CHAPTER 6:
MEDUSA MAKES HER MOVE
"You know that before I formed the DWMA, I had a group of warriors to fight against Witches and forces of evil known as the Eight Warlords," Death began.
Kid nodded. "I have heard of that. I don't know the full details, though. What does this have to do with the Kishin?"
"I am getting to that, Kid, so please, be patient." Death sighed, before moving on. "The story of the Kishin you are worried about begins with one of the earliest Weapon and Meister partnerships. The Weapon was known as Vajra, and the Meister…was known as Asura. Asura was a powerful warrior, to be sure, the strongest of our group, but he seemed often gripped by some fear or other. A symptom of this was that he wrapped himself in many layers of clothing, covering every inch of his body. His fears and anxieties led to him desiring more and more power. He began feeding Vajra souls that were innocent, before finally consuming Vajra himself."
"That's sick," Harry muttered.
"How did you stop him, Lord Death?" Crona asked.
"I tore off his skin, drained him of his blood, and used the skin to create a bag to restrain him." Upon seeing their winces, Death said, "Asura isn't exactly human. He wasn't even before he became a Kishin. One has to wonder why he was so afraid, as he was more or less immortal. As a further measure to prevent him from breaking free, I anchored my soul to this city. This is one of the reasons why the DWMA was established: I cannot attend to any problems outside the city limits, and thus the limits of my own soul." Death moved forward to Crona, and gently put one of his oversized hands on her shoulder. "I have every reason to believe that, if Harry hadn't appeared when he did, your mother intended to try and turn you into a Kishin. What little we recovered of her research notes suggested this. She intended to have you use Ragnarok to harvest souls indiscriminately to power the Black Blood within you. But, and this is a very important but, Crona, you are not a Kishin, nor are you anything like one. Your blood may be black, but your soul is not. She either considered that, or else harvesting your blood and intending to use that to revive Asura."
"I…don't know how to deal with that," Crona said. "And there's no guarantee that she's dead, is there?"
"Sadly, no. You didn't use the Soul Reaver technique on her, and we found no trace of her body. It is possible she destroyed her own soul to prevent us from consuming it, but she may also have survived in some way. The Gorgons were always tenacious: lately, I have had doubts about Medusa's eldest sister, the Heretic Witch Arachne."
(A spider crawling around the guillotine-like archways leading to Death's area all but crapped itself when it heard those words…)
"In any case, it is good that you stopped the Dutchman and his vessel. By the way, congratulations, Harry. You've collected 99 Kishin Egg souls now. All you need is the Witch soul, and you will become a Death Scythe."
"You what?" Harry blinked. Had he actually consumed that many souls?
"…You mean you've never kept count?" Kid asked, disbelievingly.
"We didn't exactly keep a notebook with a tally. And most of those were when we were helping Mifune protect Angela," Harry said. "Besides, Ragnarok's eaten more than a few."
"He's not far from becoming a Death Scythe anyway."
Death the Kid looked a little annoyed. "You know, Father, it's only because of that mess with the Temple of Anubis that Liz and Patty haven't achieved that level. And if I recall, Soul also very nearly became a new Death Scythe: only their misidentification of Blair stopped this."
"Well, the unexpected can often happen. The 800th Anniversary Celebration Night will be on soon, anyway. So let's make it a good one!"
The Anniversary Celebration Night, the marking of the founding of the DWMA, came sooner than Harry and Crona thought. Harry dressed in a normal suit, while Crona dressed in a white Nehru jacket and dark trousers. Harry had yet to be able to get her to wear anything really feminine, even though they had been away from her mother for years. Crona even seemed uncomfortable with being thought of as any gender, save for by Harry.
Mifune was there, as was Angela. Even Blair had been invited, and had come dressed surprisingly formally, in a slinky cocktail dress. She was flirting with Spirit, much to the chagrin of Maka.
Soon after Death's rather brief and awkward greeting, and Kid's disastrous attempt at a longer speech (really, Black Star really knew how to push people's buttons), Crona and Harry first got a bit of food, and then, after eating it, decided to do some dancing. Normally, Crona wouldn't bother, but she had heard that dancing helped Soul Wavelengths of Weapon and Meister match. And while she and Harry needed little help to attain an excellent state, she wanted to improve, continually, taking Kid's advice, to strengthen her soul to become truly stronger, to heart.
They had practised on occasion, and now, the Meister and the Weapon began a waltz. "We've come a long way, haven't we?" Harry asked quietly as they danced. "I mean, not long ago, you'd have said that you wouldn't know how to deal with this."
Crona smiled softly. "I…I still don't," she confessed. "But I take my strength from you, Harry."
"And I from you, Crona," Harry said. "You're stronger than you think. I mean, from what Liz told me, you were far better at dealing with the ghosts on the Nidhogg. And in concert with Kid, Liz, Patty, and Ragnarok, we destroyed the Nidhogg. Crona, I don't know what I could have done without meeting you in my dreams. My aunt and uncle and cousin were nowhere near as bad as Medusa, but they still treated me like a slave. And what's more, I was dumped off there, despite the fact that I was famous amongst the magic users of that world. Okay, for something I didn't really do, but even so…it felt like nobody cared except you, Crona. There are many kinds of strength, I think, and caring about someone is one of them." Harry blinked. "Did I sound like some sort of cheesy self-help book there?"
Crona giggled softly. "I don't mind. Are you saying that, because I care about you, and others, that I am strong?"
"And you're willing to defend them from those who would do them harm," Harry said quietly. "We both are."
Any further conversation, however, was silenced as they drifted near Stein and Dirae, and caught a snatch of their conversation. "…you up to, Medusa?"
"Oh, giving the world a little push out of the stasis it has languished in, thanks to Lord Death…"
Harry and Crona stiffened, and as they danced, they found themselves looking at Stein and Dirae. They realised that her eyes had now become like Medusa's, yellow and ophidian. They danced away from them, but the eyes of the Witch met the terrified eyes of Weapon and Meister, and she flashed them a vicious smirk.
"It's her," Crona hissed urgently, her eyes wide. "It's Mother!"
"Crona, calm down," Harry hissed back at her. "Stein knows who she is. He's got it under control. We just need to be ready to act at a moment's notice…"
"But the others…"
Harry looked around, before seeing Soul and Maka talking outside. "Let's go out, okay?"
Maka and Soul were astonished to learn that Medusa was here, and in the guise of Dr Meg Dirae. "But we've got to warn Lord Death, and…" Maka began to protest, before the doors to the hall slammed open, and Sid, looking injured, staggered through. Harry and Crona would later learn that the zombie had gone to investigate Dr Dirae on Stein's orders, only to fall into a trap.
Sid's appearance was all the spur Medusa needed to run out of the same balcony the two Meisters and their Weapons were. As Medusa leapt onto one of her Snakes, she sneered at Crona. "You could have had the privilege of becoming the force that drives change in the world! You could have been a Kishin! As it is, I'm sure the First Kishin, Asura, will appreciate my gift of your Black Blood that I harvested and cloned! And you can suffer the same fate as this rotten institution!"
"After her!" Harry yelled, transforming. Crona, despite Medusa's jibe, needed little further incentive to extrude Ragnarok's wings from her back. After Soul transformed, Maka grabbed onto Crona's hand, and Crona soon flew after Medusa. Blair and Spirit followed, perched on one of her pumpkins (Spirit would later admit he was chasing after Medusa because of her looks).
Hanging in the air near the Academy were seven figures, four of whom were identical. The identical ones wore strange, cylindrical striped dresses and hats like mice, and all appeared to be girls, or diminutive young women, with pink hair and vaguely murine features. A burly man in a striped jumpsuit, reminiscent of prison garb, was present, as was a young woman with a polka dot dress and a hat with a frog's face.
Harry remembered this last one. They had met but briefly between their time with the Thompsons, and their joining Mifune. Eruka Frog, one of the more timid Witches, and certainly less of a threat than most. Perhaps Medusa had bullied her into working with them.
They seemed to do some high-level spell that began to form a green cube of energy around the Academy. The Meisters and Weapons, along with Blair and Spirit, managed to make it out before the cube was made solid, and locked.
Blair stared at the cube behind them. "That's an Independent Cube! That's high-level Spatial Magic! It cuts off a limited area within another dimension for a certain period of time."
"Then we're on our own," Maka declared. "We'll need to stop them! Come on, after them!"
They followed the six Witches and their helper (Harry and Maka noting, to their disgust, that Spirit was enjoying his intimate proximity with Blair), until they reached the catacombs underneath the city. They followed them through the catacombs, but halted briefly. "Should we wait for anyone else?" Maka asked.
"I don't think anyone's coming," Blair mused, serious for the first time since Harry and Crona met the mage-cat. "The Independent Cube, like I said, isolates the target in another dimension for a period. It takes a lot of magic power, as well as calculation spells. The standard time, I think, is about an hour."
"That's more than enough time for them to go through with their plan," came a nasal voice from behind them. It was the very familiar voice of Franken Stein, and when they whirled, they found Stein, Kid, Liz, Patty, Black Star and Tsubaki there.
"How did you escape the Independent Cube in time?" Blair asked curiously.
"Sid used his Forced Burial technique to drive us underground quickly. Unfortunately, we were the only ones he could send. That being said, we'll be grateful for your help in stopping the Kishin, Blair."
"Oh, I'm doing this for myself. If this Kishin awakens, my favourite fishmonger will die," Blair said with a smile. "But what's a Kishin doing under the DWMA?"
"We'll explain on the way. But know this: we're heading into the danger zone. Most of you are kids, trained and seasoned, true, but I'm worried about you going up against Medusa and her cronies. And if the Kishin awakens, then that's even more danger right there. If you wish to back out, I won't think any less of you."
In answer, the Meisters and Weapons all changed into their battle clothes, and the Weapons transformed.
"I'll take that as a no, then," Stein remarked dryly.
As they made their way through the catacombs, Stein related the same story Kid, Crona, and Harry had heard from Lord Death. "Why didn't we learn this sooner?" Maka asked.
"Yeah, it seems like an important bit of info to leave out. Like we have the first Kishin trapped beneath the DWMA by Lord Death's soul," Soul remarked acidly.
"Most of the senior Meisters and Weapons know this," Stein said. "Presumably Medusa had her own sources, as it isn't common knowledge outside the DWMA. She intends to use the Black Blood harvested from Crona to revive the Kishin. She managed to find a way to replicate it using the small samples she obtained as the school doctor."
"We have at least seven foes," Blair said. "Medusa, a quintet of Witches, and a big burly guy. Smelt rather like a wolf."
"That may be the infamous Wolfman. There were rumours he was broken out of the Witches' jail recently. He's been in there for two centuries for stealing the eye of Maba," Stein said. "I'd wager Medusa would be our first obstacle, given her power. I'll distract her along with Spirit. You are to get ahead of her and catch up with the others. At all costs, stop them from awakening Asura."
They came to a long, narrow, dank corridor with a high ceiling. And waiting for them there, now dressed in her habitual black hooded bodysuit, was Medusa. She grinned, Vector Arrows writhing around her like snakes. "Well, isn't this a heartwarming family reunion?" she asked sardonically, looking at Crona. "You could have been so much more than Death's little lackey, Crona. You could have been a magnificent Kishin."
Crona looked her mother square in the eye, but even as she shivered in fear, she said, "I'm not sure I'd know how to deal with being a Kishin. But I know how to deal with your plan." To emphasise the point, Harry transformed, as did the other Weapons.
Medusa scoffed, before chanting "Nake, Snake, Cobra, Cobbra." As the Vector Arrows began to ready themselves, they began darting forward.
Kid on Beelzebub and Black Star, using something called the Uncanny Sword mode, managed to evade the Vector Arrows easily and pass by them. Blair, Maka, and Crona were another matter, gripping onto each other even as the Arrows zagged towards them. As the vicious jet-black arrows raced towards them, Harry (metaphorically) closed his eyes, wished to be anywhere else but here…
…and suddenly, the two Meisters, their Weapons, and Blair were elsewhere. The faint echoes of a gunshot-like crack faded away.
"Where are we?" Blair asked.
Maka frowned, before she turned to the corridor behind them. "I sense two souls, one of a Witch, and the other of…something. I don't know how, but we may have gotten ahead of our quarry."
"I think that was me," Harry said, his voice flanging as he spoke out loud in his Weapon form. "I wanted to be anywhere but near Medusa. Lord Death told me once that Witches and Sorcerers of the World of Exile had an innate ability to teleport. Maybe that's what I did."
"Works for me," Blair said with a shrug.
Maka's theory that they had managed to get ahead of their quarry proved to be correct. Eruka Frog ran through, a massive syringe filled with a black, oily substance, followed by a big, hulking man in prison garb, and with one of his eyes having an arcane symbol.
"Eep! Crona! Harry!" Eruka yelped. "Umm…" Her eyes flickered between the others. "This is…kind of awkward."
"Well, of course it is," Harry retorted. "I mean, you're trying to revive Asura."
"Why are you doing this, Eruka? Do you really want to see the Kishin released?" Maka asked.
"N-n-no, it's just that M-M-Medusa…she p-p-put snakes in me."
"Crona," Harry spoke to her alone through their link. "We need to get that syringe off her and destroy it. Let's try Vacuum Wave."
Crona nodded. Vacuum Wave was a technique they developed for their Grand Cross style. It created, for a brief instant, a vacuum in front of the target. It was a means of drawing a target closer in order to engage in combat better. If they did it right, they could rip the syringe out of Eruka's hands, and then destroy it, thus ensuring that their plan to awaken the Kishin wouldn't succeed.
"Hey, Eruka, how do you know these two, anyway?" the hulking man, presumably the infamous Wolfman, asked.
"Well, it's a long s-s-story, Free…" Eruka began, but that's when Crona acted, swinging Harry in just the right way to activate the Vacuum Wave.
And that's when things went horribly, horribly wrong. The first thing was that Eruka held on tight to the syringe as it yanked forward. The second thing was that Free, the Wolfman, grabbed onto her. The third thing that happened was that Eruka, brought to a stop by Free's timely intervention, accidentally let go of the syringe. The fourth thing was that Crona had underestimated her power from the move, and was thus surprised when the syringe impaled her. And the final thing was that the plunger pushed down, flooding Crona's body with Black Blood.
"Oh, shit," Harry muttered.
"Crona?" Maka asked, almost fearfully, only to be answered by a soft chuckle from the pink-haired girl.
Crona gently removed the syringe from her stomach, before violently flinging it into the wall, where it stuck, quivering like a dart or an arrow with a twanging noise that would have been humorous under other circumstances. As she straightened up, swaying slightly, Maka, Soul, Blair, Free and Eruka stared in horror at her face. Harry didn't need to: connected to her soul as he was, he knew what was happening to her.
Crona's mouth was now in a lop-sided grin that seemed to be more of a forced rictus than any expression of good cheer. One of her eyes, horrifically, was inky black instead of her usual pale blue. And as they watched, the pale blue of her other eye seemed to get consumed by the blackness, twitching as it did so.
"Hey…" she said in a tone that was deceptively conversational and calm, but belied the madness roiling within. "Did you know something? My blood…it's black, you know."
CHAPTER 6 ANNOTATIONS:
Holy shit, what a cliffhanger. They may have scuppered the awakening of Asura, but Crona's just received an overdose of the Black Blood, and has just gone do-lally.
Review-answering time! Hikari Nova: It's how I planned it. I'm going to wrap up the Soul Eater storyline in the next chapter, and start the more Harry Potter-related elements in the chapter after that.
No numbered annotations this time.