Authors Note:

This is a heavy rewrite of the older fic Wild Fire. While the general premise of the story is the same, the bulk of the plotlines have been changed or removed, with new concepts and characters and dynamics added. As of posting this first chapter, the first 10 chapters are already finished and ready to be posted.

Updates On Mondays

Added note: I forgot how much I hate tagging a genre on this site. So take Supernatural in the sense of Soul Eater being a rather supernatural show.

It was amazing how easily things could have changed and how drastic the fallouts would be.

Take, for example, the night celebrating the anniversary of the DWMA's founding. What should have been a joyous, fun evening had almost turned into an end-of-the-world event. Medusa had attacked. She and her following infiltrated the bowels of the academy, seeking to free the Kishin, chased after by a group of academy students along with Stein and Spirit. Against all odds, the academy was the victor in this fight.

Sid had managed to pull more students in with his forced burial, giving them a better fighting chance.

Stein and Spirit had held off Medusa for as long as they could and ultimately killed the witch. Maka reached out to Crona and brought them to the light. Ox and Kilik had kept the werewolf occupied—or rather the mirage of him— allowing Kid and Black*Star to charge ahead without delay. It was only a few minutes difference, but a few minutes were crucial in times like this. A few minutes difference was all it took to catch up to Eruka and Free. A few minutes difference was all it took to stop the Kishin's revival right then and there.

Though the frog and the wolf ultimately escaped, the DWMA confiscated the black blood, and the Kishin was left to continue rotting in its bag of flesh. They were victorious, and that was all that mattered.

As with anything, it took a few weeks for the dust to settle and things to feel like they had returned to normal. For repairs to be made, for classes and missions to resume.

A handful of Death Scythes were called back to the city to help review security so something like that could never happen again. Changes to their security were proposed, security changes were made, and the Death Scythes returned to their posts, save for Marie, who stayed to fill the gap Medusa left in the faculty and to help provide better training for prospective Death Scythes.

And so, things returned to normal, to that state of standing on the edge of disaster.

"Are you sure you want us on this mission and not one of the senior students?" Stein asked as he leafed through some papers. There was still quite a lot of work to catch up on here in Death City. He had research he'd been forced to push to the side in the aftermath of Medusa's attack, lesson plans and exams he still needed to plan out, and training regiments to put together for some of his students. Going on a mission now did not seem as important.

Especially not for what was essentially a drug raid.

Evo had hit the black markets a little over a decade ago, though he suspected it had been circulating for longer under a different name. When it first appeared, they hadn't given it much thought; it had acted as little more than a new sort of steroid and had been more than happy to leave it to the government authorities to handle. The actual danger the drug posed didn't come to light until much later, as the drug itself was improved upon as if what they had seen earlier had been little more than test runs and prototypes.

The drug hailed itself as the means of evolution for humans, a way for 'regular people' to stand on equal footing to the enhanced abilities of weapons and meisters. And it was a promise that it delivered on. Doped up on evo, a person became stronger, faster, and more durable by becoming numb to pain. And that was just for the average person. A weapon or meister on evo was even more dangerous. That wasn't taking into account how it affected the soul, either. Stein had read the reports and the research; overuse of evo, either through prolonged usage or overdose, would lead to damage of the soul and a possibly permanent destabilization of the balance between the soul, body, and mind.

It was essential to get the drug off the streets and to stop the source of the drug. But Stein still didn't see why it was a mission he was being sent on. Surely, there were others with more time and just as much skill who could handle it.

Death bobbed about from where he stood, as playfully calm as always. "Call it a hunch, but I think you'd be most appropriate to send on this excursion."

Meaning there was more to this than the reports suggested. "Do you think that Medusa, or the remnants of her group that escaped, had been part of this?"

"Oh, no, no, they're not involved."

So, not Medusa's group, but someone else. Stein frowned and carefully began cranking his screw. "But you think that witches may be involved."

His bobbing stopped, and Death regarded Stein with his hollowed-out gaze for an unsettlingly long moment. "Our Central Intelligence Agency has found reason to believe that the source of evo and the source of the concealment stones are the same."

Stein's curiosity about why he was on the evo investigation had been like a hook drifting in the sea. But now, at the mention of concealment stones, he was the fish dangling helplessly on the hook, unable to free himself.

Concealment stones had been a problem for the DWMA for a while now, far longer than evo. They were a tool used by witches to hide their presence, much like their use of Soul Protect. However, unlike the spell, the stones did not require powerful magic, allowing any witch to use one, regardless of their strength or weakness. It masked their magic and disguised their souls as humans.

If concealment stones and evo were connected, there could be problems. They didn't want to deal with issues so soon after their last disaster.

Stein hummed and cranked his screw again. "I'll take Marie with me. We'll head out tonight and see what we can find."

"Wonderful," Death clapped his hands, and Stein was sure he was smiling, even if his mask didn't show it. "There is a witch in the area we're sending you to. She's not especially dangerous on her own, and she might be able to lead you to the source if you capture her."

Stein hummed again and silently prayed that this would be simple and wouldn't become a major disaster when they had only narrowly avoided unleashing the Kishin. Deep inside, he couldn't help but feel dread that they were opening the door to another catastrophe.