifteen feet above him, I maneuvered Ikki to make a loop in the sky. Then I was off towards Alaska.

"Hurry up or I'll defeat the Afreet by the time you get there!" I called to Kid as I sped off.

A huge smile was plastered on my face.

"DID YOU SEE THAT? I THAT WAS SOO COOL!" I yelled.

"I did most of the work... All you did was jump off the side of a building." Ikki stated.

"I did work! I freakin' maneuvered us here!" I yelled at Ikki.

"Ok. Next time, I'll let you do the flying then." Ikki retorted.

I sighed in frustration. "You can't let me have one moment, can you?"

"Maybe racing here as fast as I could and leaving Kid in the dust wasn't such a good idea after all..." I said as I crept around a rather large and creepy garden. There was a thick fog that made seeing six feet in any direction hard. I was surrounded by overgrown, thick weeds and crabgrass as well as large trees that reached their branches out and the remains of wilting flowers. More often than I would've liked to, I'd pass a disturbing stone sculpture of a life sized human. Majority of them looked as if they were in pain or they were attempting to shield themselves from something. It was starting to freak the hell out of me...

My grip around Ikki tightened. "Damn it... I know I didn't land this far from that damn castle."

The castle was where the main Afreet that Kid and I were trying to hunt down resided. Shinigami had warned us that the Afreet led and was protected by a medium sized army of lesser Afreets. He also said that the castle "wasn't your average castle"... whatever that meant.

Ikki started to patronize me as usual. This time I wasn't so objected to it. I was actually extremely happy that he had the ability to speak and had such a "wonderful" personality at the moment. Unfortunately for me, what came out of his mouth was the last thing I wanted him to say. "Maybe if you weren't so concerned about stupid bets and food, you wouldn't be al- WAVELENGTH DETE-"

Before Ikki could finish his sentence, a huge blast of gold energy came out of nowhere. I rolled out of the way, dodging it.

"THE HELL WAS THAT?!" I yelled in Al Bhed as I turned around. There was a blinding glow that made me shield my eyes. When the glow had faded, a massive growling wolf demon that stood about twenty feet tall stood in front of me(pics on site).

"That would appear to be a dog." Ikki answered.

"I do not need your sarcasm from you right now..." I said as I stared up at the wolf afreet.

Suddenly I heard a voice that sounded like a whisper, though it was as loud as any normal person would be if they spoke. The soft whisper was mixed with the eerie sounding deep male voice. The red slits eyes of the colossal wolf glowed as I heard the voice. It's mouth didn't move as it spoke; it stayed contorted the same way as it had been before while it was barring its fangs. I could still hear its low growl as I heard the voice in my head.

"I am the Guardian of the Great Garden of Oden. You are a trespasser here, Vampire... Here is where you will see your end!" It said.

The wolf demon quickly did a 360, hitting me hard with it's tail, which was enforced with a glowing gold energy coming from the ring at the end of it. I was sent flying back. I hit the ground roughly, tumbling on the floor.

I moaned in pain once I stopped tumbling. "Ah, shit..."

"Vergil's definitely not going to like that one." I thought.

MAKA'S POINT OF VIEW

It was the first time that I was attending the new "Dark Defense" class that Shinigami announced would be starting this morning. Only a selected few students in the DWMA were elected to take the course. Soul and I were two of them among Black Star and Tsubaki, Kid with Liz and Patty, Ox Ford and Harvar D. Eclair, Kilik Rung and Fire and Thunder, Kim Diehl and Jacqueline, as well as about ten more pairs/groups of elite one star meisters and their weapons. The class had two parts. The first part was a lecture that would inform students on the origin and battle tactics of witches as well as advanced Afreets and most of all... The Kishin. The second part was an actual physical contact class that would be used to teach us how to defend ourselves against certain techniques that may be used on us in the future. Three of my other courses had been temporarily suspended to make space for this one. It would take up a large chunk of my school day four days a week. Attendance was mandatory for every class unless you were to get special clearance from Shinigami; weirdly Kid, Liz, and Patty weren't there. I guessed that they had been sent on a mission. If that was the case, I wondered why Shinigami hadn't sent me along with Soul, Black Star, and Tsubaki with them...

The class was mainly taught by a new professor to the school while Sid helped acclimate him to teaching. Sid stated that he was here to help until the new professor, Vergil, could handle the class on his own. Vergil was probably no more than a decade older than me. Vergil bore a face that was very stern and emotionless. He made it clear to all of us that if we told anyone of the information we were learning in class, the consequences would be much worse than just failing the course. Anyone who blabbed about anything would have to answer to Shinigami. This was to keep a certain aura about the school. Incoming one stars and those who didn't excel above the class as we did were to be ask kept out of dealings about the Kishin as much as possible. Shinigami didn't want to keep them completely in the dark about it, as many of them were trapped inside of the independent cube with him when the Kishin awoke and witnessed the fight, but he didn't want to worry them either. The best thing that those one star meisters and weapons could do was to go about their days as usual. On the other hand, we were going to actually take part in the battle against the Kishin. The course was created to provide us with special attention and training in preparation for facing the Kishin and anyone else who supported him.

Everyone in the class eagerly listened and jotted down notes while Vergil lectured to the class. Even Black Star was paying attention... though he wasn't writing anything. He was in the middle of explaining the history of the Kishin, Asura. Sid sat at the desk while Vergil stood in the front and lectured. Suddenly, he stopped talking. Everyone looked at each other weirdly. Then, out of nowhere, a pink electricity came out of his body and shocked him hard.

Vergil yelled through clenched teeth as the electricity shocked him. He had bent down on one knee, his right arm wrapped around his mid section as if something had just hit him there. The class gasped as they watched what was happening. A couple screams were heard as well.

"Vergil!" Sid said, running over to aid him.

"Damn that girl..." he growled through his teeth. He stood straight up and took a deep breath.

"Class will resume in 15 minutes. Take a break." Sid announced.

We all rose from our seats and cleared from the classroom, completely confused about what had just happened.

I realized that Ikki was no longer in my hands and quickly scrambled to my feet and clumsily ran for him. Luckily, he had landed a couple feet in front of me.

"Ikki, field analysis!" I said as I grabbed him. I rested his butt on my right shoulder and held the his handle in my right hand, my right pointer finger ready on his trigger. My left hand remained on the left side of his barrel for extra support.

"No wavelength detected. Opponent shielding presence somehow." Ikki answered.

"Shit!" I cursed again.

"Given from taken hit and previously detected wavelength, opponent is a Ghost Type Afreet. Danger level high. Other abilities unknown at the moment." Ikki stated.

"Next time you're about to go flying, revert to a ring or something and stay on me." I said to him.

"Roger that." Ikki answered.

Great... I had a disappearing and reappearing Ghost Afreet on my hands. Even if he couldn't disappear and reappear, it would be difficult to see him through the fog. It seemed like it had only gotten thicker with the presence of the Afreet. On top of that, I didn't have my partner with me... I looked around me with Ikki ready to fire.

"I wonder if Kid got lost here too... Maybe he's got his own hands tied with another Afreet... What the hell are we going to do if the entire army is like this...?" I thought.

I sincerely hoped that Kid was still on his way over here. I also hoped that this was the one and only ghost wolf afreet that we would have to face here... If this was an example of a lesser Afreet, just how strong was the one commanding them..?