These characters are under copyright by Atsushi Ōkubo, Squar Enix, Yen Press, Shōnen,
Akatsuki Yamatoya. Madman Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, Funimation, and/or others. This is a work of fanfiction, for no monetary gain.
Chapter 5 – Kid and Angela: Under the Witch's Spell?
Kid was riveted in fascination as Angela slowly drew the complex ward on his cast, with precise, certain strokes of her marker. He was careful to remain perfectly still, so he wouldn't distort the perfection of every line and curve. Every now and then his gaze would flick from the design to her face. She looked so fiercely intent as she worked, every now and then her little pink tongue sticking out between her lips in intense concentration. She looks adorable.
The thought startled him. Have I ever thought of anyone as adorable before? He frowned in concentration. Liz and Patty, Maka and Tsubaki are all pretty, but not adorable. Crona looks lost and tragic. But Angela… she's a Witch, but she doesn't look or feel evil at all. She's too… cute. Too sweet. Too friendly. Sad too, though, and worried. Because of the DWMA. For the first time, Kid felt ashamed of his mission, his heritage. Of the school. Of his father.
"You don't like it?" Angela asked, the dismay in her voice heartbreaking.
Kid started, his focus brought abruptly back to the design and then her face, and he was alarmed to see tears of disappointment welling in her eyes. "No, of course I like it!" he quickly and honestly assured her. "It's perfection, even now, before it's finished. It's still in perfect balance. I was afraid you'd draw a section at a time, but you aren't. You drew the circle first and keep filling it in symbol by symbol, line by line, curve by curve, adding more and more detail as you work, but in perfect balance. It's flawless. It's amazing. You're amazing. To be so talented, when you're still so young. When you've probably had no one to teach you, once… for a long time," he corrected himself abruptly, realizing she might cry if he mentioned her mother's death. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her.
The tears vanished, the brightness in her eyes now joy instead of sorrow. "I'm so happy! I have to draw it that way, for the magic to work. Balance is critical in magic. Without balance, if you're lucky, the magic just won't work, but usually, it works, but in a wrong way, a bad way. A ward of protection can blow up instead. A concealment spell can reveal you. The ward to hide our Soul Wavelength would reveal the house instead. It takes time and patience to do it correctly, especially new spells and wards. Not that I try to make my own, yet. That's much too dangerous. But I have my mother's grimoire," she said proudly, reverently. Then she looked sad.
"Aunt Esmeralda killed my mother, because she wouldn't give it to her. My mother knew she'd do bad things with it. That she'd hurt people." The tears were back, and this time they fell.
Kid felt his heart thud in alarm. I didn't mean to make her cry! How can I…? Patty is almost always smiling, but when Patty is sad, Liz hugs her. Kid bit his lip. Crying was messy, tears and mucus and…
To his relief, Mifune hugged her. "It's alright, Angela. Your mother was very good and very brave, just like you. You kept Esmeralda from stealing the grimoire too, when she attacked us. I'm very proud of you, and I will always protect you, even once you're grown up. You won't ever be alone."
Angela sniffed, her face still buried in Mifune's chest, and then she backed up, nodding.
"If you wash the tears from your face, you'll feel better," Kid suggested helpfully and hopefully.
"Death the Kid is right, Angela," Mifune agreed.
"Please, just call me Kid. Both of you," he requested, surprising himself. He usually only liked family and friends calling him Kid. The way Mifune had said it before, when he just called him "kid", was different. It should have felt disrespectful, but it hadn't somehow.
Mifune looked surprised, but then he smiled.
The affect on Angela was nothing short of magical. "Does that mean you realize you're our friend now?" she asked eagerly.
Kid started in surprise and then thought about it, looking into her red rimmed eyes, ignoring the messy tear streaks on her face. "Yes. Yes you are," he decided, to his wonder. "Friends help one another, especially when they need it most. They protect them and make them happy again, when they're sad or afraid. You and Mifune rescued me, and tended my injuries, and fixed my hair, and made and continue to make everything symmetrical for me: my room, my hair, the ramen, my cast. You are definitely both my friends.
"And I'm going to make certain my father knows everything you did, so he'll want to protect you, both of you. He's strong enough that he can protect Mifune from Esmeralda. I'm usually strong too, but she must have done something to keep the shadows from helping me," Kid added, embarrassed and frustrated.
Angela nodded, the joy on her face giving way to intensity. "She used Shadow Steal. Remember I told you that Witches can create new wards? Not all our magic is ward based. Wards are fixed, they're great, because you can charge them with magic when you're strong and use that magic when you need it most, in a fight, or when you're sick or hurt or weak. But there's also spell magic, which is living magic, fluid magic. The Witch casts the spell and uses the energy she has at the time, not what's stored away.
"Because of that, spellcasting is usually weaker than wards, but if you're a really powerful Witch, it can be strong. Or if you're a very bad Witch, it can be incredibly strong, because it's tied to a person's Soul Wavelength, their life energy. But a bad Witch doesn't just drain her own Soul Wavelength. She uses other souls to power her spells. Usually, by draining the life from humans. Killing them. Human sacrifices. It's because of bad Witches like Esmeralda that we're all hated and feared. It's because of them the DWMA wants to kill us," Angela said sadly.
Kid was appalled. "But… but that's not fair! That's punishing everyone for the evil actions of a few people. It's like what Mifune was saying. That would be like a Reaper wanting to kill every Weapon on the planet, just because they might become Kishin Eggs!"
"Now do you see why I've been fighting so hard to protect her from the DWMA?" Mifune challenged. "Angela isn't evil. She's been trying to protect people from her aunt, by guarding her mother's grimoire, and I've been protecting her, but the DWMA has been weakening us both, fighting against us, when they should be helping us.
"That rule your father made, about needing 99 Kishin Eggs and one Witch's soul to become a Death Scythe? That's all it is, just a rule. Witches don't have to die for your Weapons to become Scythes. In your grandfather's time, they didn't. And they shouldn't have to," Mifune declared.
Kid frowned. Why would my father do that? Is he… is he afraid of Witches? Because they are so powerful, they can even counteract our Reaper powers? Father is Lord Death, he's a Death God. Gods are powerful, but they need to temper that with mercy and compassion. We need to.
"That's why we have to get you safely back to the DWMA, as quickly as we can," Mifune told Kid. "Because Lord Death hasn't always been the way he appears now. In the past, he was truly terrifying. These past few hundred years, his rage has banked, and he's calmed somewhat, but he started targeting Witches after he learned his father, your grandfather, was killed by a Witch.
"If you're killed by Esmeralda, Lord Death will declare open war on Witches. It's going to be a fullscale hunt and slaughter, not a relatively even contest between Meister, Weapon and Witch, as it is now. And once you and Lord Death and the most powerful Witches on the planet have destroyed one another, Esmeralda is going come out of the shadows and become Witch Queen of the world. And with the spells she knows, with an unlimited supply of human sacrifices, she'll be immortal and invincible," Mifune stated grimly.
Kid's eyes widened in horror. "Grandfather was killed by a Witch? That's why Witches are hunted? That's Esmeralda's plan? She's that powerful?"
"I'm afraid so. I swear on my honor as a samurai that every word I've spoken is true," Mifune agreed.
"Then why are we just sitting here, eating dinner and hiding?" Kid demanded, bolting to his feet, heart hammering. Pain shot through his chest and a wave of dizziness washed over him, and he swayed. Mifune's strong hand steadied him.
"Easy there, Kid. That's why we're waiting. Because you're too injured to fight effectively right now, and so am I. And Angela's hoarding and channeling her magic into some powerful protection wards we're going to use when we go mobile," Mifune explained.
"Can't she siphon off the magic in the Soul Protection ward on the floor instead? We don't know much about a Witch's magic, but even if it's keyed to only that specific type of ward, it's the same kind, isn't it? I told you, I'm granting you both sanctuary at the DWMA. We'll provide you with a house, clothes, money, whatever you need. You won't need to return here, so it won't matter if it's destroyed. You said this was just a temporary haven you found, right?" Kid urged.
"We can't leave, the three of us, in the shape we're in now. We'd be easy prey, especially since Angela still hasn't figured out how to negate Esmeralda's Shadow Steal. Without your two Weapons and your Reaper power, you'd die, and we won't let that happen," Mifune argued.
"Patty and Beelzebub must have at least gotten through. The DWMA must be looking for me. If there's a way for me to contact them, Professor Stein and Spirit, and even Soul, Maka, Black*Star, Tsubaki and the others can escort us safely. If the Witch Esmeralda was powerful enough already to take us on in a direct attack, she wouldn't have resorted to tricking us into going after you, into a trap, right?" Kid argued.
Mifune sighed, looking thoughtful. Finally he nodded. "Angela, is there a way Kid can call for help, without lowering the Soul Protection and exposing us?"
Angela looked very serious, like she was thinking really hard. Then her whole face lit up. "I know! Remember the hair you trimmed, Mifune, to fix the way it was cut? You had to cut some of the Lines of Sanzu too. Those stripes define Reapers as Death Gods, they're the most powerful outward reflection of their Soul Wavelength. And reflections are important to Death Gods. They talk through mirrors, and can even walk through them, if they're powerful enough, or at focal points, where ley lines converge, boosting their innate power.
"The DWMA rests at the conjunction of the strongest ley lines in this hemisphere, and it's Kid's home. So if you and I each carry half of the Lines of Sanzu you cut, theoretically, we should all be able to walk through a mirror here and emerge at the DWMA!" Angela cried happily.
Kid felt a tremendous surge of elation and relief, but also, confusion. What do they mean, about my hair, my stripes, being a reflection of my Soul Wavelength, and a symbol of being a Reaper? Has Father been keeping more secrets?
Mifune shook his head. "I'm sorry, but we can't risk that. Esmeralda knows of the importance of the Lines of Sanzu, right? If she kept some of Kid's hair, couldn't she mess up the spell? Maybe even intercept us or something?"
Angela's eyes widened in horror and her face immediately fell. "You're right. She could. She would. I almost got us all killed!"
"No, Angela. Don't think like that," Kid said, beating Mifune to the punch. "It was a brilliant plan. Just because she would have thought of it too doesn't make it less brilliant. But that gives me an idea. If my stripes… Lines of Sanzu… reflect my Soul Wavelength, could we tie pieces to cats or birds or mice or something, and send them in different directions, to confuse Esmeralda, and then mask me, somehow, and escape on foot, while she's following those false trails?"
Angela's eyes lit with excitement again. "Oh yes! That could work. I'm already charging the three Soul Protect wards we need to carry, one for each of us. I feed at least a dozen stray cats a day – they all know to come to the kitchen door when they're hungry – so I don't have to risk exposing us summoning them or anything. Esmeralda is attuned to dogs, not cats, for her familiar, like me, so it's safe.
"If I send cats through my mirror, she'll be busy chasing them, and then I can drain the Soul Protect circle in the living room into our wards, and we can go. And we'll wear hooded cloaks, to hide our faces on the street, and stay away from the shadows, since we don't know which ones are hers, now. If your friends are looking for you, there are likely some nearby. They can help us get to the DWMA safely."
"You're sure they won't hurt Angela? They think she killed those people and stole their souls, right? Will the other Meisters listen to you? Without your Weapons or shadows to aid you, you won't be able to force them," Mifune pressed, in concern.
Kid nodded. "They respect me, and fight at my side as comrades. They don't fear me. They'll listen. I swear to you as a Reaper that I will protect you and Angela with my life."
"Alright. Then you and I need to help Angela however she needs," Mifune said decisively.