A/N - Okay, I swear to God I'll get back on that little hamster wheel of motivation and start churning out chapters again. I swear. I've just been marathoning some anime with my sister, including the Puella Magi Madoka Magica blu-ray I mentioned last chapter. No matter how many times I watch that damn anime, it still finds new ways to rip by beating heart out of my chest and toss it out the nearest window. That's okay, though. I'm a writer, I don't need my heart. :)
I would like to thank Superhero17 and Carolinefdq for reviewing! To Superhero17, I have to say that I totally agree that episode six is an absolute delight. Both watching it and writing the events have been an utter blast for me, and it's easily launched itself into a comfortable spot in my top 5 favorite episodes.
To Carolinefdq, I say that I'm glad that you liked the past two chapters! I knew from the start that I didn't want Alecto to be swooning over Kid in a romantic since as soon as she saw him. Swooning in a "whoa boy's got skills" sense, maybe. But I've never really liked writing "love at first sight" relationships because I've always thought that part of the fun of writing the relationship was the development of them getting to know each other and there feelings growing. I'll also say that I've already watched Madoka Magica several times before we got the blu-ray (Yay Crunchyroll!) but my sister hadn't, and watching her flip her shit over the revelations was like half the fun of marathoning it with her.
Also, Happy New Years! I'll admit I'm not all that pumped for 2014 (not expecting anything earth-shatteringly awesome to happen during it), but I'm sure it'll have it's fun moments nonetheless!
Notes and translations of the Latin will be at the end of the chapter.
DISCLAIMER: Soul Eater is the intellectual property of Atsushi Ōkubo. I have no intention of monetizing my fanwork, and this is merely an enjoyable passer of time.
Chapter Fifteen - A Boy to Remember - The Son of Death's First Day at the Academy, Part 3
Tempus found this whole scene almost embarrassing to watch, but he found himself unable to turn away.
It wasn't because he had a genuine investment in the success of either side. While the shenanigans of Black Star and Soul certainly weren't winning him over, he didn't know anything about this Death the Kid boy beyond the fact that he could hold his own against two buffoons. For all Tempus knew, this kid could be an even bigger buffoon. No, the real reason that he couldn't turn away from this mess was because this whole mess was kind of pathetically hilarious. He wasn't dissolving into conniptions like Alecto was (although her laughter was dying into quiet giggles at this point, and she'd gotten back to her feet), but he did find himself having to hold back an entertained smirk or two.
He was probably a terrible person for that, but hey, he wasn't the one who thought idiocy-inflicted injuries were hysterical.
Speaking of idiocy and injuries, Black Star was still trying to pick up Soul. Any fool could see that was all for nothing; Tempus knew all too well that if a meister's soul wasn't compatible with a weapon's, the two would be completely incapable of fighting together like weapon and meister should. But that didn't stop these two from trying. "Come on, you stupid scythe!" Black Star said through gritted teeth. "I just need to lift you up!"
Soul energy crackled from Black Star's hands and rippled across Soul, whose human form's torso popped out of his blade and spit out a fountain's worth of blood. "What the hell are you doing, hitting me with your soul's wavelength? That hurts, you idiot!" he shouted furiously, his crimson eyes alight with anger and agony.
Even Black Star seemed a little cowed by the ferocity with which Soul spoke. "Oh. My bad."
Alecto looked like she was about to burst into another fit of laughter, though it seemed that she'd taken Tsubaki's reproach a little bit to heart and kept herself reined in a little. Tsubaki was staring at the scene with such a look of open-mouthed incredulity that Tempus wondered if her jaw was going to drop off her head and clatter to the floor.
"It's almost hard to watch," Tsubaki said, echoing Tempus's thoughts. "Those morons can't seem to sense each other's wavelengths at all."
Stein nodded. "Before a meister and his or her weapon fight an opponent, they need to adjust their wavelengths to sync with each other." Another truth that Tempus knew very well. While some souls were more malleable than others when it came to syncing wavelengths, others were incredibly difficult to sync to, making them difficult to be compatible with. Other souls were just plain hard-headed, and Tempus wagered that Black Star's soul was one of those.
Soul had fully turned back into his human home, and had turned away from Black Star, his expression obscured. "Black Star," he said flatly. "It's over between us."
Black Star looked a bit distraught. "W...what exactly are you saying, Soul?" he asked.
They're not.
Soul's voice shook with equal parts despair and melodrama as he responded. "If we try to stay together like this… I'll only end up hating you. It's for the best."
They are. Oh, goodie. Tempus could practically see the dramatic pink shoujo sparkles rolling off the two in waves, and he rolled his eyes liberally, a scoff escaping his lips. Beside him, Alecto's expression switch from amused to annoyed without missing a beat. Tsubaki and Maka and even Stein looked dumbfounded at this pseudo-dramatic development.
Death the Kid simply pointed his pistols at the two. "Hey," he said, probably to his partners. "Can I shoot them now?" One of his pistols said something that Tempus wasn't quite able to understand.
"Sīs," Alecto sighed.
Meanwhile, Black Star was still staring at Soul, and Tempus wondered if he should start throwing cherry blossoms into the wind to heighten the atmosphere or something. "O-oh, I understand," the blue-haired boy said. "But even though it's over…" He looked away… bashfully? Was bashfully the right word? "...would it be okay if we stayed friends?"
There was a moment's pause. Then, "You idiot!" Soul turned on his heel, a sappy smile lighting up his pale face. "Of course we're still going to be friends!" He then began to run very, very slowly towards Black Star. "Forever!"
"Oh, Soul!" A similarly sappy grin stretching across his features, Black Star began running toward Soul just as slowly.
Tempus glanced over at Alecto, bemused. "Did… did you knock time out of sync? Is that what's going on here?"
"Nōn," Alecto said. "Did you?"
"No." So this was just run-of-the-mill stupidity that was going on, then.
"Black Star!" Soul cried.
"Oh, Soul!"
"Black Star!"
"Oh, Soul!"
"They need professional help," Maka said flatly.
The two boys practically collided into each other, flinging their arms around each other in a solid hug. The embrace, however, was interrupted after a second by two simultaneous bangs as Kid fired, the soul projectile knocking the two off their feet. "Oops. Sorry," he said in tone that suggested that he wasn't sorry in the slightest. "My fingers slipped."
Alecto looked like she wanted to start cheering for the short shit.
Having been violently reminded that they were still in the middle of a duel, Soul and Black Star got to their feet. "We just can't quit in the middle of a fight!" Soul said.
"Right!" Black Star declared. "We're not giving up until we beat him."
"'Kay," Kid said in a are-these-two-serious manner of voice. "We'll see how well that works."
Black Star and Soul charged forward, Soul's morphing his right arm into his scythe form's blade. Black Star was quickest, his hand low to the ground and crackling with wavelength energy "Let's see how you handle a taste of my soul waves!" slammed his foot into the ground with enough force to crack it, clearly intending to pull off one of his "Black Star Big Waves," but Death the Kid merely ducked underneath Black Star's arm as the latter swung out, knocking him off his feet with a well-aimed kick and knocking him away with his shoulder, as if Black Star were a ragdoll and not a trained meister.
"Black Star's specialty is martial arts," Maka said, "But Kid is just… playing with him. And the way he's been fighting today, Soul has no chance against him, either."
Her point was proven not a second later when Soul lunged forward, swinging his blade in the general area of Death the Kid's head. The black-haired boy didn't even have to look as he blocked the blade and knocked Soul aside with one of his pistols. "You're as slow as you are stupid," he said.
Alecto was practically jumping up and down with anticipation, and had yanked her ribbon out of her hair, wringing it between her hands like it was a poisonous snake. She was clearly getting much more excitement out of this than anyone else here. Tempus noticed that she'd left her tea back at the classroom by accident. Was that why she was so invested in this fight, because she didn't have anything to calm her down? Tempus wrote a mental note to remind her to bring her tea with her next time Black Star was getting his ass kicked.
Black Star had pulled his belt… scarf… neck… strip of cloth thing (honestly, Tempus had stopped questioning Black Star's bizarre wardrobe long time ago) off of his neck and gripped it tightly in his hand as he charged forward. "You're goin' down!" he shouted.
Soul charged forward at the same time, and Kid shot them both with equally precise simultaneity, but not before Black Star had managed to whip one end of the strip of cloth around the Reaper boy's ankle. Death the Kid noticed it an instant too late. "You idiot!" Black Star exclaimed. "You fell for it!" He yanked on the cloth, sending Kid falling squarely on his rear.
With a cry of "Ha! Gotcha!" Soul leapt into the air and transformed into his scythe form, spinning blade over handle through the air straight towards Kid. His aim was off by only the slightest amount, missing Kid's face by millimeters as his blade lodged itself into the stony ground. Kid somersaulted away, and Black Star, who was still holding on to the strip of cloth, was pulled forward, his face colliding with the side of Soul's blade.
Tempus considered himself to be a fairly intelligent and well-read individual, and yet couldn't find any words to describe the mutual expression that Maka and Tsubaki both wore on their faces. The closest approximation he could think of was "mortified." "Our partners are pretty useless, huh?" Maka said.
"I'd give them a cute sticker for effort," Tempus said. Not a good sticker, though. Those terrible ones from the first grade that didn't stick to anything longer than an hour and had really lame sayings on them. God, he hated those.
Death the Kid had stood up, a sudden dark severity in his expression. His voice harsher than it had been before, he spoke. "And now it's time for you to see the power of a Grim Reaper." The way he said that sent an icy chill of apprehension down Tempus's spine, a chill not warmed by Kid's next few words, words echoed by his weapons. "Let's go, Soul Resonance!"
Oh, shit, Tempus thought. Oh shit oh shit ohhh shit. Beside him, Alecto let out a small, thrilled gasp with an excitement he couldn't exactly say he shared. He wasn't too eager to see a Grim Reaper's Soul Resonance. He was perfectly happy living blissfully ignorant of the fact that the five-foot-tall adolescent in front of him could turn him to ash without even trying, thank you very much.
Death the Kid began to levitate, a storm of dust rising up in a circle around the boy as he floated up a few feet in the air. Maka leaned forward, her brows knitted together. "It looks like their souls have begun to expand!" she said, her voice a mixture of equal parts awe and apprehension.
"Now they're showing off their true strength," Stein said, as monotonously as ever.
The two of them seemed pretty impressed by what they saw, whatever it was. Soul and Black Star, however, were operating on either bravado or plain stupidity. "Okay! Let's see what you got!" Soul taunted, making the universal gesture for bring it on.
"Reaper Schmeaper!" Black Star agreed. "Bring it on!"
Dark soul energy began to crackle and spark around Death the Kid, resulting in three pillars of the violet and red, lightning-esque energy shooting from each arm. The energy solidify into black spikes, of all things. Kid's pistol partners were surrounding by a much brighter transformation energy, expanding and shifting from pistols to, for lack of a better word, giant arm cannons. They didn't seem to weigh Kid down any as he fell back to the ground, landing lightly on his feet and crouching low to the ground. "Execution mode ready," he said, the dark soul energy all but enveloping him, "prepare to die!"
Hm. Oh dear. "I'm going to hide behind the conveniently-placed blast proof pillar now, Ally," Tempus said, sliding towards said pillar.
"You do that." Alecto was still entranced by the duel. Tempus considered dragging her along with him, but decided against it. She wanted to watch this fight clearly, that much was obvious, and no amount of tugging would get her to budge from that spot. He supposed that he could carry her if he really wanted to, but he had the sneaking suspicion that attempting to do so would likely result in his demise. So he simply dove behind the alabaster pillar, peeking out slightly to keep an eye on the fight. If things got too chaotic, he'd desynchronize and drag Alecto kicking and screaming away from any danger.
Soul looked just as unnerved as Tempus felt. "Um," he said. "I don't like the looks of that."
"Come on!" Black Star shouted, his reckless ego trumping any sense the boy had. "What are you gonna do, little man?! I've swatted flies that are scarier that you! So there! Ha ha ha!"
If that was true, Tempus needed to buy a bigger flyswatter.
"Resonance stable," the older-sounding pistol-cannon-of-doom said. "Noise at zero-point-three percent." As she spoke, the soul energy grew darker and more erratic, black wavelengths shooting off in random directions.
"Black Needle Soul Wavelength full charged!" the younger-sounding, more upbeat of the two guns said. Red wavelengths rippled around the two weapons.
"Preparing to fire. Feedback in four seconds. Three."
"Two."
"One."
"Firing now!"
Death the Kid pulled his weapons up and forward, pointing them both directly at Soul and Black Star as two brilliant circles of energy began to build up at their muzzles. "Death cannon!"
Tempus decided that he didn't really need to watch how this played out, and promptly moved turned away, pressing his back flush against the cold pillar. He shot a glance at Alecto, who was starting to look like she wanted to dive behind a pillar herself.
Tempus wasn't looking at the fight anymore, but he could hear the eardrum-shattering boom of the guns firing, instantly followed by Soul's panicked voice. "This doesn't look good. We should run!"
"Hah!" Tempus heard Black Star exclaim. "Don't be ridiculous! No way is something like that going to hurt me! It's impossib-"
The explosion both cut him off and rendered his words moot. The blast seemed to be fairly contained, with the only effect on the spectators being a quick ruffling of the hair. Tempus let out a sigh of relief as the explosion gave way to a welcome quiet. He was happy that the whole mess was finally over, though he was worried about how his two classmates were faring. That had been a brutal final attack.
"Black Star!" Tsubaki cried out, distress filling her voice as she rushed forward. Alecto's expression changed into something unreadable, and she followed.
Maka sighed, placing her hands on her hips and shaking her head slightly. "Oh, man, what were those idiots thinking?" she said.
"They probably weren't." Tempus said.
He felt a quick tug on his wavelength, and realized that someone had yanked their time out of sync. With a tick, he desynchronized his own personal temporal bubble and moved away from the pillar. Alecto was jogging towards a rather sizable crate in the ground, no doubt caused by that Death Cannon. "Hey," he called out.
Alecto stopped and turned around to face him. "Hey," she said.
"So, what's up?" Tempus asked, ambling forward and shoving his hands into his pockets. He figured that he might as well get straight to the point. "I know you aren't exactly buddy-buddy with Black Star, but you seemed to actively want him pummeled. Heck, if I'm honest, a couple times you looked like you wanted to go out there and join in."
Alecto shrugged, her expression unchanging. "Black Star's the reason that Tsubaki's been so sad all day."
Ah. "Ah."
"Don't 'ah' me," Alecto snapped, turning on her heel and quickly walking over to the crater and jumping in. Tock. Time reasserted its natural flow, and Tempus jumped a bit when Tsubaki raced past him, before following to two girls into the crater.
Black Star and Soul looked to be fairly well off, all circumstances considered. They were both stunned by the blast and Black Star looked to be short half a tooth, but apart from that they were surprisingly unharmed for two idiots who just took the equivalent of a cannon blast to the face. Tsubaki and Alecto were both kneeling beside Black Star, Alecto holding two fingers against the blue-haired boy's wrist. After a second, she looked up. "He's fine, Tsubaki. Though that tooth looks like it's gonna hurt for a while."
It was Tsubaki's turn to look relieved. "Oh, Black Star. What were you thinking?" she asked, helping Black Star sit up.
"Yes, that does seem to be the million dollar question," Tempus remarked.
Seemingly satisfied with the fact that Black Star was not, in fact, going to die, Alecto stood up, her expression still unreadable. "Quod…" Another tug on Tempus's wavelength, and suddenly Alecto was several feet away, running towards Death the Kid with a bright grin on her face. "Quod mirabile erat! Mirabile erâs!" Death the Kid, who'd been standing stock still with his back turned to the results of his Death Cannon, didn't respond as Alecto kept shouting. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like that! That was amazing! That was fantastic! That was-"
Death the Kid spit up blood and toppled over.
"...Quid?"
What. Tempus pulled himself out of the crater, taking care not to step on Black Star or Soul, who were starting to push themselves to their feet. As he walked over to stand by Alecto's side and see just what had happened to the kid, the twin pistols began to glow and expand, shifting into their human forms.
They were both taller, blonde girls in their late teens, and they certainly looked like sisters; the taller, older-looking one had longer and darker hair and the shorter, presumable younger one had a rounder face and brighter eyes, but there was definitely a certain similarity in their faces. They dressed similarly as well, the both of them wearing white cowboy hats, crimson crop tops, and short white ties. The biggest difference in their outfits was that the taller girl was wearing jeans while the shorter one was wearing puffy denim shorts. "Ay, ay, ay," the shorter girl sighed, still managing to sound bubbly instead of exasperated.
The older girl, however, did sound exasperated. "Great. Here we go again."
All the color had drained from Alecto's usually-olive face. "I-is he okay?" she stammered.
"Yeah, he's fine." The older girl waved away Alecto's concerns. "He does this a lot." Meanwhile, the younger girl had dissolved into bright, cheerful giggles.
"He…coughs up blood a lot?" Alecto didn't seem to be particularly assuaged.
The sound of office chair wheels heralded Dr. Stein's approach seconds before he rolled into view. "What happened to him?" the grey-haired professor asked, sounding more curious than concerned.
"Not much," the older girl said, "it's just a little cut."
"What got cut?"
"I think I might have an idea of what it was," Maka said as she walked up to the group. "See, I'm pretty sure it happened during Soul's last attack on Kid." she explained when Stein turned an inquisitive gaze toward her. "I think that Kid got a little haircut off of his bangs."
Tempus glanced down at the boy. Sure enough, a few locks of his bangs had been rather blatantly messily cut. Still, fainting because of a trim off the edges? Weak, he thought.
Maka continued. "After the explosion happened and everything died down, Kid finally noticed that one side of his bangs were shorter than the other. His symmetry was off, so he spit up blood and fell over."
Alecto stared at Maka, dumbfounded. "He… fell over because of a… haircut?" Tempus could practically hear her brain blue-screening and trying a hard reboot with this information in mind.
Soul and Black Star had shaken off the explosion and had crawled out of their little pit, with Soul sitting on the ground and Black Star standing with his arms crossed and a smug expression on his face. "He's the one bleeding now, so that means we actually won the fight," Soul said.
"Yeah!" Black Star declared, puffing his chest out proudly. "Right! It means we won and that I, Black Star, have defeated a Reaper!" he tilted his head back and shouted to the sky, "I knew it! Who's gonna be talking about this guy now!" He began to laugh loudly.
"Whoa, whoa!" Alecto exclaimed, turning to face the two boys. "Nōn! What sort of duel is one by giving your opponent a haircut?!"
"Well," Maka said, "duels on school grounds are supposed to be considered over win one person is bleeding or until the professor overlooking the duel decides to end it. The rules don't really specify that the blood has to be from a direct attack. It's a legitimate win for Black Star and Soul."
Upon being told this. Alecto looked like she'd just been told that the sky was actually purple and she'd been seeing it wrong this whole time.
"Ha ha! I bet you really wish you hadn't been rooting for that guy, huh?" Black Star said. "Don't worry about it, though; I just beat a Grim Reaper! I'm way too big now for a little fish like you to bother me."
The corner of Alecto's eye was starting to twitch, so Tempus figured it was time to relocate her to an environment with less Black Star in it. He placed a protective hand on his shoulder and shot Black Star his most charming grin. "Well, while I'm sure she'd be absolutely delighted to hear all about the error of her ways, I distinctly remember there being a thermos of tea with her name on it back in the classroom."
Alecto perked up immediately. "Oh, gosh, that's right! The tea!" Before anyone had a chance to say another word, she was gone, the ever-fading sensation of time desynchronizing and resynchronizing tugging faintly on Tempus's wavelengths. Tempus thanked his lucky stars that his meister's adoration of tea was stronger than her anger towards Black Star.
"Are you really sure you're alright now, Black Star?" Tsubaki asked.
"Hell yeah!" Black Star said. "Of course I'm alright! I beat Death today; I'm awesome!"
Yes, you certainly are awe-inspiring, Tempus thought dryly. Probably not the kind of awe you're thinking of, though.
"Yeah," Tsubaki said, smiling slightly. "It was amazing. But… please try not to do anything too crazy from now on?"
"Yeah, right! Nothing's too crazy for me now! I've beaten up a Reaper, after all! What's crazier than that! Ha ha ha!"
"Tsubaki's the only one for him," Tempus heard Maka sigh amidst Black Star's uproarious laughter. "I don't think anyone else could handle Black Star."
Probably not, Tempus thought. He glanced over at Death the Kid and the Thompson sisters, the taller of whom was pulling the still-dazed boy up onto her back, piggyback style. As he watched the tall, fair-haired weapon take care of her short, clearly somewhat neurotic meister, he couldn't help but feel a strange, totally unexplainable sense of kinship with the older girl.
"Hey," he said, "is he going to be okay? I'm no medical expert, but spitting up blood tends not to be a good sign. Ever."
"He'll be fine," the older girl said. "Kid can be kind of a brat sometimes, but he's tough."
"I see." Tempus paused. "You're name's Thompson, right?"
"Yeah. Liz. This is my sister, Patti." The taller girl nodded to the younger one, who was poking at Kid's cheek with an expression of curiosity on her face.
"Tempus. Nice to meet you, Liz," Tempus said. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go track down my own meister." Shooting Liz a smile and a quick wave, he pivoted towards the school, reaching his wavelength out and grasping the time around him.
Tick.
A/N - From pretty early on I knew I wanted Tempus to be that somewhat self-aware guy who looked at all the weird anime shit going on in Soul Eater and just think, "what the fuck is this bullshit." Alecto is aware of the absurdity of Death City as well, but too a much lesser extent than Tempus is. I blame time shenanigans.
That being said, I think the funniest thing I've ever written was Tempus and Alecto looking at Soul and Black Star's little moment and thinking "did we do something to the temporal flow?" Ah, one of the perils of being a lampshade-hanging time master is looking at slow-motion and thinking "Is that supposed to be happening or did we break something?"
Speaking of my writign and breaking things, let's take a look at the Latin!
Sīs: Still a politce way of saying "please" or "if you would be so kind as to shoot those morons in front of me that would be very much appreciated yes"
Quod mirabile erat! Mirabile erâs!: "That was glorius! You were glorius!" I wanted Alecto's Latin praise to go on a bit longer, but I don't know enough Latin to be able to vary the sentence structure beyond "you were x, you were y," or how much sentence structure could even be varied in Latin. Man, language is weird.
This arc's not quite over, yet. There's one more chapter for this arc, then we'll be heading on to the next arc, which I will admit to be slightly filler, but it'll be fun filler. Chapter 16 will be up within the week. In the meantime, feel free to favorite and leave a review telling me what you think!
- Diana "Nocte"
