(Author's Note: Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Alright, in this chapter we're coming back to Kai - Black*Star's new weapon - because she's pretty much going to be my main character even though I'm going to add some different perspectives here and there so we know what's going on with Team Maka - they're still super important! Moving on, hope you all had a great Turkey Day, and enjoy Chapter Three!)
Chapter Three: Kai: Learning (and Breaking) Things
Later that afternoon, when my friends had departed, Ian and Zach nearly forgetting their silent borrowed meister, I settled into the couch for some relaxing. It was then, after I had closed my eyes, that my stomach growled and reminded me that breakfast had been abandoned in slew of friends. Staring at the ceiling, I almost called out for Warren, but then realized he wasn't exactly here to make me food. I wriggled and, succumbing to my whims, pulled out my phone and called Dominos and ordered a large pepperoni pizza.
"Black*Star!" I shouted once I had gotten off the phone, too lazy to go and find the blue-haired ninja myself, "Pizza should be here in half an hour!"
"Alright!" Black*Star bounded into the room, planting his feet and fist-pumping. "Now: where's your mirrors?"
"Want a handheld or full-length?" Standing, I went to the closet where we kept all our mirrors. Black*Star gaped at the amount we had. Most DWMAA students valued mirrors more than anything, so we had more than was probably necessary on-hand. Black*Star seemed to consider for a few moments before taking a large mirror and propping it up on the fireplace.
I watched in mild boredom as he took a deep breath and fogged up the glass, writing some numbers there. They weren't the typical '42-42-564' of a call to Lord Death, but the numbers of a personal call. Several, in fact.
Four faces popped up on different sections of the mirror, all looking pleased to see him. Blushing, I realized I knew all of them: they were all of the famed Team Maka from Japan.
This was when embarrassment hit me like a ton of bricks: Black*Star, Tsubaki… Oh gosh. My face turned as red as my hair as I slowly sunk to the floor. So stupid! Then again, how many people were there with the name Black*Star? Face getting redder and redder by the second, I was nearly spontaneously combusting as I sat there. Drowning in my own embarrassment, nearly choking on it, I watched as Black*Star animatedly told his friends of his plane ride and the hospitality we'd offered. My face was getting redder and redder as the moments went on.
"Oh my death," I muttered to myself through gritted teeth, "I can't believe I didn't recognize him. This is so embarrassing. So much for my ever wanting to be a Death Scythe. A true student of the DWMA would have recognized them on-sight! I'm a failure!" My head flopped onto the cushion behind me as I simmered in my own disappointment. On top of my idiocy, there was a spider dangling from a string on the ceiling that immediately annoyed me. After a brief moment, I transformed my left arm into that of a blade and stabbed the tiny devil.
"What was that?" A voice yelped from the mirror.
"Oh, Kai!" Black*Star jumped up and pulled me over, nearly spearing both of us on my arm in one fluid motion before I frantically turned it back into flesh. "This is my weapon! Her name is Kai!"
I waved shyly, a blush layering itself neatly over my already red face. "It's nice to meet you all."
On each of the four corners of the screen there was a different face. Maka Alburn, the blonde who was the leader of Team Maka, smiled cheerfully as she introduced herself. Next was her weapon, Soul Evans. The albino had a calm expression on, but I could tell that he was experiencing the same sort of strain I was with his meister being gone. Death the Kid, Lord Death's very own son, said hello to me while muttering something about symmetry and suddenly collapsing off-screen. Self-consciously I glanced down at myself before remembering my asymmetrical bangs and sheepishly grinning.
"Don't worry about him, he's always doing stuff like that!" Soul snickered, sharper-than-normal teeth glinting as he grinned. "He's OCD about symmetry. Not even his weapons are good enough for him!"
"Their boobs aren't the same size!" Kid screeched, jumping back into the frame with blood spewing from his nose. "How am I supposed to focus when they're boobs aren't the same size?"
"What is it with guys and boobs?" Maka snorted, shaking her head. "Is that all you think about?"
Soul, Kid, and Black*Star seemed to consider it for a second. "You wouldn't understand, tiny-tits." Soul shrugged.
I stood there for a moment, watching the friends interact. It was clear that they all cared for each other very much, and it made me miss my meister even more. Watching Black*Star and his friends talk, I realized I might as well check on Warren. Tapping my chin thoughtfully, I wondered what he could possibly be doing. Did he like his new weapon? More importantly: was she a stronger weapon than I was? Resolving myself, I shook my head. There was no way she had my strength. But then again, maybe that was just me being… well, me.
"Speaking of Liz and Patty, where are they?" Maka asked Kid. As always, it was strange to watch a multiple-way mirror call. I couldn't quite describe, why it was strange, or how it worked really, but each character seemed to look exactly where the other was. Very complicated shinigami stuff, I supposed.
"They got sent to Australia!" Kid moaned, once again sinking off-screen.
"Seems Team Maka is completely split up then!" Black*Star remarked somewhat seriously. I glanced at his face, noticing the pucker of his brow, and wondered what exactly the assassin was thinking.
"I don't understand why your dad would split us up when we just proved we're stronger together," Maka sighed, "but I suppose Shinigami-sama knows best!"
"He has to have his reasons," Tsubaki murmured, biting her lip delicately, "Sometimes things are just more obvious from different points of view."
Kid made a sort of huffing noise and frowned, thinking quietly for a moment. The conversation went on, and I discreetly left the room to let them have their peace. Stomach growling, I stepped into the kitchen to see if there was anything to keep me from eating the entire pizza when it got here. It wasn't that I cared much for what Black*Star thought of me, but he was probably hungry after the day we'd had so far. Rooting around in the cupboards yielded a single granola bar, which I ate greedily while walking to my room. My vanity had a mirror on it, so sitting on the stool and making a quick call to my meister seemed like a good way to pass the time while waiting for the pizza.
Fogging up the glass, I etched the numbers in the condensation with my pinkie finger and waited patiently for my meister's face to pop up. The mirror went inky black, reflecting nothing and showing nothing.
I frowned and tapped on the glass lightly, "That's weird."
Suddenly the mirror exploded into shards of glass, as if something had been thrown into it and broken it. With a yelp I transformed to get myself out of the way of the sharp flying objects, landing on the floor as a small Scottish dirk. The noise left my ears ringing even though I was a blade. The sudden silence was so contrasting that I was startled when Black*Star burst into the room.
"Kai?"
"Down here!" I sighed, tilting myself slightly so the light flashed off my blade.
Paying little mind to the fact that he was walking through glass, Black*Star stomped over to me with his boots and scooped me up of the ground. As he walked me out of the room, away from the glass so I could turn back into a human and not cut my feet up, he weighed my blade in his hand. I couldn't help but notice the way his nose wrinkled as he felt my balance. My pride stung and recoiled as I waited for his verdict, already knowing what he was going to say.
"You're really light," my meister frowned, "Tsubaki was weighted differently, too."
I crossed my arms within my blade form, "She was a Japanese weapon! I'm Scottish! It makes a difference!"
"Does the make a difference?"
"Of course!" I snorted, shocked that he was serious. "Don't you do any of your classwork? A weapon's form can be influenced by their nationality. Example: I'm a Scottish dirk – or dagger – as well as a claymore and a longbow."
With that I shifted my form into that of my proudest form: a two-handed claymore. If I was one to gloat, which I often was, I would say that I was an absolutely gorgeous weapon. My handle was steel gray with gold etchings, my blade black like onyx and harder than diamonds. Black*Star gave me a few experimental swings, at first using only one hand before switching to two. From the moment I knew we were going to have some problems: he wasn't fluid in his motions, nor did he have any idea how to wield a weapon my size. I could tell almost instantly that Tsubaki was more than likely a much smaller, lighter sword because he had very little balance as he swung, nearly sending us into the coffee table.
That poor coffee table got abused.
"You're huge," he grunted, "But how is it that we're able to resonate so quickly? I thought weapons and meisters had to adjust their wavelengths first?"
I laughed, "That one's easy: I have really good control over my soul wavelength. I can adapt it really easily, so I just matched yours."
"One of my professors can do that too," Black*Star allowed me to return to my human form, "He taught me a little bit, but I've always been able to attack with my wavelength, yet another reason I'm such a big star!" He smirked.
I was saved from my rising irritation at his overconfidence by the doorbell ringing at that second signaling the pizza's arrival. Yanking the door open, grabbing the food, I shoved a wad of bills from my pocket at the delivery boy – including a tip that was probably more than the pizza itself – and shut the door quickly to avoid conversation. The pizza boy had done nothing wrong, but I felt like I wanted to take out my irritation on someone whose relationship with me wouldn't impact the course of the entire next year.
If I had a choice, there was no way Black*Star would have been my meister. He was loud and obnoxious, which struck me as odd considering he was supposed to be training as an assassin. It was clear to me that he was unhappy with me as a weapon – I could feel it through our resonance. It wasn't as if he didn't think I was pretty, which was a good thing for him, but he was uncomfortable with such a large sword. The only thing that even slightly fit him so far was the dagger.
And not to complain, but being a dagger hurt my back after a little while. So maybe I was just biased.
He hadn't even seen my longbow form yet and I had a distinct feeling that he wasn't going to like that much either, considering all of him that I had seen portrayed him as more of a face-head-on sort of guy. I huffed irritably as I put the box on the table, padding into the kitchen to grab two plates. The glass felt cold in my hand, bringing me out of my head. How much did it really matter if I didn't like how Black*Star reacted to my weapons? We were stuck with each other for the next year so it wasn't as if we could do much to change our situation. I smoothed out my expression in the reflection on the plate, smiling experimentally. A year. That was all I had to handle and then Black*Star and his ecstatic talking and one-track mind would be back in Japan with Team Maka and I would be back with Warren. I would tell everyone how amazing it had been to be the 'Great' Black*Star's weapon, and then that would be it. Warren would turn me into a death scythe and life would go on.
"Alright, I got some plates!" I chirped as I went back into the living room, "I hope you're… what the fuck?"
The pizza was gone.
Staring at Black*Star – who was rubbing his full stomach – I attempted to appear as if inside I wasn't imagining him bursting into spontaneous flames at that second. Pizza sauce was all over his face. I clenched the plates so hard they cracked in my fingers, cutting into the soft skin and suddenly a bead of blood trickled down my wrist but I barely noticed. All I could feel was the emptiness of my stomach and the dark anger sitting clouding my mind. My teeth ground together as I collected myself and spun on my heel, silently stomping to the sink and dropping the plates inside it ceremonially before going to my room without a word. If either of us was going to survive to make it back to our partners, it was best if I kept my thoughts to myself.
There was still glass on my floor, though, so I had to awkwardly hop around so I could shove my sockless feet into some shoes and venture back to the kitchen for the broom. While muttering angry things to myself the entire time, I swept the shards off of my wooden floor, taking care to check my sheets for any. The flow of mad energy that had been buzzing through me had faded slightly, so when I saw Black*Star in the hallway, walking slowly to his room as if having just woken from a nap – a sure sign of a food coma – I didn't exactly want to tear his throat out and choke him with it. Possible damage his ability to reproduce. I hadn't decided yet.
"I'll see you in the morning, bright and early for school." I said in a curt monotone as I brushed past him to throw away the bits of my mirror. My words solicited a bit of a groan I took as an affirmation. As soon as I was done with my business, I moved quickly back to my bedroom and shut the door, turning off the light and jumping under the covers in hopes that sleep would possibly lull my steady resentment into compliance, maybe even get rid of it all together. This, of course, was when I heard a crash and something that sounded like Black*Star sneezing.
"Don't worry! A big star like me can fix something as small as this!" Came his shout.
That was only the first night.