Ch 7 shadow hunter

Soul pov

The horror never stops. I emerge from my partner's body for what must be the millionth time. Each time no matter how prepared I think I am it's always the same feeling of dread. It's been two days since I first noticed her eyes were brown and I haven't noticed any other discrepancies. That makes me wonder. Have her eyes always been brown in here and I just never noticed?

I can tell that my time here is coming to a close as I awake in the real world so I look over at her one more time, her long thin legs, her teeny tiny frame, her chocolate brown eyes and her jet black hair.

It was nice waking up in my own bed again. I was released from the hospital last night and after walking home with Maka I passed out on my bed in my street clothes. I noticed that my shoes were off and I was under the blankets. Guess I have to say thanks to Maka now. I hate owing her.

I get out the shower and am immediately greeted by the smell of bacon, a scent no mere mortal can over come. I follow my nose to find Maka in the kitchen spatula in hand cooking up some deliciousness. I walk over and open the fridge to poor myself some milk. I sneak up behind her and ask.

"Need any help with breakfast Maka?" I was kind of hoping to scare her but she didn't even flinch.

"Not really but could you set the table? Oh and do you want toast?"

"Yeah, thanks" I get placemats from the drawer and place them on the table along with forks before Maka sets down our plates. We both sit down and start to eat our breakfast.

The silence at first is a little awkward, just the sound of our forks scraping our plates. After a while Maka chimes in trying to dissolve the tense atmosphere.

"So I was watching the news earlier and it said that the chance of rain for this week is-"

"I can't do this Maka!" I stand up and slam my hand on the wall feeling the stress of the last two days wash over me in one violent wave. "What are we doing? Sitting down and eating fucking bacon and eggs, talking about the god damn weather! We can't resonate and were just going to sit down and pretend like everything's O.K! Maybe you can but I-"

"Do you think it's any easier for me!" now Maka was up glaring right into my eyes, poking her finger into my chest. " How do you think I feel huh? Did you think I forgot what's going on? I'm not fucking stupid Soul! We're sitting here eating fucking breakfast, while that bitch Tsubaki is god knows where probably fucking laughing at us! Do you think I want to be here, doing- this?" her hand dropped to her side and she looked down as tears started to fall from her eyes. "Soul I just-"

I put my arms around her feeling like a dick for making her cry. 'Losing control of my emotions, not cool'. I felt her body shake as she cried into my chest, "I know Maka. Everything's going to be alright, we're going to fix what's wrong with our wavelengths and then were going to save Tsubaki-"

She pushed off of me and I took a step back as she glared me down. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You seem so convinced that she needs saving even though she's the one who did this to us! I felt her soul as she was destroying us! That was her one hundred percent Tsubaki no one else! There was no witch influence, no interference it was all her! Why can't you accept that? Everyone else realizes the monster that she is! Even Blackstar won't defend her! But you why do you?"

"Because she's our friend Maka!"

She shook her head, "No she was never our friend! This is her true self!" Maka put on her coat and opened the door "and I'm going to find her. Then I'm going to make her pay for what she did to us!" Maka slammed the door behind her.

That left me alone in the house with my thoughts. Why am I defending her? Every one else, even her own meister is convinced she's evil. But some how I can feel it, deep down in my soul I can tell that her intentions aren't evil. It is true that I never truly believed that I needed to save her from some witch. But now I have a bigger problem; now I need to save her from Maka.

Tsubaki pov

Eighteen. I walked out of the coliseum after consuming my eighteenth kishin soul. The other kishin gave me wide berth as I walked up to my seat at the bar. In the short time that I've been here I have earned quite the reputation. It's funny actually, the fact that I never mentioned me and Soul's scythe technique and they started calling me the 'shadow hunter'. I'm not complaining though it's nice to be feared. At least now there are no more bullshit arena matches. I think I earned their respect after beating my tenth. I smirked recalling that battle,

Flashback

What the hell! I dodged to the right narrowly avoiding being decapitated. How on earth is this fare! I looked up at my behemoth of an opponent, it had to be at least twenty feet tall which leaves me to wonder, how did they even get him in here? Regardless I have to fight him. I know that if I back down the kishin will take it as a sign of weakness and swarm me. Only one option then, I'll rip it apart!

As the next gargantuan fist descends upon me instead of dodge I jump and land on top of it. I then run up on to its shoulder. It reaches to grab me with its other arm but before the big meaty fingers can close around me I transform my arm into chain scythe mode, dig it into his shoulder and leap off. The momentum of my swing brought me back up and on his other hand that was working on dislodging my blade. I did another swing now tying his arm to his shoulder. I land on the ground and see this giant kishin desperately trying to untangle itself.

By now the kishin have all seen my shadow technique so this may be the only chance I have to power up without him trying to stop me. I pull my arm back yanking the beast off of his feet bringing him face down in at my feet. I retracted my kusarigama and turned my hand back to normal. I picked up my resonance rate and felt the familiar markings snake their way across my skin I smirked as I felt my power peak.

I summoned my shadow puppet but to my surprise instead of one I had two. That's interesting, my smirk grew into a grin I wonderd: if Blackstar knew how much stronger consuming souls would make me would he have tried harder? The kishin finally pushed itself to its feet and as soon as it saw my puppets he decided it was time to stop playing around. So did I.

He brought both of his hands up together in order to I assume crush me. Not that I would give him the chance. As soon as his hands came together one of my shadow puppets appeared next to him and snaked up the kishin's body holding it in place. My other puppet reshaped itself into a familiar looking black scythe with razor edges, a reminder of why I'm doing this.

I grasped the scythe staff in my hands and slowly walked up to the kishin, it could only watch as I approached. Normally this would be the end, I would finish this with one decisive strike. But I was tired of these bullshit matchups. Before this big guy were three kishin disguised as one, and before them two invisible kishin. This is a matter of respect, which I had none of here, but I knew what kishin do respect; violence.

I raise my scythe "You think you can bully me into leaving!" I slice it's leg in half at the shin. " Do you think you can scare me!" his other leg. He falls to his knees. The arena is deadly silent as all the kishin have their eyes on me. " If you think that I'm going to run away your wrong!" I cut his body off at the waist, jumping back so that his face lands at my feet. I jump on his back and raise my scythe a final time "Because I'm not going anywhere!" after I bring my scythe down his body vanishes revealing his bright red soul. I catch it as I fall to the ground. After I swallow it I hear them, all of them, cheering.

"Sha-dow Hun-ter!"

"Sha-dow Hun-ter!"

"Sha-dow Hun-ter!"

Flashback end

I sit down as Mitch poures me my drink. He takes out a bottle of wine and poures me a glass. Even though I no longer live by deaths rules I still don't drink, I take a sip of the grape juice in my cup. Mitch and I have come to an understanding, I want to get stronger to further my own goals and once he understood that I had no intention of returning to destroy this establishment he stopped seeing me as one of deaths dogs and more like one of them. He knows that my survival here is dependent on the respect that I command and I can only go as far as it will let me. So instead of letting my enemies see me drinking grape juice he helps me uphold my reputation.

He leans on the counter, "That was a nice fight hunter."

I smirk, " It will take a lot more than a couple of blades to off me."

He pours more drink into my glass, " Hoho! Now that I can see! But tell me lass, while it seems obvious that you're no longer working with the reaper what are you doing here? It's obvious that you want to be stronger but what exactly are you planning to do?"

I lean in close so that only he can hear me. " There is... Something I want, and the Reeaper will do anything to stop me from getting it."

The smirk on his face grew " So what are you going to do about it?"

I push my stool back and set the payment for my drink on the counter. As I'm walking away I call over my shoulder "Whatever it takes!"

Blackstar pov

My training with Stein has changed completely in its nature. Before it was about preparing me to handle Tsubaki's blade. And now its about learning to fight on my own. Stein told me that with my pushy nature there are very few weapons that will be able to resonate with me successfully. But I don't care. Tsubaki was the only weapon I ever wanted, and she abandoned me. We were, friends, partners, roommates! And then she turns around and betrays all of that! Soul keeps trying to make excuses for her but I know, I know that Tsubaki is the one doing this. She's not so weak that someone can control her so easily. And I'm going to make her pay. No matter the cost.