Chapter 1: Maka and Soul Have Characters?

I guess it was like any other day, right? Then again, there is no truly normal day for us Shibusen students; especially not me anymore.

A six on the dot my alarm clock went off, buzzing and ringing and jumping all over my nightstand. I opened my eyes cautiously, just in case it was too bright. I decided I was still tired and closed my eyes again. That clock was becoming annoying after a while, and I didn't want to get up, but trying to ignore the damned thing was turning out to be a feat. So I did what I always do: I punched it.

I don't think that this morning that luck was on my side, 'cause when it landed as usual there was a really loud crack. Or was it more of a shattering sound? Oh well.

That doesn't sound good, I thought.

When I opened my eyes all the way to check, who else did I see other than that sex-kitten Blair laying on top of me? So she was trying to seduce me again, eh? I've got a few words for this stupid cat, and they're definitely not ones that you should say on front of toddlers, or your mother. Frowning, I tried to keep my composure.

"Blair," I said calmly, despite my nose gushing blood. "Please get off."

"But Soul~" she whined, wrapping her arms around my neck. It was hard to breathe, my face was being smothered by her ballon-like boobs. "You never-ever play with Blair!"

Irritated, I pushed her away slightly, but it was difficult because Blair's stronger than she looks. A particularly vicious snarl was forming on my lips. That kind of frown wasn't hard to pull off considering my "unique" teeth; as Maka describes them meeting looking like a zig zag.

"Unless you want another one of your souls eaten," I growled. "Get OFF." In a puff of wispy purple smoke she transformed into a cat.

"Meanie." She gracefully jumped off the bed and walked out of my room. Finally she was gone. I sighed in relief that Maka wasn't here to see—oh great, I had forgotten about my clock! Shit.

I rushed to the spare parts splayed in the honey-colored floorboards. I guess these days I don't know my own strength. From the looks of it, the clock had bounced off the wall opposite my bed and landed in the corner of the room. In pieces. Just frickin' perfect. Maka made that clock for me from a little kit she bought in a boutique, around the same time she sewed that awesome headband with my name on it. Now that first present was broken.

And then there were footsteps in the hall. Maka, most likely. There went my cool morning.

"SOUL!" called my Meister, whistling as she banged the empty frying pan with a wooden spoon. "Here, Breakfast!"

What was I—a DOG? Sure sounded like it, the way she was calling me.

"SOUL?"

I jumped. "I'll be there in a minute, just don't come in!" Could my tone be any more F-ing obvious? I tried to salvage the broken pieces of what was once a timepiece. Maka would definitely be pissed off if she knew it was broken. When I heard her hand resting on the doorknob, I jumped again.

"Why not?" she said. Curiosity making her draw out the 'why' in that whiny way she has of asking when things seem strange.

"I'm in my boxers, woman."

I could practically hear her rolling her eyes. "So? We've all seen you in your boxers—ever since the exam."

Man, she's dumb sometimes. "So~I need my privacy."

Maka was silent for a long while. "Soul are you doing something indecent? With Blair?"

What the hell did she mean by "indecent"? "She's not here, Maka!"

"S-so you're alone, then?"

"No," I corrected. "You're still here." I dumped the contents in my hands into my book-bag. "G-go away." Great, I was stuttering. Also not cool.

"Fine, grumpy." Her footsteps seemed to be retreating. All of a sudden the door burst open, and I almost shit my pants.

"Holy Crap!" I yelled, flailing, falling to the floor onto my ass. That demon of a Meister I call "Maka" was looming over me, grinning. That woman is to be the DEATH OF ME!

"Just making sure," she said triumphantly before skipping down the hall in her fluffy white slippers. Most likely she was imagining that she was flying. Lately, she was obsessed with becoming an angel. Darn her and her stupid "special soul" Gori Gori or something another, that can apparently can make us fly or whatever. Me, I'm not really that big a fan of—heights so yeah. I'm still skeptical, we failed miserably that first time.

Y'know what I've realized? We've been working all this time to make me into a Death Scythe. Now that I am, I don't feel any different. And now that I think about it, should I act any differently? I always feel like I'm acting anyways.

Well, I finally got dressed in the Spartoi uniform and grabbed some breakfast before I drove Maka and me to school. When we arrived three minutes late, Maka yelled her usual rant in my ear, and we hurried to our seats.

"Now," said Stein since we interrupted him. "As I was saying, we have a new student." He turned to the door. "You can come in now."

The door slowly creaked open. Great, it was probably probably some peppy loser who thinks they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. We have one of those already, it's named Black*Star.

Through the door walked a slight girl with short pink hair. A clump of it was tied into some weird ponytail with a weird red plus-thingy. Her light green eyes weren't as vivid as Maka's and they hung in a bored stare I'd compare to Kid's. She was dressed mostly in black, with red plaid leggings and armband. For some reason I thought I saw something move by her hair.

"Make sure to make her feel welcome." Stein said, breaking my thoughts. "Sit next to Soul and Maka."

Next to US? Absolutely perfect, I have to be nice to her now. Though she looked normal enough, might I remind you that "cynical" is my middle name? There's bound to be something about her that'll tick me off. She sat down next to Maka, and of course Maka greets her all happy and junk.

"Hello! I'm Maka Albarn."

"Nice to meet'cha," she mumbled coolly before looking away.

"So, Amu-cahn." Ah, was that her name, Amu? I wasn't paying attention before to Stein. "Are you a Weapon or a Meister."

Amu looked confused. "Wha? What's that? Weapon, Meister? I've no idea what you're talking about."

Now Maka was the confused one. "What do you mean? Don't you know where you are?"

"M-my parents enrolled m-me here a-after we moved here," she stuttered. "It's bad enough that the place is called D-death City, it creeps me out."

"Seriously?" I said. "Then your parents picked the wrong place to put you. I smirked, showing my teeth.

She shuddered. "Why's that?"

I rolled my eyes. " This is the DWMA, you know, DEATH-Weapon-Meister Academy," overemphasizing the word death was suddenly fun, she flinched at it. "Lord Death runs this place."

Her eyes went wide, and Amu froze. "Sh-shi-shinigami-sama?" she murmured. She turned a bit grey before fainting, landing with a giant thump. How fun, another fainter. As if Crona or Kid were much easier to handle, now another scaredy cat.

"What happened?" Stein questioned. His grey eyebrows were curved suspiciously.

"Geez, Soul you didn't have to scare her so much!" whispered Maka to me. She turned to Stein. "It seems that she fainted," Maka said, "After she learned who ran the school."

"Apparently," I continued. "Her parents didn't tell her squat about where she was going. She doesn't even know about Meisters and Weapons."

"That's strange," said Stein. "Bring her to the infirmary and stay with her 'till she wakes up, will ya?"

So we—scratch that, I had to carry her there, and Maka and I waited for, like twenty minutes until she woke up, realized where she was, and started to panic.

"Oi, Maka calm her down," I suggested.

"What can I do?" she asked me, as if she didn't know!

"The book! The book!"

"Oh yeah." An evil smile curled on her lips. Some angel. "Makaaaaa-chop!" A nice, thick phasmology book lodged itself into Amu's head. At least it wasn't me.

"Aiii~" she aid, rubbing her fluffy hair in pain. She was staring at the air though one open eye. "Really, they do?" she whispered to herself.

"Hm?" I grunted.

"N-nothing."

"So, what've you decided?" Maka looked to Amu. "Do you want to stay?"

"I've no idea. First of all, what's a Weapon and a Meister?"

"Well..." Maka began to explain the whole thing, including the Death Scythe part. She still looked confused. Maka sighed."Soul, could you demonstrate?"

"You want just my arm, or everything, Maka?"

"The arm's just fine."

Amu still looked confused. Well, until I transformed my arm into that sharp, curved blade that's seen who-knows-how-many battles. She kind of yelped, but didn't faint. This time at least.

"So, you want to stay?" Maka asked. Amu took a hesitant look around the room until finally she said yes.

"I don't think there's any other school anyway," Amu observed.

And so another day went by monotonously. How boring. Now that I think about it, my life has become as important as crap. Death Scythe, so what? I hate to admit it, but that bastard Giriko may be right. Maybe it's my own fault. I mean, with me acting cool all the time, do I have any fun anymore? Maybe I need to act a different kind of cool, huh? Everyone else just says I've become more mature, but I just think I've become more boring, is all. A lot of people could say that I'm acting myself, but I wish I really knew what "acting myself" was.

I don't think I knew it then, but the next day would certainly turn out to be very interesting—to my great surprise, and humiliation.

***The Next Day***

So , when I woke up, I thought: Just another day of "being cool" and people crowding around Maka and me talking about us. And of course hordes of stupid screaming girls pushing their idiotic love notes onto me. But when I flung the sheets aside, you wouldn't guess what I found. Or maybe you can.

We-he-ell. I found some thing peculiar: Not one, but two eggs. Now mind you, I was half asleep.

Eggs, I thought. Mmm, food. Hungry. But as I stared at them groggily I started to think more clearly. Eggs are in my bed. Why are they here? Wait.

"Eggs! What the hell?" It was at this point I started stammering foolishly. "D-d-did w-wh e-egg. Did those come from me?" My heart did another double-flip when I heard Maka scream. I jumped down from my nightstand and ran to her bedroom. But of course, first I knocked.

"Maka? You alright?" After a few minutes she spoke.

"Yes Soul." Something was up. I think I had an idea, though.

"Maka," I didn't know how to say this. "Did you find some...some eggs when you woke up?" She was silent and I thought she hadn't heard me. So I tried to repeat it. "Did you—,"

Suddenly the door banged open so quickly it smacked me in the face so hard my nose burned and my eyes watered in pain. OW, Ow, OW!

Maka glared at me. "Do you have something to do with this?"

"Well I—,"

"Did you somehow find some crazy way to—,"

I knew where this was going and didn't like it. I silenced her with her own Maka-chop.

"Woah, woah, WOAH," I said, backpedaling the convo. "What're you implying?"

"Well," she said calmly, rubbing her head. "I'm just saying that they didn't teach us about eggs in Health class."

"And what does that have to do with me?"

She reddened. "Well, it's just you're—,"

"What?" I raised an eyebrow.

"A guy, and I'm a—,"

"A girl," I finished. "And you think that these eggs are our babies or something?"

"I mean—," she began. I rolled my eyes.

"C'mon Maka, are you a chicken? 'Cause I'm not." I took a breath. "Besides, we'd never—,"

Her eyes exploded into green dinner plates. "OF COURSE NOT YOU PERV!" Her Encyclopedia Britannica smashed into the side of my face.

PAIN PAIN PAIN! "Besides," I said, rubbing my sore injury, "I kind of found some in my bed also."

"R-really?" She glowered at me angrily. "Show them. Prove it."

And so I did.

It was only when we looked at them more closely, that we noticed the deigns on them, like Easter eggs. Mine were pretty interesting, I guess. One was divided into sections, part was like piano keys, the other half looked like a pre-Kishin soul with a fire burning inside it. My other egg looked like it was wrapped in crumpled sheet music, with a jumble of notes and staves printed on it.

But if you think mine were weird, then you should have seen Maka's. She had three. The first had a microphone on it with a yellow quarter note next to it. Behind them were red and black swirls. The next one had a, fairy blue soul, but it had like, pigtails maybe? And a halo hovered above the soul. Overlaying the soul and halo was a spiderweb, and the tops and bottoms were dipped in purple. Finally the last egg was the most unorganized. It looked pale brown, with sticker looking symbols: a witch's hat, the moon, an ant, and a log.

Weirdness, right?

So we carefully put the eggs in our book-bags,(I'm not sure how we managed not to break them) and went to school as usual. After that awkward morning, everything else seemed to be going the same as usual...with the exception of that girl Amu tagging along with us. She acts really strange herself. Sometimes she'd whisper to herself during class and laugh at the weirdest times. Maka told me to be nice to her nonetheless, considering how Amu apparently could be a Meister. Maka could see her soul, and it's apparently very strong.

What-ever, I don't really care anymore.

So anyway, as I was saying, things only started to go downhill in gym class. (Doesn't it always?) Black*Star was being a really big jerkass again, testing my patience. He wanted to challenge me to a race, but I kept on refusing.

"Nah, I don't really feel like it," I told him with a sigh, trying my best to look bored and uninterested. (Which wasn't hard because I already was) I looked across the track, where Amu and Maka were sitting on the benches. They were talking and giggling in those annoying as hell high-pitched gossiping voices they often used.

Black*Star beamed at me. "Are you chicken? I wouldn't blame you, no one can go up against the great Black*Star and not feel inferior."

Okay, normally I wouldn't have cared, but lately his gloating was really pissing me off. Sure, Black*Star was a friend, but enough was enough. I wished I was more athletic, so I could wipe that self-righteous grim off his face. But then here was the strange part: In my head I heard a voice. Yes, a voice. Kinda sounded like me, I guess only...well different.

Then, it said, change from a guy who stands by, acting cool. To a really outspoken athletic, who can beat anyone at school! It even rhymed. Neat. I was going crazy in poem-form.

"Alright!" I heard myself say unwillingly. "I'll race you Black*Star be prepared to lose!"

My body moved on its own to the starting lane, where Black*Star and I lined up side by side.

"1, 2, 3, go!" he yelled. And suddenly he was gone, and I to my shock (and horror) was right behind him. As I looked down, I couldn't help but panic. What was I doing? Challenging Black*Star to a race? How did I even expect to win? IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT!

But somehow, around the second lap, I caught up. He didn't look worried until the third lap, when I was only then starting to pass him. And by the time I finished the last lap, Black*Star looked devastated. And of course, I collapsed onto the ground in an exhausted heap. I don't think I'd ever run a full mile in such a short time. Maka looked down at me, and I could see her shadowed face against the bright blue of the sky.

"Soul, you feeling okay?"

I nodded, even though I had no idea what just happened.