Gopher soared toward the school on extended soul wings. She glanced over her shoulder to see Noah riding a six legged beast close behind her. They couldn't afford to make any more mistakes. Lord Death had to fall tonight.
The homunculus barreled through the front doors and wove through the corridors to the main hall. If something turned out to be wrong, she would be the first to suffer the consequences. Before she could even see the doors of the Death Room a scythe caught her in the shoulder and slammed her to the ground.
"It's an ambush!" She flung feathered projectiles toward their hidden assailants to draw them out. "Watch out!" With her as a distraction, Noah slipped past the first line of defense. "Show yourself you coward!"
A familiar meister stepped into the light.
"Hello again." Maka sneered.
The Spartoi sqad's plan was similar to Medusa's strategy the night of the party. The only difference, the target would be fighting back. There was only one hall that lead to the Death Room and the students Lord Death had summoned stood in its path. If Noah managed to defeat the group, he would be too weak to take down Lord Death. Black Star hoped it wouldn't come to that. They had darkened all the corridors. Each student knew the hallways by heart and it would make the most of fighting on their home terf.
A roar rattled down the corridor, causing the ninja to tense. Noah had managed to slip through.
"Tsubaki, Shuriken Star Mode." Black Star called and hurtled his weapon into the darkness. The beast Noah rode was hit in the front leg. It shrieked and toppled to the floor. Tsubaki flew back toward her meister, who caught her with ease.
"That was awfully rude of you." Wrath growled. He opened the Book of Eibon and summoned another monster. "Kitsune, mince him."
"I don't think so." Black Star smirked. "Tsubaki, Uncanny Sword Mode." His body became covered in inky black tattoos. With ease, he sliced through the small, fox like creature. "Shadow Arm." Tsubaki whipped across the floor and flung the Book of Eibon across the room. "Why don't you stop hiding behind your pets and fight like a real man!"
"That's big talk coming from a demon." Wrath snorted. "Oh, you think I didn't notice?" He chuckled. "You'd be surprised what is written on your soul."
"Shut up!" Black Star yelled.
Further back toward the entry way, Gopher had scrambled back to her feet. Maka blocked the way as best she could, using Soul's weapon form like a barricade. Light from the entryway was reflected off the polearm.
"I hate to rain on your parade," Maka said, "but you aren't going anywhere." She swung Soul around to rest on her shoulder. "So, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?"
"Daelus feathers!" Gopher cried. Her spectral missiles sailed toward the blonde miester. Maka dodged them effortlessly.
"Hard way it is." Soul sighed. The pair had gotten stronger since their last meeting with Gopher. By the looks of it, she hadn't learned any new tricks.
"Soul, let's put an end to this." Maka swung the scythe into a fighting stance.
"You're the boss." The two concentrated. "SOUL RESONANCE!" Gopher rushed toward them, hoping for an opening.
"Warlock Hunter!" Maka declared. Soul's blade grew in size and magnitude. The metal shimmered in the dull light, radiating with magic. Unfortunately for Gopher, she was too slow to avoid the attack. Clipped by the blade, she was sent flying to the ground. Maka's attack hadn't been a direct hit, but it was enough to leave Gopher motionless.
"We should see if Black Star needs help." Soul suggested.
"I don't know," Maka sighed, turning her back to the fallen girl, "I don't think these two are the only ones here."
With ludicrous speed, Black Star lunged toward the unarmed warlock. He shuffled through several of Tsubaki's forms, trying to find one that would land a hit on Noah. However, Wrath was always one step ahead of him.
"Did I hit a nerve?" Noah chortled. "For a ninja, you're awfully transparent. Every encounter you've had, every minuscule detail that's affected your life is broadly on display to me. People like you make me feel better about myself." Black Star growled at this. He tried to land a punch, but Noah caught his fist and used the force to throw Black Star into the wall. "I don't have to prove myself to anyone."
"Don't give me that high and mighty crap." Black Star said as he peeled himself out of the rubble. "You may have a magic book, but without it you're nothing. You can't even keep me down. Tsubaki, Chain Scythe Mode."
"I wouldn't get cocky if I were you." Wrath snarled.
"SPEED STAR!"
"Black Star," Tsubaki shouted, "calm down. You can't let him get to you." Noah went to kick Black Star in the head, but the ninja stepped and hit the man in the chest.
"NOVA BARRAGE!" His fist collided with the warlock's chest. A ripple of energy shocked the body once. A second wave smacked into Wrath, paralyzing him. The third, was in the shape of a giant star. When it finally hit Noah, it constricted slightly, then expanded. Noah erupted into sheets of torn paper.
"What… just happened?" Tsubaki asked. Before they could gather their bearings, they heard Soul yell.
"You should have known better than to fly too close to the sun." Gopher snarled in a two-toned voice.
"MAKA! Behind you!" Soul warned. The girigori fighter was not down for the count. She had risen to her feet, albeit slowly. The air had suddenly gone cold. Madness coiled around her; her nails stretched to the ground like the bones in bird wings. Her eyes a dull, unfocused purple.
"Flames of Icarus!" As Maka turned she was pelted with the flaming feathers. They pierced her torso and burned the surrounding flesh.
"MAKA!" Soul transformed into his human form. Immobile, his meister lay on the floor. He grabbed his sagging enemy by the collar and slammed her against the wall. The attack had taken a lot out of Gopher as well. She was drained, still bleeding, but otherwise conscious. "What did you do?" she gathered enough strength to spit in the scythe's face. "You-"
"Soul what's going on?" Black Star called as he rushed into the room. To his horror, Maka lay before him; her attacker pinned to the wall. "Soul…" He struggled to find the words. "She… I…" He had failed. He hadn't meant for Maka to get hurt. If only he had asked for more help. "It's over. We can lock her in a cell and destroy the book."
"No!" Gopher screamed. Forced back against a wall, she growled through her tears. "When Kid gets his hands on you; I'll enjoy watching you get ripped apart piece by piece!"
"…Kid?" The Shibusen students let this sink in.
"You take care of Gopher," Black Star instructed, "Tsubaki, take Maka to Nygus. I'll be right back." His chain scythe nodded and scooped Maka off the floor. Black Star rushed down the hall of Shishuben in a fury. Kid was behind the attack. Not only that, but was to blame for Maka's current state. As much as he wanted to hunt down the crazed shinigami, he had to warn Lord Death first. A dark chuckle drew his attention.
"I remember you." Chrona slunk up behind the ninja. "You tried to kill me. I won't let it happen again." She hissed, without Ragnarok, her sword was a jet black creation of hardened blood.
A voice, sweet and sorrowful, flitted across the Death Room. "Hello Mortis, it's been a while." Lord Death turned to see Eibon haloed in white light sitting on an unmarked grave. Their ghost like hair flowed gently in the air. The elder shinigami froze, for a moment, bombarded with the guilt and regret from long ago. Then logic set in once more. He had seen Eibon's soul destroyed like worn paper. Even in their prime, they were never so neatly dressed and delicate. There was no way this romanticized, soulless image was the late Sekaigami.
"You'll have to do better than cheap illusions to fool your old man." Lord Death snorted. The apparition faded as he looked up to the ceiling of the Death Room. His son descended from above.
"Hello Shinigami-sama." He said stiffly. Shinigami-sama summoned his skull fissures. Kid could feel the power reaching out to him from the ancient god. It desperately wanted a new host.
"Now, is that anyway to talk to your father?" The ivory clamps flew through the air and sunk into his son's flesh.
"You really shouldn't underestimate me." He concentrated and the first line of sanzu connected. With a simple tug, the skulls dissolved into sizzling ash. "And you are no longer my father."
"Just because I didn't sire you, doesn't mean I don't care." Shinigami-sama shouted. "I raised you the best I could for eight years." Kid charged at him.
"So?" He tried to land a punch, a kick; anything! But his father was faster. "You locked me in a cage until I acted like you! If I didn't change, I would have been trapped like Asura was."
"You are still a child, my child." Shinigami-sama said. "There is still so many of mistakes you haven't learned from. Living things are capable of so much harm I've shielded you from. I know you don't always want to do as I say, but the least you could do is respect my decisions." He didn't really want to fight his son. To be honest, he was still holding back. If only Kid would try to understand.
"Respect isn't something you deserve, you earn it. And you've lost mine." Kid fell back a bit. He was wasting his energy with blind assaults. He needed to try a different approach.
"What did I do to you that drew you to this decision?"
"It isn't what you did to me. It's what you didn't do for her." Kid growled with renewed fury.
Fighting without Ragnarok required more concentration than she was used to. She could create blades anywhere on her body, but with no way to wield them, it just weighed her down. She swung her heavy blade in every which direction, and spread shadowy vines across the floor. Despite his accelerated speed, Black Star was having issues keeping up. One too many times, he narrowly escaped the bite of a bramble laid in his path.
"It's the end of the road for you, Ninja-kun." Chrona aimed to slice through the boy, only to hit cold stone. She had only a moment to process before Black Star's onslaught began. He had snuck up behind her in a flash. Each blow he landed on her back was packed with a short burst of his wavelength. They came in rapid succession, knocked the sword out of her hand.
"Enough!" She shrieked. Long, sharp branches burst out of her back. Black Star tumbled to the ground. "That wasn't very nice of you." Chrona remarked darkly, she was a little light-headed from loosing so much blood so quickly. The branches melted and oozed down her arm into gaunlet sword.
Lord Death frowned at his son's accusations. Kid clearly harbored a grudge, but he'd never asked about his mother. He had thought those early memories had vanished for good.
"Eibon and I did a lot of good together, you've seen the things were able to create. We wanted a world where humans no longer feared the gods." There was no doubt in his mind, Kid was supposed to continue their work to bridge the gap between the magical and non-magical mortals. "I turned a blind eye to how far they would go so people would no longer fear death..." Eibon refused to pass down their powers to anyone else, as long as they were alive, no one else could take their place as an avatar of life. After years of Maba ruling alone, she had asked Shinigami-sama to step in and do what needed to be done. "They gave up so much of themselves to make you, there was nothing left." Their eyes still haunted him, empty and soulless. A body that could act and speak based on past memories, but was nothing but fragments and magic on the inside. While he wasn't looking, the Eibon he knew had died. "I protected them as long as I could, but it was too late."
"It wasn't too late for Chrona." Kid said. "The number of past students you've abandoned is staggering." Justin Law had been a death scythe once. Maka and Black Star had been thrown into a number of dangerous situations for the sake of a 'lesson'. It was any wonder why anyone would keep coming back.
"I did what was best for everyone else." He said. "It was too risky to have her hanging around."
"Hanging around?! Is that what you call building up someone, only to abandon them?" Kid tried to call upon his magic, but it was no good. He was too riled up to concentrate. "Your 'rules' have caused us nothing but problems."
"Then perhaps I have been too lenient." Three crosses from the graveyard rose. He hurtled them at his son, certain they would hit their mark. "I can see the witches' way of thinking has blinded you to what's truly important." The stones hit Kid just as Shinigami-sama thought they would. But when the smoke cleared, Kid was still standing. The second line had connected.
"I never lost sight of what was most important! I care for Chrona and that's all that matters." His hands produced dull, blue flames. "Necrospheres!"
"What about your friends?" Lord Death accused, dodging the flaming projectiles. "What will happen to them if you continue on this path? Or your partners. When this is over, do you plan to shut them out as well?"
"S-stop it." Kid faltered. "SHUT UP! I don't have to listen to you anymore." His father sighed. White stripes of cloth coiled from behind Lord Death.
"You are making your decision based on your emotions." He sent the binding toward Kid, the very same that had trapped Asura many years ago. He planned to entrap Kid and talk to him once he had calmed down. "How can you hope to become a great shinigami by making such rash decisions?"
"Don't take it personally Chrona," Black Star smirked from the floor. "I just don't take too kindly to being someone's stepping stone." He swung his leg, pulling Chrona's out from under her. He sprung up and hit her with a Black Star Big Wave. "I'm the star of this show."
"A star? How poetic." By now two of the swords she made had been scattered across the hall. With her final blade, she slashed her wrist. "Bloody Slicer." The metallic substance sliced his shoulder. "Do you know what happens to a star when it dies?" Chrona asked, standing up. "It destroys everything around it."
"Unfortunately for you, my glorious demise won't be here." He dodged her onslaught of attacks and slipped past her defenses. Chrona's grip on the sword was lost when Black Star targeted her wrist. "Black Star Big Wave." He hit her again and the demon miester fell. One more hit and Chrona would be done for. At the sight of her wounded from, Black Star hesitated. Just a few months ago Chrona had been his friend. Could he really just kill her like that. "I'm sorry Chrona."
Thick vines encircled his limbs and torso; black and covered with thorns. They stemmed from the three discarded weapons.
"You will leave nothing behind." Chrona chuckled. Then the vines constricted.
Shingami-sama was caught off guard when the third line connected.
"I WILL NEVER BE LIKE YOU!" Kid grabbed the bindings before they could ensnare him. "Flames of Hades!" The seals lit on fire. Pieces crumbled to the floor and lit parts of the Death Room as well. "When I'm through, no one will be in charge." He tried once more to hit his father. "No one will try to run my life, and no one will stop me!"
"You're wrong Kid." Lord Death said. "We tried that before. Horrible people will fight for control if you give up."
"I'm not giving up." He snarled.
"Destroying me won't solve your problems. The curse-" He could feel his power draining.
"Your stupid 'curse' is your excuse for everything." Kid's eyes began to glow a dark blue. "With your blood line cut off, Chrona will be safe; once and for all. DEVINE JUDGEMENT!" Flaming skulls materialized behind him, a blue flame possessed them. When they opened their jaws, cannon fire shot out. Each shot hit the elder Shinigami, hurtling him to the ground.
Lord Death struggled to bring himself off the floor. Flames surrounded him as he looked up at his son. At all costs, he had to make his son understand.
"The curse isn't tied to my bloodline, it's tied to the role of death." He coughed. "As the youngest, awakened shinigami, the curse falls on your shoulders."
"The unforeseen disaster…"
"Would be caused by your death. I never wanted this for you, that's why I tried to take care of it before the third line connected." Kid tried to strike, he stopped himself. His father's shoulders sagged. The cheerful mask he grew up seeing had slipped down around his neck. Without the full power of a shinigami, the yellowed skeleton inside the cloak was falling apart. "You will have to reap Pandora's successor, just like I did." There was no longer another force pulling on his power source. Lord Death had fallen. One by one, the stars returned to the night sky.
Kid ran down the hall to the source of the coiling madness. Chrona stood, in her thorned gown, like a jagged glimpse of midnight. A Cheshire grin was painted on her face.
"What's the matter dear?" She asked. "I can still find his wave length." Logic had overridden his sense of fear, the manic urges of madness laid bare before him as the desperate please of a wounded soul. All this destruction wouldn't heal the aching wounds or absolve Chrona of guilt by claiming it a righteous cause. The cold, uncaring nature of death was a heavy burden to carry.
"I couldn't kill him. He-" Chrona's fists clenched, her features soured.
"No, you wouldn't kill him." Her girigori wings extended reveling black blood which crawled to cover the luminescent white wings. "You said you'd do anything to prove you loved me. Why would you lie to me!?"
"I didn't lie, he's gone." The world simply could not exist without a Shinigami. "We're fighting against everyone and everything that used to matter to us. We have to stop this... we already won." His words didn't take hold. She should have known better. He was just another face out to kill her.
"Fine, have it your way, reaper! Go ahead and do your job." She swung her arm. At her command, thorned trunks erupted from the ground. Kid jumped out of the way and lit a flame within him hand. He couldn't die here, not now. He thought, maybe he could bring in an illusion of Medusa after he hit her with a necrosphere. He looked up to see Chrona crying as she summoned her blade. Once again, someone she trusted had turned on her. In her eyes, he had returned to Shibusen and thusly, had to be destroyed. That didn't mean she didn't like him anymore, she still did. But she was frightened that the one person she kept close would be the one to kill her.
Kid couldn't help but remember everything the two of them had been through. Every time he made her happy, every time he let her down; he had run. The flame in his hand died down as he closed his eyes.
"Screech alpha." She said softly. He wasn't going to run away this time. If one of them had to fall, then he would protect Chrona to the end.
Chrona's eyes widened, nothing was happening. Right, her partner was gone. Her hands shook. He hadn't dodged or fought back as she picked up her blade and charged toward him. He just stood there and let her stab him in the shoulder. His left arm could barely move, yet still he did nothing. "What are you doing!? Don't you get it? I tricked you! I was using you to get what I wanted the way you used me!" This was wrong, this was all wrong. She took a step back, he wasn't moving. He hadn't even opened his eyes. Was he just going to let her kill him?
It couldn't be true, he was supposed to kill her. He was going to fight tooth and nail to destroy her just like everybody else had. Someone was always going to be out there hunting her down, because this had to stop. Someone had to stop her. However, all he did was fall to the ground and bleed. She didn't understand it, couldn't understand it.
So she ran.