Brina purposely avoided Kid that morning. She still didn't understand what she could have possibly done to annoy him and it was weighing down on her mind. She knew she was probably making too big a deal out of this, but she'd always been quite a friendly person – she'd never given anyone a reason to actively dislike her. So there was no need for Kid to have given her such a disgusted look when all she'd done was smile at him.

The thought bugged her through all of the morning classes. She frowned at the paper in front of her, tapping her pen impatiently, still caught up in her own thoughts. Adrian was practically reclining in the chair next to her. He put his feet up on the desk. Annoyed, Brina shuffled her things out of the way. Normally, she wouldn't have been as aggravated by something as simple as that, but her confused thoughts over the new student had put her in a tetchy mood.

She stared at Adrian's shoes on the desk. Maybe she'd been mistaken. Maybe Kid had been giving the twins a dirty look, not her. That wouldn't have been unusual. There were always plenty of stories flying round about the Carrows. Nobody else at the DWMA liked them – they were antisocial and they enjoyed playing tricks on people.

Yes, that must be it. She must have imagined that the antagonism was aimed at her. It would have been an easy mistake to make, considering the twins always sat directly beside her. Brina still didn't feel brave enough to chance another look at Kid in class, but she felt happier now. Maybe she'd even introduce herself after this lesson was over and they'd broke up for the lunch period.

The lesson dragged and Brina felt like putting her head down on the desk and going to sleep. Professor Layten wasn't half as interesting a teacher as Professor Stein was. The bell finally rang and the class were allowed out. The twins were ready to charge on outside, but Brina hung back by the classroom door as everyone was still filing out.

"What's up? You wanna eat with Maka and them again?" asked Jesse.

"Aww, come on Bree. Hang out with us this time," Adrian complained.

"It's not that. I just..." Brina's sentence trailed off as Kid came through the door. She turned to him with a wary smile and held her hand out. "Oh, hi, I'm Brina. I didn't get chance to introduce myself before." The twins gave each other an amused look at Brina's need to try and befriend everyone.

Kid didn't take her hand. He didn't even look her in the eyes. "Please don't... You disgust me."

Brina felt like he'd just punched her in the stomach. She stared at him, feeling tears immediately spring up and threaten her eyes. He thought she was disgusting? But she'd only been trying to be nice; she couldn't think of a single thing that she could have done to offend him.

Adrian didn't wait to find out what his problem was. He grabbed Kid by the hair and slammed him against the wall. "Apologise to her!" he snarled in Kid's face, forcing him to look him in the eye.

It must have been painful, but Kid didn't even flinch. He met Adrian's gaze steadily. "Let go of me," he said dangerously.

"Adrian, don't..." said Brina worriedly. "Just let him go."

Fights were permitted at the academy as long as a teacher was there to witness it. But if Adrian was caught assaulting Lord Death's son without a teacher present as a referee, he'd be in big trouble.

"Not until he apologises!" protested Adrian. He was a lot taller than Kid and in regular hand-to-hand combat, he'd likely have the advantage.

Half of the class were now crowded round the doorway. How much had they heard? Brina flushed. Jesse was hovering behind her, unsure whether to pull Adrian off Kid or not. Professor Layten was sure to notice the disturbance and when she did, she'd be out any second.

"I don't care!" said Brina, though it was obvious she was lying. "Just leave it or you'll get into trouble."

Adrian took one look at her face and saw quite clearly that all she wanted to do was get away from everyone. "Fine," he growled. He gave Kid one more shake and released him. "You'd better stay away from her."

"Gladly," replied Kid, calmly brushing himself down.

Adrian looked ready to punch him, but this time, Jesse grabbed his arm. "C'mon, Ade," he muttered, steering him away. He caught hold of Brina's hand and pulled her along with them.

"Brina, wait!"

Brina looked back. It was Liz and Patty. They'd obviously seen everything. "Ignore Kid; don't take it personally," said Liz, looking awkward. "He's just a bit..."

"It's fine; I really don't care," Brina interrupted quickly. She just wanted to escape outside with the twins. "Just forget about it. I'll see you later." She practically babbled the last few words, quickly turning tail and following the twins outside.

"Are you okay?" Jesse asked her, once they were sat in their usual spot under one of the trees.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Brina quietly, staring at the ground. No one had ever been that malicious to her before. She'd always gone out of her way to be nice to people. She still didn't even know what she'd done wrong.

"You should have let me punch him," Adrian grumbled.

"That wouldn't have solved anything," said Brina.

"It would have made you feel better," Adrian insisted.

Brina couldn't even manage a smile at that. "Can we just not talk about it?" She was sure that if they kept it up much longer, she'd end up in tears. She didn't want to think about it.

"Sure," said Jesse softly.

Adrian sighed and patted her on the head. "Whatever you want, Bree-Bree."

XXX

It became clear over the lunch hour that everyone in the class had either seen or heard about what had happened. Small groups of students – including Maka, Soul, Tsubaki and Black Star – came to seek Brina out to see if she was okay. Adrian ignored them all as usual and Jesse was forced to wave them all away, telling them that Brina just wanted to forget about it.

Liz and Patty turned up at one point, trying again to make excuses for Kid. Brina just gave them a fake smile, insisting that she was fine and would see them in class later that afternoon.

"At least they all care about you," Jesse pointed out in an attempt to cheer her up.

Brina didn't really care at that point. She was far too nervous at the thought of having to go back to class after lunch was over. The idea was starting to make her feel ill. She considered skipping class and feigning having to go to the nurse. It wasn't like that would be unusual for her. Adrian was all for it.

"Yeah, go for it! We'll skip with you," he said.

"If you do that, everyone's gonna know you're avoiding going to class," Jesse pointed out. "I know you end up having to go to the infirmary quite a bit, but people will know that's not the case this time."

Brina sulked, trying to decide what to do. She didn't want Kid to know that he'd bothered her so much that she was scared of going to class, so she eventually agreed to go. When they did get back to the classroom, she took her seat without looking at anybody. She could feel people watching her though and her cheeks burned.

At least they had Professor Stein teaching for the rest of the afternoon. His classes generally tended to be more interesting than anyone else's – well, when they weren't just experimenting on things.

But even Professor Stein failed to cheer her up. His lessons simply focused on dissecting again, causing more arguments amongst the class, like it normally did. Brina sighed and put her head on the desk. All she wanted now was to go home. She knew she should have skipped class. At least it was Friday and she'd have a whole weekend of no classes.

However, Professor Stein sprang an unusual surprise on them towards the end of the lesson.

"Now then, class... I have an announcement to make before you all finish up for the weekend," he revealed. "We're going to be starting on a new project. It should last for a couple of months and it'll help you to learn new fighting techniques."

There was an excited murmur amongst the class. It wasn't often that they were given long-term projects and this was already sounding far more interesting than any they'd done in the past.

"It'll be a completely new experience for all of you," Professor Stein continued. "For starters, none of you will be working with your usual partners. All meisters will be separated from their weapons..."

He didn't get any further, because there was a sudden uproar – even worse than anything his dissecting practices had caused in previous lessons.

"Split us up from our meisters? Are you crazy?" protested a dark-haired boy named Koroso, who had the ability to change into a scythe like Soul did.

"Of course he's crazy! This has to be a joke!" shouted Ox – one of the top students in the class.

"We've learnt to match our soul wavelengths with our weapons – what was the point of that if you're going to give us new partners?" asked Kim, a meister student and the object of Ox's affections.

Professor Stein waited patiently, twisting the screw in the side of his head until the shouting subsided. "You will be assigned new partners, but you will not be working in the same way that you're used to," he explained. "Weapons will be working with other weapons and all meisters will be paired up too."

"But why?" asked Maka, unable to keep the question to herself.

"Because you need to be prepared for situations where you are unable to use your weapon," Professor Stein replied. "Meisters need to learn alternate fighting techniques that they can use if, for some reason, their weapon has been separated from them or is unable to transform. Likewise, we will be teaching weapons to fight using each other so that they don't always have to rely on their meisters to be of use."

The class was completely silent. Pleased with their attention, Professor Stein continued with his explanation.

"Starting next week, you will be given a number of exercises in your usual teams. I'll use what I learn from these exercises to decide on your new partners for this project. These teams will be decided on compatibility and similarities in skill, not based on existing friendship groups."

Some of the students were giving each other uneasy glances. That meant that they could end up with someone they didn't like. The twins looked particularly worried. They'd already had some rough experience in using each other to fight, but that wouldn't be any use if they were split up and partnered with other weapons.

Professor Stein didn't seem bothered by the awkward silence following his words. In fact, he seemed positively cheery. "Once the new teams are started, we'll begin training. Both myself and Sid will be teaching the meister teams for this project. The weapons will be taught by Naigus and Death Scythe."

Brina shot a glance at Maka and Soul. Spirit Albarn, more commonly known as Death Scythe, was Maka's father and it was common knowledge how much she detested that fact. Maka seemed relieved that he wasn't going to be in charge of the meisters. Soul looked appalled by the idea. He wasn't on the best of terms with him and often referred to him as 'Maka's creepy dad'.

With that, the bell rang, signalling both the end of the lesson and the end of the day. Professor Stein looked pleased with himself. "I'll see you all on Monday. Make sure you're fighting fit – we'll need to see the utmost best of your abilities to decide on the most suitable teams for you."

The students filed out of the classroom a lot more noisily than usual. Everyone was debating and worrying over what Professor Stein had just told them. Kid looked particularly angry about the new project. Brina made sure she kept well out of his way as he passed.

Adrian now looked confident rather than worried. "What are we worrying for, Jess? We'll be fine. Not only are we related; we're twins. Nobody could be more compatible with us than we already are to each other."

"I dunno though..." mused Jesse, not sharing Adrian's confidence. "Professor Stein always has something up his sleeve that you can't count on."

Brina let the twins theorise amongst themselves. She was more worried about another issue. The twins were part of her balance. The only reason she was such a good meister and could forget her clumsiness when she was fighting was because she was completely on the same wavelength as the twins. It had taken a lot of practice. But fighting alongside another meister? She was sure to be useless.

Maybe if she was really lucky, she'd get paired with Maka. Or even Black Star… Her ungainliness was embarrassing either way, but it didn't bother her quite as much around people she was more comfortable with. Plus she knew that Black Star wouldn't dwell on it – he wouldn't want the spotlight to be taken away from him.

Either way, she needed someone who wasn't going to mind too much that she was likely to be a danger to them both. Someone who wasn't going to laugh at her and put her on edge. Now why did she have a feeling that somebody like that was going to be hard to find?

XXX

Author's Note!

Fairly short chapter but I've finally incorporated my main idea into the storyline now! The next part will be the exercises leading up to the decision of the new teams so I needed that to be a whole separate chapter.

Copyright notice!

Brina Hathaway, Adrian and Jesse Carrow belong to me.

Koroso Wara belongs to Ikim Sanda.

All other OCs will be appearing in the next chapter! I'm still accepting OCs if you follow these two rules: review first, then PM me for the OC form. If I think you're not interested in the story, only in whoring your characters, your OCs won't be used!

Thanks to both the reviewers and the people who have sent in OCs so far!