Author's Note: Damn, this one took a while. Sorry ya'll. Real life was really getting me for a minute there. Still is, but, eh.

Will be working on my Cyberpunk story soon, so watch out for that.

Might be able to get another chapter out before the year ends, make it an even 12, but we'll have to see.

Chapter 11:

Past and Future Tense

Mosquito eyed everyone in the Death Room wearily, his entire torso constricted by a trio of glowing white stripes reminiscent of the Lines of Sanzu. They were composed of Shinigami-sama's soul wavelength, and pinned Mosquito's arms behind his back as he stood there, effectively powerless. Of course, being powerless was better than being dead.

That did not mean that the Death Seal was particularly comfortable, though.

"Are these restraints truly necessary?" he lamented.

"I'm afraid so," Shinigami-sama said flatly. "You'll understand if I don't simply let someone as dangerous as you into my inner sanctum without taking the proper precautions. My father might have been generous enough to free you, but not me."

"Of course," Mosquito conceded. "Forgive me. I simply find this current position quite…uncomfortable."

Black Star let out a chuckle. "What's the matter, old timer?" he asked as he approached. "Being dead for three decades catchin' up with ya?"

He put his hand on Mosquito's shoulder, his other hand crackling with energy.

"Say the word, gramps. I'll light you up like a Christmas tree, and then you won't be feeling uncomfortable. Fact, you won't be feeling much of anything anymore."

"Black Star," Shinigami-sama scolded. "That's enough. I want to hear what he has to say. If he moves or talks out of turn, then you can kill him, but only if I give you explicit permission."

He scoffed. "Killjoy."

It was then that Tsubaki burst into the chamber, her boots clacking on the stone walkway as she ran.

"I'm so sorry, everyone!" she cried, her arms laden with groceries. "I was at the market, and by the time I heard what was going on, I—!"

Her words died on her lips as she took in the deathly serious looks on her friends' faces, and the man who stood bound before her. He reminded her of her brother; tall, dark, and handsome, with raven colored hair and unforgiving eyes. But Masamune's eyes had always been the same as hers, somewhere between a dark violet and a rich blue, whereas this man's eyes were red like wine.

Or blood.

"Who…who is this?" she asked tentatively.

Maka immediately walked over and smacked Black Star upside the head, which didn't faze him in the slightest.

"You didn't tell her who we captured!?" she asked, astounded.

"Didn't need to. We have a code. All I had to tell her was that it was urgent."

"Asshole."

Shinigami-sama shook his head before pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

"It is a pleasure to see you again, Tsubaki-sama," the vampire said politely. "We have met before, though I do not believe you ever saw me in this form. My form from four hundred years ago, that is."

Tsubaki immediately gasped in realization. "Mosquito," she said darkly.

"Bingo," Liz said flatly. "He walked up to the Academy with his hands up, talkin' about surrender."

Patty's eyes narrowed as she folded her arms. "We don't buy it, but Maka says he's for real."

"How can that be?" Tsubaki wondered.

"Perhaps if we let him, Mosquito can explain," Shinigami-sama said.

Tsubaki nodded in agreement and walked over, quietly setting her bags down next to the mirror, though her eyes never left Mosquito.

"What are the groceries for?" Soul asked off-handedly, also keeping the vampire in line of sight.

"Well…it's been so long since all of us have been in Death City at the same time, I thought it would be nice to have a dinner party." Her eyes narrowed as she took her place next to Black Star. "I suppose that will have to wait, though, given the circumstances."

"My apologies," Mosquito said, bowing his head. "I did not mean to interfere with your reunion."

Shinigami-sama folded his arms. "Well, you did. So, start talking. If you have nothing interesting to say, we can always throw you in the dungeon and go about our business."

"Or we can just kill you," Black Star added.

"Dissection is also an option," Stein said through a cloud of smoke. "One that I am quite a fan of."

Liz and Patty didn't say anything, but if looks could kill, Mosquito would have been dead in an instant. They remembered all too well what he had done to their meister. It took everything they had to not shoot him, to not tear off one of his arms and make him unsymmetrical as revenge for taking Kid's arm during their last fight.

Mosquito regarded Shinigami-sama with a tired but understanding look. "Very well. Shall I start from the beginning, or the end?"

"Makes no difference to me," the Grim Reaper replied. "Just give me some answers, before I come to regret sparing you."

"Of course. If you'll indulge me, I shall begin my story where you all believe it had ended: The Battle For Baba Yaga Castle."

Specter sat on the couch, holding a thick rubber ball he had bought at a thrift store.

I hope this works, he thought.

For a few minutes, he just stared at it, studying its shape, testing its weight in his hand. It was a simple red rubber sphere, too old to have a brand logo, but relatively fresh. He had tested it on his and his sister's walk home, though she had looked at him like a crazy person when he had stopped in and bought it.

Kinda like she was doing right at that moment.

"What the fuck are you doing?" she asked, more put off than curious.

He frowned as he squinted at it. "I need to test something."

"What, your crazy all-seeing eye bullshit? Get a grip. You can't see the future."

"Twenty bucks says I can."

She laughed, suddenly cocky. "Oh, it's on now! That twenty is mine. Deal!"

They shook hands, perhaps a little too aggressively, their wager now official.

He looked again at the ball that rested in his palm. Be the ball, he told himself. Be the ball.

With a deep breath and a big wind-up, he hurled the ball at an open space on the wall as hard as he could, activating his soul perception at the same time. A blue filter fell over his vision, and for a second, it seemed as though his plan was working. He was hoping that his new ability would show him the exact trajectory of the ball in mid-air in slow motion, allowing him to predict its path and catch it.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Instead, he watched as the ball, now blue, ricocheted off the wall and hit him square in the face at high speed. As the ball bounced around on the floor and furniture, he fell back onto the couch, defeated. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing what was coming.

"I'll take that twenty now," Nina said smugly, holding out her hand expectantly.

"I don't have any cash on me right now."

"Bitch."

"I'll go to the bank tomorrow. They're just about to close."

"Bitch!" she said, a little louder this time. "Just Deathmo me or something."

"I don't have a Deathmo."

"What the hell? Why not?"

"Too lazy."

"Ugh! You whore," she spat.

Clearly disappointed, she huffed and turned away, heading over to the hall that led to her room.

"You better pay up," he heard her hiss. "Or I'm going to punch you."

"Fair," he conceded.

"In your sleep!" she added.

Specter glanced back at her out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly curious if he could see her emotions in her soul, he turned on his soul perception again. He strained a bit at first, feeling something like a headache crash over his brain like a wave, but it passed, and soon that same blue filter was placed over the environment, allowing him to see the bright, wispy orb hanging in Nina's chest.

Just like when he had tried it in the library, he didn't see any unique characteristics in his sister's soul, but with a sharp inhale, he realized that something was about to happen.

Though she was out of view, somehow, he could see both her and her soul through the walls, clear as day. He watched in slow motion as Nina turned to yell something back at him only to trip on a side table leg and crash to the ground, twisting her ankle in the process. Last time, he hadn't been able to act quick enough to save the Pots from being buried in books, but this time, he had a chance to intervene.

Gritting his teeth, he sprang into action, leaping over the couch and sprinting down the hall just as she turned to call out to him.

"Hey, Spec, you makin' dinner or—shit!"

Just as he predicted, she tripped on the table leg and tumbled, effectively hurling herself at the floor. She yelped in surprise, cursed, and fell. Just as she was about to hit the floor and ruin her ankle, Specter grabbed her by the arm and held her up, her hair pooling like liquid brass on the pale blue of the carpet.

Her eyes widened as she looked back up at him, shocked.

"What the fuck just happened?" she asked, equal parts frustrated and taken aback.

He grinned back at her. "You just lost twenty bucks."

"The fuck I did," she said flatly.

"Oh, really?" he asked smugly. "Then how did I know you were gonna fall before you fell?"

"You…I mean, you must have…" She trailed off as she looked past him and down the hall, realizing very quickly that he wasn't fast enough to catch her on reflex. "Alright, alright," she said with a sigh. "You might be onto something."

With a mischievous grin, he let her go, dropping her with a thud.

"Ow," she said, mostly as an afterthought.

"You're welcome," he said as he walked back into the living room.

She laid there on the hallway carpet for a moment, trying to process what had just happened, and what it meant. Specter's ability was unnerving to say the least, but there was one major concern that came to mind. Something that she needed to address immediately.

"Do I still have to pay up?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.

"Yup!" he called back.

There was a pause, then…

"Fuck!"

Deathstagram was having a field day with her.

She watched clips and read comments as she walked, trying to ignore the apologetic and hopeless expressions on her weapons' faces. None of it did her any favors. Everyone was raving about Gray Star, while she got nothing but disrespect.

They were right to bring the hate, though.

The only thing worse than losing a fight was picking a fight only to lose it. And that was exactly what she had done. So many people were quick to judge her, to call her all sorts of nasty things, to say that she was a loser, a poser, a bitch, a bad friend, a cocky punk, and others that weren't so kosher.

There was even a discussion centered around potential punishments, some guessing that she had already been expelled, while others simply said that because she was her father's daughter, she'd get off scot free. It made her want to throw her phone in the fountain.

She stopped.

There was a fountain.

She was walking by a fountain.

Her eyes widened as she realized where she was, skidding to a halt and causing the twins to stop, too, mostly out of fear of running into her. Snapping her head to the right, Kid saw the Shinigami-sama Memorial Fountain, a plaza centerpiece boasting a stone rendition of her grandfather, someone she had never met. He had supposedly been a cheery guy, but part of her had always wondered how a guy who wore a mask could express anything.

Maybe he had a goofy voice or something.

Her grandfather's stone visage wasn't trained on her. He was staring at something off in the distance, scythe in hand, as if he was ready to defend the city from some incoming threat. Or maybe he was smiling under there, knowing that Death City was safe and secure under his watch. It was hard to tell. The mask's expression was neutral.

She scoffed and kicked a rock as she turned away, wandering out of the plaza. There was no real destination in mind, no end goal. All she wanted was to get away from the Academy, away from her father.

"Wonder what grandpa would think of me?" she muttered callously under her breath.

"Thank you," Mosquito said as he hesitantly accepted the cup of tea Tsubaki gave him.

Everyone in the room tried to keep their faces steeled and their eyes narrowed, but it was hard to maintain an air of intensity when the demon shadow weapon had gone out of her way to make them and their prisoner more comfortable. At her behest, Mosquito had been released from Shinigami-sama's Sanzu Death Seal and allowed to sit down, though he was warned that if he moved out of turn, he would be executed on the spot. Black Star in particular was quite ready to deliver on that threat, his expression spelling death even as he sat in a cozy armchair, holding a dainty porcelain plate with a large half-eaten chunk of tiramisu on it.

"You were saying?" Shinigami-sama said before taking a sip of his own cup of tea.

Mosquito nodded. "Yes. The Battle for Baba Yaga Castle." He gestured toward Maka. "It is as Ms. Albarn suspected. I was-"

"Evans," Maka interrupted. When Mosquito shot her a curious look, she flipped him off with her ring finger, giving him a solid glimpse of the elegant platinum band inset with a soul-shaped diamond that adorned it, the proof of her marriage. "I'm Mrs. Soul Evans now."

Black Star, Soul, and Patty let out chuckles as Maka retracted her finger and folded her arms, a cross frown on her face. When Black Star and Patty happened to glance at each other, the laughter died immediately, and they individually turned back towards Mosquito. Soul just smiled and patted his wife on the shoulder, half to calm her down, half to say 'nice one'.

"My apologies," Mosquito said, bowing his head out of reverence. "I was not aware. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Maka said spitefully.

Shinigami-sama cleared his throat. "Please, continue."

"Right. Back to the day of my death." Mosquito took a deep breath before picking up where he left off. "As Mrs. Evans rightly guessed, when the sorcerer known as Noah used the Book of Eibon to try to eliminate me, I sealed a fragment of my soul inside a familiar, a vampire bat, and attempted to escape. After that, things get…fuzzy, shall we say. I only vaguely recall what happened next. I thought for certain that I was a dead man, but Noah turned his attention elsewhere, and I did manage to escape Baba Yaga Castle."

Shinigami-sama grimaced. "He turned his attention toward me. Noah caught you in your bat form, and from what I heard, would have destroyed you or else thrown you into the Book of Eibon. But when he found out that I was nearby, he got distracted. In his haste to add me to his collection, he must have inadvertently set you free."

"Then I have you to thank for saving my life," Mosquito said in a way he hoped sounded thankful rather than sarcastic.

"Still doesn't explain why you're here," Soul pointed out. "You could have run, could have fucked off and hid somewhere, but you didn't."

"Yeah, why is that?" Black Star said with a sneer.

Mosquito bowed his head. "You misunderstand. I did run," he said ashamedly. "I abandoned Baba Yaga Castle and fled to central Europe. To a forest somewhere in Germany. The Bavarian Forest, I believe."

Shinigami-sama and Stein's ears perked up when they heard Germany get brought up, though neither of them let their expressions give away what they knew.

"It was there that I rested. I would have slumbered for an eternity, but something…someone," he corrected, "Called me back to the land of the living, perhaps sooner than I would have wished."

"Interesting," Stein said.

"Someone called you, you say?" Shinigami-sama asked.

"Indeed."

"Who called you?" Maka said with a contemplative frown.

"I recognized him the moment I heard his summons. It was like a song, or poetry, something that transcended understanding…but I could smell the dark magic woven into the words, the malicious intent behind that melody. He wished to trap me, snare my soul."

"Who did?" Shinigami-sama interjected.

"Wilhem Grimm," Mosquito said.

Stein and Shinigami-sama exchanged curious and worried glances, respectively, before steeling themselves once again.

"The collector of folktales?" Stein asked, knowing that there was more to this than was readily apparent.

Mosquito shook his head. "No. That was his profession before he turned to dark arts and black magic. Now, he is what you would call a sorcerer, like Eibon or that miserable fool who slew me."

"That's not possible," Stein said flatly. "The Brothers Grimm are dead. They're buried in Berlin."

"So you believe. While I was preparing for Arachne's return, I discovered that the brothers had buried proxies, that they were operating in Germany, but had yet to make any significant movements. We had the DWMA to worry about back then, so we focused on staying hidden, ourselves, waiting for Arachne's soul to be revived. The Brothers Grimm were nothing to us at that time, so we let them be."

"And now?" Shinigami-sama prodded. "What has become of them in the modern day?"

"I do not know. All I know is that they tried to beckon me to them, tried to bring me under their control. Luckily, I am not so easily swayed, but their summons startled me. So I fled and came here."

"For what, protection?" Soul said with a scoff.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Fat chance, old man," Liz said crossly. "We wouldn't lift a finger to help your bony ass. Not after what you did to Kid."

Patty nodded in affirmation, her eyes as cold as death.

Mosquito sighed. "I understand your reservations. However, I did not come here solely to ask for protection from a perceived enemy. I also came to speak to the late Shinigami-sama, to ingratiate myself to him."

Shinigami-sama's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What does any of this have to do with my father? Your organization was directly opposed to the DWMA, and you yourself attempted to kill me on two separate occasions! And you expected my father to spare you? On what grounds, dare I ask?"

Maka looked over worriedly at her friend as rage washed over his features, his golden eyes burning like molten metal in a forge. She had no doubts that he could keep his composure, but even so, she had to be ready to stop him if he did. Mosquito was a prime source of information, after all, and he wasn't any good to them dead.

"Well? Care to give any insight?!" Shinigami-sama spat, his fury only barely restrained.

Mosquito put his teacup down before straightening his back and placing his hands in his lap. "I intended to speak with your father…in order to beg for his forgiveness," he said calmly.

"Forgiveness?" Stein asked, somewhat surprised. "For what?"

The aged vampire's cold, wine colored eyes became sorrowful, and he instinctively put his head down.

"For betraying him."

Allie twirled a few strands of her hair around her finger as she waited for her dinner to appear at her door. Deathdash had offered her a deal on some tacos from a hole in the wall place not far from the Academy. Knowing how much Flint liked the food there, she told him, and they had agreed to split the cost for a pack of ten crunchy tacos and a heap of nachos.

"How much longer?" Flint said as he uncorked a bottle of whiskey.

She scoffed. "What are you trying to do? Drink yourself into a coma while you wait?" she asked, one eyebrow raised as she noted the brand of whiskey he had chosen.

"Maybe," he said with a smirk.

The bottle he held was made of clear glass, cuboidal in shape, and bore a black label with a crisp white Death skull printed on it. It was Death's Head Whiskey, a particularly potent brand that was brewed exclusively in Death City. Commercials often advertised that it was one of the few drinks on the planet Black Star actually considered strong.

Flint was tough, but he wasn't tough enough to drink something only a literal god could handle.

"That stuff could kill someone three times your size, Flint. Do you really think you can take it?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Hell, no. That's why I like it."

She chuckled. "You're crazy."

"Ain't been the first time someone called me that. Won't be the last," he said with a laugh.

Before she could retort, a knock signaled the arrival of their food.

"Finally," Allie said as she hopped up off the couch and made her way to the door, her bare feet padding on the hardwood floor.

She opened the door expecting to find a brown paper bag on the welcome mat. Instead, she found two pairs of shoes attached to two pairs of legs standing atop it. With a raised eyebrow, she worked her way up until she made eye contact with faces, faces that happened to belong to one Maximilian Ford and one Valor Volga-Takeda.

"Evenin', boys," she said flippantly. "How can I help you?"

"You been keeping up on your Deathstagram?" Val said, an uncharacteristically worried look on his face.

"No. Why?"

Max and Val exchanged disconcerted glances.

"You might want to check your feed," Val asserted.

"Mind if we come in?" Max asked.

She shrugged and held the door open, wordlessly welcoming them inside.

"Howdy, fellas," Flint said as Allie shut the door. "Ta what do we owe the intrusion?"

The boys looked around the room before getting comfortable, Val sitting on a nearby stool while Max braced his arms on the back of the couch.

"Bad news, and lots of it," Val answered, a hint of seriousness in his tone.

Allie folded her arms as she leaned against the low wall separating the kitchen from the living room. "And you didn't think to just text us because…?"

"We did text you," Max said flatly.

She blinked. "Oh. I keep my phone on silent."

Valor raised an eyebrow at that. "How come?"

"Because the constant dinging drives me nuts, okay?" she said in a huff, suddenly irritated. "Not everyone is glued to their apps and messages, you know. I like to spend my free time unwinding, or training, not following everybody's stupid comments."

Flint stood up and poured himself a sizeable amount of Death's Head before making his way into the living room proper, his spurs clicking with each step. "All that aside," he said as he sat in a leather armchair near the stairs, "What exactly are ya'll so worried about?"

Max made to answer, but was interrupted by the painful sound the revolver made as he took a sip of his drink.

"HOOoooOOH!" he cried. "Shit, son…that'll make you wanna smack your momma, right there…"

Everyone in the room eyed him with varying expressions of confusion, which he shrugged off with an apologetic clearing of his throat and a tip of his hat.

"Anyway…" Max began, "We're worried because Kid and the twins are under fire from just about every student attending the DWMA. The Perfs, the seniors…even the N.O.T. kids are getting in on it."

Valor turned to Allie. "I know Kid probably isn't your favorite person right now, what with her trying to beat your baby sister to a pulp and all, but social media is tearing your cousins a new one."

"All the more reason to kick the shit out of Kid later," she said crossly.

Flint frowned, contemplative. "Since when are you the vengeful type?"

"Since always," she shot back. "Consider yourself lucky you haven't seen that side of me yet."

Max shook his head. "Regardless of what you think about Kid, all of this talk about her and the twins is…worrisome, to say the least. Have you heard anything from the twins at all, anything that can put our minds at ease?"

"Who's asking? Just you?" Allie said flatly.

"Not just us." Val started counting with his fingers. "Spec, Nina, Rose, Stan…shit, even Kilik-sensei wants to know."

"With so many people saying that Kid and the twins have been expelled, we just want to make sure that the worst case scenario hasn't happened," Max said. "That they're okay."

Allie pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the image she had chosen for her home screen. It was a picture of her, Gray Star, and Jenny and Lenny as kids. Maka-sensei had taken the photo during one of their play dates. They couldn't have been more than nine or ten years old. The background was the Evans house garage, which they had been using to play kickball or something like that.

She treasured those memories. The memories of what her family was like back then. Before…things…happened.

Shaking herself out of her head, she unlocked her phone and checked her messages. There were a few texts in the group chat, the one that included everyone in their friend group, but there was a new group chat also, one that didn't include Kid, Jenny, or Lenny. She tapped on that thread, and found that Max and Valor were telling the truth.

The last text was from Specter.

"they gonna be alright? im getting a bad vibe…"

She sighed as she exited the thread. Worried now, she looked through her other messages, searching for anything from either of the twins. Nothing.

"They haven't sent me anything," she told them. "Not since yesterday."

"Shit," Valor swore. "Not good."

"Ya'll are worryin' too much," Flint said as he took another sip of Death's Head, hissing sharply as the drink robbed him of his life force. "They're probably followin' Kid around like they always do."

"That doesn't tell us what Shinigami-sama did to them or Kid, though," Max mused.

Allie looked down at her screen and quickly made a new group chat with Jenny and Lenny and sent them a quick text.

"Where r u guys rn?"

Smoke shot out from between Kid's lips like steam from a broken stove pipe as she sat on a rooftop somewhere on the outskirts of Death City. She sighed a blast of gray up into the darker gray of the sky, watching it curl through the air before it was dissolved by the atmosphere. It had been a while since she had been stressed enough to break open a pack, much less burn through half of one in a single sitting.

Her phone rested in her pocket, off, silent, unable to spit venom at her.

The silence was nice, but even as she sat in the stillness, she could almost hear the tapping of digital keys, the buzz of gossip in the air, the laughs and crude remarks of her classmates, her fans. Her former fans. Her tormentors.

She took another hit, her eyes heavy-lidded as she stared out at the buildings, the wall that encircled them, and the dusty Nevada desert that stretched out even further beyond.

What the fuck am I doing? she wondered. What the fuck can I do?

Silence came next. A bad sign. She had no novel ideas on how to unfuck her life.

Another hit, another breath of smoke. She tapped the cig on the side of the roof, sending ashes floating through the air, carried by a breeze. Endlessly frustrated but too tired to do anything about it, she just continued to sit, burning time, burning cigs, burning her life away.

What little remained of it.

Below her, on the street, sat Jenny and Lenny, their minds consumed by maelstroms of worry and regret. Though their mother hadn't been in the Death Room when they received their punishments, they had a feeling their mother already knew exactly how much trouble they were in. Ditching and having fun with Kid was one thing; she didn't mind that as much.

But for putting the whole school on alert and almost getting expelled? She'd have their heads for that. The twins silently thanked their lucky stars that they didn't live in Gallows Manor anymore.

They exchanged glum looks as they waited for Kid to come back down, sitting on a bench close to the shop their meister had decided to smoke on top of.

"What are we gonna tell mom?" Jenny asked, not sure if her brother would have an answer.

He sighed and threw his head back over the back of the bench, defeated. "I dunno," he said finally. "I dunno how we're gonna do this. What was it that bossman said? We have to get our grades up a whole letter, right?"

"That's the idea, yeah."

"Shit, man…how are we gonna do that in time? We have, like, Cs…in all our classes. And it was hard to do even that."

"I don't know, Len," Jenny said hopelessly. "Right now, the best thing we can do is…be there for Kid."

"But how? She can't even come to school anymore," he pointed out.

He blinked as he realized what he had just said.

"She can't come to school anymore…" he repeated.

They looked at each other, fear draining the color from their faces.

Kid was their protector, in more ways than one. She had always been there for them, and had saved their lives on countless occasions, be it using them to kill monsters or fending off would-be bullies with her fists. There weren't many at the Academy who would dare set their sights on the weapons of the daughter of Death himself, but now that Kid was suspended, their shield was gone.

Without her, they were easy pickings for hecklers, upstarts, and folks who would feel inclined to take advantage of Kid's absence.

"Fuck me," the twins said in unison.

Before they could spare each other another glance, their phones vibrated at the same time. Looking down at their screens, they saw a text. It was from Allie.

"Where r u guys rn?"

They looked up and looked around.

"That's a good question," Jenny said as she bit her thumb.

They had been following Kid since she left the Academy, and hadn't kept track of the street signs along the way. Effectively, they were lost. Sure, their phones could tell them where they were, but realistically, they had no idea.

"Um…" they hummed, wondering what they could say in return.

Eventually, Lenny tapped a simple word into the text bar and hit send.

"out"

A thought bubble with an ellipsis appeared, and was quickly followed with Allie's response.

"What happend? You guys ok?"

Jenny typed out the follow-up.

"good i guess"

"been bettr" Lenny added.

"on probation" Jenny admitted.

"yea probation"

"not suspended"

"no not suspended"

"still sucks tho"

"Yea"

The twins looked at each other and smiled. Even in text, they talked all over each other, much to the chagrin of people who didn't know them. But Allie knew.

They could almost hear her laughing, though in this case, she was probably cringing at the news of their probation.

Eventually, her next text came through.

"Oh shit, guys. Thats not good."

"we know" the twins replied, almost in unison, Jenny's response above Lenny's.

An ellipsis in a thought bubble appeared again, then:

"Where's Kid?"

Jenny and Lenny simultaneously looked up and behind them, expecting to see Kid sitting on the roof there.

They almost fainted when they realized that she was gone.

"How exactly did you betray my father?" Shinigami-sama asked, a wire of tension in his tone. "What are you implying?"

"It is difficult to explain," Mosquito admitted. "The events I intend to speak of occurred well over a thousand years ago, when I was at my youngest, my most dangerous…my most ambitious. Your father, too, was young, dangerous, and ambitious. Fate, it seems, drew us together."

"You fought Kid's old man a thousand years ago?" Black Star said with a grin and a raised eyebrow. "I call bullshit. You might be old, but you're not that old."

Maka just sighed and rolled her eyes. "He's over eight hundred years old, Black Star. Surely, it's not that much of a stretch to assume that he was alive at least a century before that point."

"Yeah, you remember what happened at the Battle For Brew," Soul chimed in. "Dude debated about which form he should switch to, listing off everything from one hundred to eight hundred years back."

"I thought he was exaggerating," Black Star said simply. "Geezers always exaggerate."

"What, like you don't?" Liz said with a grin.

He chuckled. "Gods don't exaggerate. They downplay."

Shinigami-sama cleared his throat. "Regardless, I too find it hard to believe that you encountered my father back then, but for a different reason."

"Oh? What might that be?" Mosquito wondered.

"My father never mentioned you. Even after the Battle For Brew, my father didn't know who you were. He never talked about encountering someone called Mosquito, not personally."

Mosquito chuckled. "That's because he knew me by another name, my true name. Had he seen me in person while I was still under Arachne, seen my soul, he would have recognized me instantly. My body has changed many times over the centuries, but my soul is one of a kind. I cannot hide what I am."

"A pain in the ass?" Patty said with a derisive smirk.

"A vampire," Mosquito corrected.

Shinigami-sama shook his head. "I still can't fathom how you came to know my father before Arachne and all that came after. You say you betrayed him, and you initially came here to beg for his mercy, yet, for as long as I've known you, you've hated me, my father, and the DWMA. Something isn't adding up."

His golden eyes narrowed dangerously, his gaze burning a hole in Mosquito's heart.

"So I ask you: What exactly happened between you and my father?"

"I assure you, I can explain. But in order to do so, like I said, I must take you back a thousand years ago, to a time before the DWMA…a time before Asura the Kishin." He turned to Maka. "I encourage you to listen closely, young scholar. This is bound to be quite the history lesson."

"I'm going to keep an eye on your soul," she said curtly. "Make sure you're not lying."

"I assure you, I do not intend to lie."

Shinigami-sama grimaced. "Then talk. Now."

"Very well," Mosquito said with a respectful bow of his head. "Listen now, as I begin my tale…my tale of blood, sorrow, fear…and death."

The skies were dark and stormy always in those days. Crimson, like freshly spilled blood. In the east, arbiters of death roamed, striking out against the demons and monsters that hunted humans and consumed their souls.

On a scarred coastline almost buried by the sea stood a being of impossible power, a god given mortal form. His body was composed of shifting shadow, his face a solemn skull of whitened bone. On his right arm, glowing like metal in a forge, was inscribed a name, one that struck fear into the hearts of the wicked.

DEATH.

But this shinigami was not alone. He stood alongside warriors, samurai, shinobi, legendary folk of great renown, born in the heart of the East. Also beside him were his two most trusted advisors, a sorcerer of great power, and his only son, the strongest of them all.

"How many are dead?" Shinigami-sama asked as he stared out at the black, roiling sea, his eyes and tone dark and cold, like the void that was his heart.

"Thousands. Tens of thousands. Perhaps more," Eibon said. "All of them impaled on pikes and drained of their life essence by way of his infernal powers."

Shinigami-sama clenched his claw-like fingers. "Bastard…"

"I've seen the battlefields, father," Asura said. "They are…drowning in corpses, but absent of blood. The people who see it firsthand are…terrified." A demented grin came to his lips for a moment, but quickly faded.

The Grim Reaper turned and regarded his son. So strange had he become in recent months. He hid most of his body under layers of coats and scarves, his skin tightly wrapped in endless bandages. His head remained unadorned, but his skin was beginning to pale, his golden eyes beginning to redden, his Lines of Sanzu beginning to warp.

It was unnerving…but he could not judge him.

He knew the cause of his son's maladies. It was a consequence of being a fragment of a god, a fragment of Fear. No human could bear such a weight. It was a fate worse than death. But Asura was a shinigami, the lone son of the god of death.

For the sake of the world, he would bear that burden.

"Where is he?" The Grim Reaper asked darkly.

Eibon answered. "Castle Stoker. His fortress and engine of war. It is located in the heart of Wallachia, in a wasteland called Transylvania." The arcane lights in his mask dimmed as he closed his eyes in thought. When they brightened again, he asked, "Do you intend to hunt him alone?"

"I shall do what I must, sorcerer," Shinigami-sama said. "That fucking abomination cannot be allowed to continue his rampage. In but a few days, he has ruined a nation and forever scarred its people."

"Father," Asura said coolly. "Let me accompany you. Vajra and I will—"

"No!" Shinigami-sama barked, his denial a roll of thunder. "You shall not set foot in those wretched badlands!"

The silence that followed was deafening. Everyone, every warrior in the death god's eight legions, including the ritual blade known as Vajra, bit their tongues and waited. Even Eibon and Asura held their breath.

"The risk is too great," he finally admitted. "If you were slain by the vampire king, your knowledge and power would be his. It would bring about the end of all things."

"In protecting Asura, you expose yourself to the very same risk," Eibon argued. "Surely, if this being, the nosferatu, was to have your soul, the results would be equivalent, if not brought about much more quickly.

Shinigami-sama narrowed his eyes in thought, but ultimately bowed his head in resignation. "You are right, of course. But I cannot waver. If I stand idle, yet more innocents shall die. I will avenge those who have fallen and right this wrong."

Shadows began to surge out of Shinigami-sama's body as he reached into his soul and extracted another fragment, a fragment he had shaped into a weapon. With a feral roar of effort, he drew forth a massive scythe, its shaft composed of gnarled, blackened wood, its blade a wicked crescent of darkened steel. The hamon, the pattern of the metal, painted the back of the blade with shadow, the edge with silver, the thin line between them a storm.

Eerie violet light bled from his body as he retrieved his legendary tool for harvesting souls, the instrument with which he had cast so many wretched evils into the depths of whatever hell they feared most.

"Beware, vampire king," he said, his voice saturated with hatred, "Your soul is now forfeit."

All was calm, though he could hear the echoes of the footsteps of his thralls as they wandered the castle, spears at the ready. He lay in a porcelain bath nestled in a gorgeous and extravagantly decorated chamber, the grand window shrouded by thick black curtains. The smell of blood hung in the air, saturated everything, including him.

The crimson in the bath was warm, and invigorated him, his ivory skin relishing in the nourishment it provided.

It was marvelous.

A knock came to the chamber door, a polite rapping of the knuckles that was unique to the oldest of his manservants coming to deliver a vintage.

"Come in," he said, his old tongue ringing clear in the vaulted walls of the chamber.

His servant opened the door and quietly closed it behind him. As expected, he carried an ornate bottle on a cold steel tray along with a chalice. Carved into the glass of the bottle was an image of a woman screaming in misery.

"Your vintage, sir," the older man said, his wispy white mustache bouncing with each syllable.

The vampire smiled and gestured for him to pour a glass. Not a drop of the crimson liquid was wasted. His servant handed him the chalice and politely stepped back, the bottle centered on the tray, a quarter of its contents gone.

"Ah, the taste of misery." He did not thank him. It was an unnecessary courtesy.

He swirled the bloody vintage in his goblet before taking a sip, relishing in the taste.

"Young," he said after a minute of thinking. "Female. Aged…nineteen years. Umber hair…perfect ivory skin. Quite vivacious." He regarded his manservant. "Am I correct?"

He nodded. "Her name is Anamaria."

"A splendid addition to the collection." The vampire's face split unnaturally into a grin of pure vileness and evil satisfaction. "Move her to the wine cellar. I want to savor this taste for the next thousand years."

"With haste, sir."

As he sat there, bathing in blood, a goblet of the finest blood he had tasted in years between his long, lithe, pale fingers, the lord of Stoker Castle found himself chuckling.

"The second son…the wickedest one. Heed this warning, all who gaze upon my empire of endless blood: all the world's glory shall be undone. My crusade has just begun."

Chuckling turned to maniacal cackling, his laughter echoing throughout the castle, reaching the ears of his thralls, his servants, and his prisoners, all shrouded in darkness, all doomed.

Omake

She felt it again. Another shiver down her spine. The shadows of the room wreathed her pale body in black, her fingers running through the lilac locks of her hair.

"You can feel it too, cantcha?" Ragnarok's bassy voice rumbled. "He's here."

"The steward of my mother's sister," she said darkly.

A black, sinewy arm reached out of her back, an obsidian blade with sharp, jagged teeth in its white gloved hand.

"Should we kill him?" the demon sword asked.

She closed her eyes in thought for a moment. The man called Mosquito had never crossed her, but he had caused her friends a great deal of strife before they called her a friend. Before Maka had gone out of her way to save her.

For this, she could spare him.

But there was something in her heart, a longing, one she hadn't felt since the day she had killed her mother in cold blood. Pangs of anxiety jabbed into her soul like daggers, but did not linger, the butterflies in her stomach withering and dying. Something told her that she needed to be there, in the Death Room, that she needed to see this man.

"Let's go, Ragnarok."

The arm slipped back into her spine, and she quickly unlocked her chamber door, exited into the cobblestone hallway, and began her lengthy walk upstairs to the Grim Reaper's lair.