"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Brina asked nervously.

She was sat in one of the rooms of Gallows Manor and was now starting to regret her decision. It didn't help that she had a slightly crazy grim reaper stood in front of her, looking quite menacing whilst holding a pair of scissors.

"Of course I do," said Kid stiffly.

"So you've done this before?" Brina felt a little relieved.

"Well, no, not exactly. But I have a perfect sense of symmetry, so it'll be fine," replied Kid.

Oh, great. That wasn't exactly comforting. "If you give me a bowl cut, I'm gonna kill you," Brina muttered. She didn't find Kid particularly intimidating now that she knew his hostility just came from his own crazy obsession. She still couldn't believe she'd spent so much time worrying over something that had never been personal.

Kid chose to ignore her comment. He pulled the hair-tie out of her hair so that the longer side spilled down to her shoulder. His expression grew more annoyed as he looked at her, so he hastily cut a chunk out of the longer side.

"Hey, don't cut that much off at once!" protested Brina, seeing it fall to the floor. If he wasn't careful, then she was going to end up bald.

"Don't worry; I'll even it out," reassured Kid.

As he measured out another lock of Brina's hair, his fingers brushed against her neck. Brina shuddered. His fingers were cold.

"What?" Kid gave her a quizzical look, having noticed her reaction.

"Nothing," Brina mumbled, keeping her gaze resolutely on the floor.

She watched as more hair joined the first fallen curl on the stone floor, failing to notice as Kid's mood continued to darken. She jumped when he suddenly spoke.

"What is this?" he asked, annoyed, tapping her collarbone with the flat side of the scissors.

Brina winced. She had a spider web tattoo on one side of her collarbone that she'd gotten not long after she'd started at the DWMA. She'd completely forgotten about it. It was usually hidden by the longer side of her hair.

"Um, a tattoo..." she said hesitantly, deliberating avoiding Kid's gaze.

Kid closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked like he was physically in pain. "Why do you only have it on one side?"

"Well, it'd look stupid if I had it on both sides," said Brina with a shrug.

"Of course it wouldn't. Then it would be symmetrical!" argued Kid in frustration.

"I think we have a different idea of what looks stupid..." Brina muttered to herself.

She couldn't help noticing that Kid was a bit of a hypocrite, seeing as he had three white stripes in one side of his raven hair, but not the other. Though somehow, she had a feeling that he wouldn't appreciate it if she pointed that out.

"Hmm..." Kid rubbed his thumb across Brina's tattoo, inspecting it closer. "I wonder if it'd be removable..."

"No way, I don't want it removed. I paid sixty bucks for it!" exclaimed Brina, pulling away from him. Even if she had been able to afford it – not to mention willing to risk laser surgery – she wouldn't have done it. She liked her tattoo. Kid was being totally unreasonable.

"But it's not symmetrical!" protested Kid angrily.

"I don't care! I'm letting you cut my hair, aren't I? You've gotta meet me in the middle here," Brina burst out. "You got used to Professor Stein, didn't you? Surely you can put up with this too."

Because now it made sense when Professor Stein had told her that it had taken a while for Kid to warm up to him. He wasn't exactly the perfect picture of symmetry with the uneven stitches across his face and the giant screw impaled through his head.

Kid still looked annoyed, but he conceded reluctantly. "Fine," he grumbled, cutting at Brina's hair again.

He carried on in silence and Brina went back to watching her hair fall to the floor. She zoned out for a while until she suddenly realised that Kid was crouching in front of her, his face far too close to hers and one hand on either side of her head.

"Umm..." Brina was suddenly too nervous to ask what he was doing. She could feel the heat rising in her face.

But as she watched Kid's golden eyes flick from side to side and felt him tugging lightly at her hair, she realised that he was just checking to see if it was even. That made her feel stupid and her face grew even hotter. Luckily, Kid didn't seem to notice.

"That's perfect," he said, looking pleased. He straightened up, needlessly dusting himself off.

"Have you got a mirror?" requested Brina, looking around. She made to get up out of her chair, but Kid pushed her back down. She looked up at him in surprise.

"Hold on a second," he ordered before she could say anything. He then started to brush the loose hair from her shoulders.

Brina stared at him. Wow, he really was obsessed with everything being perfect. She actually felt a little sorry for him. It must be difficult having to live life in such a controlled manner.

"Now you can get up," said Kid once he was satisfied. "There's a mirror just through that door on the right."

"Err, thanks." Brina quickly got up and made for the door that Kid had pointed out.

The room appeared to be a small downstairs bathroom. Brina immediately looked for a light switch before realising that the room was perfectly lit as it was. She inspected the symmetrical lines of candles in amusement. They were even all burning at the same height. The mirror was framed in the centre of the wall opposite. Brina hastened over to it.

She inspected her hair from every angle that she could. Both sides were shorter than they had been, but they were indeed perfectly symmetrical. It was cut a little choppy, almost like it had been layered. Brina decided she quite liked it. She wondered if any of the teachers would get on her case now that her tattoo was on show.

She went back through to thank Kid and found him with a dustpan full of hair. She bit her lip to keep herself from laughing. He hadn't even been able to leave the mess on the floor for two minutes before cleaning it up.

However, before Brina could say anything, the main door opened. She looked round in surprise and saw that it was Liz and Patty. Classes had obviously finished now. The sisters looked completely stunned to see Brina there.

"Hey, Brina... Is everything okay?" asked Liz, looking from Brina to Kid and back again.

"Yeah, everything's fine," replied Brina, smiling knowingly to herself.

"Wow, did you cut your hair? It looks great!" said Patty enthusiastically, skipping over to her with Liz in tow.

"Erm no, I didn't do it..." started Brina, looking over at Kid.

Liz and Patty exchanged looks and both grinned. "I should have warned you not to let Kid near scissors," Liz laughed.

Brina couldn't help smiling. Kid just gave his weapon partners a derisive look before disappearing through one of the other doors with the full dustpan. They all laughed once he was out of earshot.

"He finally came around then?" said Liz, seeming pleased.

"Yeah, I think so," answered Brina, who still felt quite lost over the whole ordeal.

"I love your tattoo!" exclaimed Patty, who was now inspecting the permanent artwork on Brina's collarbone.

"Thanks. I'm glad someone does," Brina smiled.

"Did Kid go crazy when he saw it?" asked Liz understandingly.

Brina nodded. "Pretty much. I told him to just deal with it."

Liz beamed and clapped a hand on Brina's shoulder. "That's it! He's pretty easy to handle once you know what he's like. He's just a bit of a spoilt brat really."

"Has he always been like that?" asked Brina hesitantly.

Liz nodded. "Apparently he picked it up from a really young age. He's been totally crazy the whole time we've known him. That's why he wanted us as his weapons – because there's two of us."

Everything was starting to make more and more sense now. "But what about the stripes in his hair?" Brina pressed on. "Doesn't that bother him?"

"Oh, yeah, it does. Don't ever mention it to him unless you wanna see him cry," said Liz with a sigh.

Brina's eyes widened. "Cry? Are you serious?"

"Totally. You wanna see?" grinned Liz. She then shouted at the closed door that Kid had disappeared through. "Hey, Kid!"

"No, don't! I don't want you to make him cry!" Brina protested, flapping her hands frantically.

Liz and Patty both started laughing again at Brina's reaction. The door opened and Kid looked out. "What is it?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Liz dismissed him, still grinning.

"Nothing at all," added Patty with a giggle.

Brina rolled her eyes. They weren't very subtle. She noticed that Kid was now looking at her. "Um, I'd actually better be going now. Thanks though... For the haircut, I mean."

"Not a problem. I'll see you in class tomorrow," said Kid, shutting the door behind him.

Brina bid goodbye to the Thompson sisters too as they let her out through the front door. She then made her way back towards her apartment, absent-mindedly playing with her newly cut hair.

It felt weird not having one side longer than the other. She wasn't used to it being even. Being balanced. That was what Kid was so obsessed with. He'd said that the world couldn't work properly if it wasn't balanced...

Well, if that was true, then she was screwed, Brina thought grumpily to herself. Everyone knew her balance was awful.

XXX

"Alright, class... For the rest of this week, we're going to be introducing you to some new trust exercises," announced Professor Stein.

"Then next week, we'll look at some more fighting practice before we move onto resonating souls," added Sid.

"But first, we're going to start you off with some of the basic techniques that we tried out last week," said Professor Stein. "Just to start getting you all used to your new partners."

Brina nodded along with Professor Stein's introduction, determined to do well this time. She hadn't done too badly at the trust exercises before, but she had still managed to drop Yvonna on the floor. It had taken quite a bit of compromise to set up her truce with Kid – she didn't really want to ruin that by causing any injury to him too.

Luckily, the first day of lessons passed without any mishaps, which Brina was greatly relieved for. She felt that she could relax a little more. The exercises weren't difficult and as long as she didn't allow anything to break her concentration, then she didn't end up accidentally damaging Kid or anybody else.

"You're all doing great so far," Professor Stein praised the class at the end of their last lesson. "Tomorrow morning will be outdoor activities, so I'd like for us all to meet at the basketball court just outside of the academy. There'll be no need for you to come up to the classroom first."

Oh, great, thought Brina. She hoped that didn't mean they were going to play basketball. She wasn't very good at sports. They generally required the kind of natural balance that she just didn't have.

So she was feeling nervous again as she made her way down to the basketball court the next morning. Most of the class were already there when she turned up. She heard Circa and Kera talking about Professor Stein's plans for the lesson, so she hastened over to join them.

"You don't know if he's gonna get us playing basketball or anything, do you?" Brina asked them.

"I don't think so," replied Circa. "We thought that too, so we stayed behind after the class was over and asked if we'd need to wear sneakers, but he said it'd be fine."

"So I doubt we'll be doing anything too sporty," added Kera. "You know what teachers are like. You have to wear the right gym kit apparently."

That made Brina feel better. She already had enough doubts about this project without the idea of playing sports hanging over her. Whilst they were talking amongst themselves, the rest of the class turned up, along with Professor Stein and Sid. Professor Stein was carrying a large plastic package under his arm.

"Morning, class," he greeted them cheerfully. He noticed that most of the students were eyeing the package under his arm interestedly. "I see that most of you seem to have noticed that I come bearing gifts. We're going to be using these for practice today."

He tore the package open and pulled one of the objects out to show them. It looked like a foot-long rubber strap with a loop on either end.

"What are they?" asked Kim curiously.

"They're called partner straps," explained Professor Stein. "You each fix one end around your hands. Wearing these means that you have to rely on and work with your partner entirely to carry out even the most basic activities."

"You mean they're like handcuffs?" asked Maka scornfully.

"Pretty similar to handcuffs, yes," Professor Stein agreed. "And don't give me that look, Maka. These are really popular with grade school classes and youth groups."

"Is that supposed to make us feel better that he's comparing us to grade schoolers?" Blood muttered to nobody in particular.

"Professor Stein's going to hand these out to each team," Sid continued. "Once you've fitted them on, we have a series of activities for you to do."

Professor Stein walked round the group, distributing the partner straps. Brina felt uneasy as she slid her left hand through one of the loops on the strap that he'd given to her and Kid. She tightened it around her wrist. Why did she have a feeling that this was going to go horribly wrong?

Once every team had a partner strap, Professor Stein then pulled the last thing out of the package he'd been carrying. It was a basketball. Brina felt her stomach drop. So they were going to have to play. She saw Circa and Kera swap confused glances, since they'd already been told otherwise.

"We're not going to be playing a proper game," Professor Stein pointed out, as everyone's eyes were now on the basketball in his hand. "We're going to try out some throwing and catching exercises. If you do well at that, then we may try teaming a few of you against each other and see how that goes. Marista, catch!"

With no more warning than that, Professor Stein threw the ball to her. Marista flung her arms up to catch it, hindered by Ao, who had taken a second to catch on and hadn't raised her own arm quite as quickly. Marista managed to catch the basketball, but only just by her fingertips.

"Not so easy when you have to count on someone else to help you simply catch a ball," Professor Stein commented with a smile.

"Continue to pass the ball like this for now," directed Sid. "Say the name of the person you're going to pass to so that you give both them and their partner enough notice."

Marista nodded, choosing who to pass the ball to next. "Casper."

Casper caught the ball easily as it was passed to her – both her and Maka being on high alert. "Black Star."

Black Star fumbled the ball slightly, but still caught it. Blood hadn't moved quite as quickly, much in the same way that Ao had done. Wanting to cover up his blunder, Black Star passed the ball on swiftly. "Kid!"

Brina hadn't been as prepared for the quick pass as Kid had and didn't move nowhere near fast enough. Kid stopped the ball from hitting him in the face with his free hand, but wasn't able to catch it when his other arm was weighed down by Brina. The ball bounced off his hand and rolled away across the floor.

"Sorry!" exclaimed Brina embarrassedly, as Kid shot her an annoyed look. Danny ran to retrieve the ball.

Brina sighed. She probably should have given Kid extra warning before they'd started these exercises. He could cut her hair and make her as symmetrical as he liked, but it was going to take a lot more than that to combat her natural clumsiness.

XXX

Author's Note!

So on the last chapter I had someone complaining about how little people's OCs have had to do so far. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. I didn't want people to only be interested in this story if their own OCs were included. I could have created the extra characters that I needed myself, but I thought getting other people involved would make it more fun for them. Obviously not.

As you all know, I stated at the beginning that I didn't know what part your characters were going to have. I just knew that I needed a class full of students. I then had to introduce a LOT of new characters at once, which is really hard to do without dragging the story out. And there was definitely no way I could give them all a real decent inclusion at that point without boring everybody.

Obviously, Brina is the focal point of my story, so of course she's going to get more involvement. This is my story after all and it does happen to be more about her than anybody else. But what I also needed to point out is that this is a progressive story. The OCs will get more to do and I hope to branch them off into their own storylines, but it's not gonna be straightaway. I've only just started really introducing them all – give me a chance to write more first.

The funny thing is that this reviewer has nothing to do with this story. I actually have my suspicions over this account seeing as there's no stories, favourites or anything even listed on their profile (not to mention the account was started two days before reviewing my story and doesn't seem to have had any other activity since). It may just be me, but it looks like it could be a fake account that someone has created just to complain. Plus they didn't even reply to the message I sent them. Again, I could be wrong, but I do have suspicions over who it.

Either way, if any of you do have a problem with the way I'm writing my story, then tell me straight. I'll get your characters replaced from someone who isn't just in it to read about their own characters. I made it clear from the beginning that I wasn't going to tolerate that.

But I would like to add that this doesn't apply to most of you. The majority of you have been lovely and given me some excellent feedback so far. So a big thank you to those people! You're what give me the motivation to keep writing . And I apologise to those same people for having to read this complaint, since it obviously doesn't apply to you.

See chapter three for any character copyrights.