Chapter 4 – Assignment Board

Sai Summers

I pushed Spirit in the back, forcing him to move out of my way. The cheap fabric of his jacket ruffled under my hand. He chuckled and leaned against the outer door jam, allowing me to shut the heavy wooden door behind me. I stood wearily at his side. It seemed like the day was dragging on.

"Sorry." He giggled. "It was Soul's idea." His light eyes were crinkled in humor.

I took two steps across the hallway and punched my cousin the in the left shoulder with my right fist. It abruptly wrinkled the fine, black fabric.

Soul laughed, shying away from the punch. "I couldn't help it. You were so serious about how to address people here during the orientation, I couldn't resist."

Maka sighed at his right, and untied her sweater from her waist. "You're such a moron, Soul." She put it over her head and pulled it on, smoothing it over her plaid skirt.

Soul rocked him self forward and half-turned to her, flashing her a toothy grin. Maka simply rolled her eyes at him and turned away, starting down the hall.

"Ooh! You better stop in and see Shinigami-sama, Sai."

I turned back and looked at Spirit. He didn't seem to be delivering that message under good terms, and was biting his lower lip.

But with Spirit it seemed difficult to tell.

I sighed. "Soul, will you go with me? I'm not sure where the office is."

He stood upright and put his left arm around my shoulders. The material of his suit was cold against my back. "Of course! I know this place inside-and-out."

Maka muttered something about having gotten lost yesterday, but Soul ignored her.

Soul started to pull me down the hall and when I heard the light voice of Tsubaki. "We're going on to lecture."

Maka seemed in agreement and her sharp voice carried over the other students in the hallway. "I'm going with you, hold on."

I tried to turn and thank them, but Soul had dragged me a dozen feet down the hall already. I eyed him. "What's your deal, in a hurry to get rid of me?"

His ruby eyes were wide and he smiled. "Oh no, I want to show you something." He smiled, but it was lop-sided.

Soul shuffled me around a corner and passed three more wooden doors, and then came to a stop. He turned half-turned me and looked up to my right. "Did you get to see this during the orientation?"

I turned and looked up in the direction he directed. Rows and rows of six-by-eight inch wooden-frame plaques lined the hallway's wall. They hung in four rows vertically and at least a dozen plaques horizontally. The basis of the plaque appeared to be black chalkboard, and appeared erasable. Some of them had tags that said "complete" or "in process." The number of half-inch stars on the top of the erasable area varied from one to four. All of the plaques had three permanent white lines on them, and some had those lines filled in with names of various students. The stars appeared to be like buttons that were interchangeable on a little track.

"No, we didn't get to see much of the inside. The tour was brief. Probably because Spirit-sensei was fooling around most of the time."

Soul chortled. "Not surprising." He paused and shook his head. "Anyway, this is the assignment board."

"Okay."

Soul released my shoulders and looked over the board for a moment.

He gestured with his right hand in the general direction of the plaques. "So, it tells you what the assignment is, whether or not its completed, who's signed up for it, and how hard it is." He pulled a plaque from the bottom row off and we looked at it closer. "For example, this one is a two-star assignment."

I nodded and looked over his shoulder at the plaque.

"You've got to have at least two one-star Meisters for this one before it can be completed. It's too hard for just one Meister who's not experienced." He ran a finger under one of the white lines. "And only Ox has signed up for it so far, so he can't take it on under a second person signs up for it. The second person who decides to sign up for it contacts Ox and they go to Shinigami-sama's office to get the 'in-process' tag. That way no one else signs up or changes the information. After it's been completed, the Meisters visit him again for the 'complete' tag. It hangs there for seven days, and the plaque is then erased and replaced with a new mission." Soul stepped forward and hung the plaque back on the wall.

"Okay, but why does it hang there for a week if it's been completed?"

He stepped back "Because it's like an honor to complete a mission. You want everyone to know it was you."

"Could a two-star Meister take that on by themselves?"

Soul made a sour face. "It's possible, but there could be multiple enemies and multiple people might be necessary. That's why a full description is always made." He shifted on his feet and crossed his arms across his chest. "There's only a hand-full of two-stars at the moment so it hasn't been much of an issue at the moment."

"Hmm." I pointed up at a four-star assignment. "So you would need a two-star Meister and at least two one-stars for that one."

"Correct, but most people leave the four-star assignments to 'special exception' students." He made the symbol for quotation marks in the air.

I repeated his quotation marks action. "Special exception students?"

He looked at me thoughtfully. "People with special abilities, someone who might fall outside the general rules."

"Someone like Kid would qualify, right?"

His eyes narrowed. It didn't seem to be the question he was expecting. And I didn't plan to ask what I thought he was expecting. I needed to keep things simple until I got used to things at the school.

"Yeah, he would qualify. He did take on one of the four-star assignments when he first got here, but that's the only one he did I think." Soul continued to stare at me, his brow furrowed.

A moment of silence passed. I looked at him curiously. "What?"

"Aren't you going to ask?"

"Uhh…ask what?" I tried to play off his question as confusion.

He dropped his shoulders and his face relaxed. "Were you granted an exception status or not?"

"I have no idea." I admitted.

Soul stuffed his hands in his pants pockets. "The last Independent Weapon left Shibusen more than five years ago. I'm sure you fall outside of the normal range of most of the students."

I crossed my arms across my chest. My skin looked exceptionally pale against the dark fabric of my dress. "I don't want to be special, Soul. I don't want special treatment either."

He pulled his right arm out of his pocket, ruffled his white hair with his right hand. "You sound like him. That's why he stopped doing the exception-assignments." He paused and looked at me thoughtfully. "Don't worry too much about it. Except for what happened this morning, most people have no idea." He sighed.

I thought I heard him mutter the word yet under his breath, and I sighed quietly.

Soul directed the conversation back to the subject at hand. "Oh, but you still can't take on a four-star assignment yourself, anyway." He shrugged. "You have to have at least two people, just in case. It's a safety issue. Kid was injured in that fight, so a rule was added that no one can take on a four-star assignment alone."

I simply nodded.

"Anyway." He turned and pointed farther down the hall. "The last door in front of us is the entrance to Shinigami-sama's office. I'm going to head to lecture before I hear a lot of complaints from Maka." Soul looked back at me with a half-smile. He rounded around my back and behind me. "I'll see you in lecture." He took a step, and turned back to me looking serious. "That's assuming he doesn't expel you for the little incident this morning."

I gasped lightly. "What?"

He snorted and a crooked smile broke out on his face. "I'm joking. You're always so serious."

My shoulders relaxed. "No wonder Maka gets mad at you all of the time."

Soul gave a quick wave and strode down towards the lecture hall hallway.

I rolled my eyes and wandered down the hallway to Shinigami-sama's office. I put my hand on the door handle, and tried to prepare myself. I had already done a lot of damage to my reputation in a very short amount of time.