The next morning Cassandra woke up feeling like she'd been thrown down a mountain. Anytime she so much as sneezed, her shoulders and neck would seize up with shooting pains. Still, she and Elaine dragged themselves out to the obstacle course at dawn and made their rounds. Cassandra finished at an abysmal forty five minutes, but she was still able to beat Bonnie who hadn't returned that night.
"It's just a formality darling." Elaine teased as they walked to breakfast. "There's no need to try so hard."
"Says the person who tried to poison me for a laugh." Cassandra brushed past her tittering laughter and aimed to grab a seat closer to White Star. Being stuck in the middle had barely given her a chance to talk to anyone. Unfortunately, before she could even say hello, Bonnie had stalked into the room flushed and disheveled.
"Slept in did we?" White Star asked with a wicked grin. His cousins rolled their eyes or grimaced. Finding a bride was a tradition White Star was determined to make a mockery of it. Bonnie ran her fingers through her hair and tried to mask her anger behind a sweet smile.
"In a way," she said, "I was up all night looking for a bathroom." White Star's smile dropped. He tore away from the table to check the state his room was in. Bonnie looked down at Cassandra. "You're in my seat." With a heavy heart, Cassandra scooted back to the middle of their row. Bonnie was full of agitated sighs as she got to her cooling breakfast. "Boys, a simple 'no' would have sufficed." She muttered under her breath. There was a thunder of activity as a shout of disgust was heard down the hall. A handful of trainees were sent to address the mess.
"We should get to the training hall." Suzuka said. He shoveled down the rest of his breakfast. More shouts were heard as something collided with a wall. "Like, now."
They had been taken to a warm, wooden room. The walls were lined with different styles of weapons over the years. The blades well-worn down from years of practice. Suzuka had locked the dojo's doors behind him.
"The beginner weapons are over here." He said, drawing their attention to a bunch of wooden swords and the like. "Pick whatever you're the most comfortable with."
"I'm good." Bonnie shrugged. Elaine worried her lower lip between her teeth.
"I'm not a big fan of inflicting pain." She said. "It's so... unkind." She held out the sword like it was a dirty sock. "Do you have anything more instant?"
"I doubt any of Shinigami-sama's warriors will give you an opportunity to poison them." Suzuka said. "If you get caught in the middle of a mission, you'll need to be able to defend yourself." Cassandra was drawn to the variety of weapons on long metallic chains. Something about them seemed more graceful, and she could see herself dancing with them rather than fighting. If she had to learn to use a weapon, it might as well be a pretty one. There were a set of bronze kunai, each attached to a leather cuff by a chain. "Throwing weapons like that are little more tricky." Suzuka pulled away from forcing Bonnie to take a dagger to join Cassandra.
"That's what the chain is for." Cassandra struggled to get the first cuff on, and had to have help fastening them on. The blades were heavy in her hands and the chains made it seem she had bells strapped to her. If she could just figure out how to use these, she wouldn't feel so scared walking alone on the streets.
"YOU!" White Star had found a way into the dojo. He stalked toward Bonnie, who crossed her arms and stared him down with a cold expression.
"What did you think would happen if you locked someone in a room?" Bonnie took a leap back when he tried to reach out for her. "We're not some unwanted toys. We're human beings." He kicked a short sword her way and drew his own. "You really don't want to do that." There was a silver glint behind her teeth and a metallic clicking noise.
"There's honoring the art of being an assassin," he growled, "and then there's taking a shit on my stuff! If you're going to fight back, fight honorably!" He lunged toward her. She opened her mouth to expose the barrel of a gun and shot the blade off it's handle. She grabbed his arm, and used the momentum to throw him to the ground. She pointed at him, her fingertips morphed into a new barrel.
"I didn't get this far by being 'honorable'," she said, "I did it by doing what it takes to survive." He glared up the barrel at her. "You don't like me, fine. You don't have to like any of us to pick a bride, but if you want us to treat you with respect, you have to do it first." Another metallic click. "You have to sleep sometime." She relaxed from the transformation and let him get up, but they stared each other down with hatred in their eyes. The moment her back turned, he grabbed the sword he'd offered her. There were sparks as the two fought back and forth. He deflected and evaded her bullets, now more wary she was a weapon. He held the blade at her neck and she flashed the barrel behind her teeth at him.
"There is no way to 'easy' path to becoming apart of this clan." He said. "Learn our traditions properly and stay out my room." He sheathed his sword and threw it at her. She caught it, with a sneer. He turned to Suzuka. "Don't go easy on them." He stalked out the training hall. The door to the dojo falling shut with a deafening bang.
The chains of Cassandra's pretty new blades had bit the palms of her hands and left them covered in ugly red marks and black streaks. Still, she took them with her out to the obstacle course, trying to run with the new weight on her arms. The overcast sky was forgiving and cool against her skin as she ran the same route over and over again.
Each new training exercise they had been given, she struggled to preform even bellow average at. Genbu had tried to teach them to suppress their wavelength and disappear in the shadows. The limits of her soul protection spell were put on full display. There was no way to suppress the illusion without exposing herself. Instead she stumbled through the halls like a sore thumb. The only solution would be to compensate with raw strength.
From up in the tree tops she saw someone with a train of silvery hair glide up the steps of the mountain with ease. Bells rang out through the village. Much like when she first arrived, there was a crowd of people waiting by the door. She used the kunai to help get her to the ground, a sinking feeling in her gut that another bridal candidate had arrived.
She ran to where the crowd was and tried to peer over the heads of the younger trainees. Unlike before, there was a sense of dread amongst the clan members. The woman was in her early twenties with pinpoint stars in her eyes. The second they made eye contact, the woman snapped and pointed at her.
"A-as I was saying Lady Venus, we've already started training the brides." Suzuka was left floundering in front of the wolfish woman. "There was no need to come all this way." Venus stalked toward Cassandra, a critical eye on every bruise and hair that was out of place.
"You call this training?" Venus tilted Cassandra's chin up to meet her gaze. "Who are the five current heads of the family?"
"Charon..." Cassandra tried to search her visions, but none of the other heads came up during assassinations.
"Abysmal." Venus took back her knife and circled her. "What do you know about running a household that's hundreds strong? Which doctors are safe to go to?"
"Umm," Suzuka interrupted, "we've been kind of focusing on making sure they don't die first." Venus clenched her jaw and turned to the crowd.
"Where are the other girls!?" Venus demanded. "And where is my brother hiding? This is completely unacceptable." The trainees parted like the red sea as she stormed to the main house hold. As soon as she was inside, everyone ran in a panic to their different stations. The head of the White Tiger branch had arrived.
Venus's arrival had doubled the girls' workload within hours. She was like a burning spotlight, immediately picking apart every little mistake and expecting instant improvement. It was no wonder White Star spent half the day avoiding her.
"Do you remember anything from that three hour lecture?" Elaine asked the other girls as they turned in for the night.
"No!" Bonnie's hair was rolled into tight curls. "I don't care which old fart named their kid what. I just need to know who's going to throw a knife at me in the bathroom."
"I can't study and learn to fight." Cassandra agreed meekly. "I'm already in a fog by lunch." At least with a common enemy, going to bed felt less like entering a battle field.
"She's going to throw a fit during breakfast if we can't answer a single question." Elaine said almost close to tears.
"Well then," Bonnie pulled the curlers out of her hair, "I say we deserve a break." Elaine and Cassandra watched helplessly from their beds as Bonnie threw on some acceptable street wear. "Tomorrow's going to suck regardless, right?"
"...Last time I went outside, there was this monster." Cassandra said. They laughed a bit.
"I was made to kill those things." Bonnie said. "Besides, it's one trip to town and then we'll be back."
"There's more outside than monsters." Elaine offered her a gentle touch. "You'll always be afraid if you don't try." Between the two of them, they convinced Cassandra to join them. It wasn't as if they weren't allowed to leave. Just the thought of braving those stairs again made her shudder.
The three tiptoed out the front doors, none the wiser they'd already been caught. Venus leaned against the door frame of her brother's room with a bored expression. He really could be helpless with the oddest things.
"They've left." She said. "Any that come back won't stay long." With a sigh she looked up at the cobwebs on the ceiling. "Are you sure this is what you want?" In the darkness of his own room he had a stick of incense burning. He watched the ember flicker and glow.
"It wasn't what you wanted." He said with a fraction of venom. "You've seen them. They're squishy, entitled flowers; more of a liability than a help."
When the gods became mortal, the Star Clan remained loyal servants to the underworld. Charon and the other elders kept training for the day they would be called upon, but it had been 800 years of waiting. Within his lifetime, White Star had seen their way of life become obsolete. They had to find a way to adapt.
"As soon as I become head of the clan, I'm going to show everyone we can't be replaced by a damn assembly line." He didn't know how, but he had to prove to the new god of order that they were the best option for eliminating the Kishen-eggs. "I don't need some outsider interfering with those plans."
The town at the base of the mountain was silent. All the lights in the shops were out. The further and further they drove the more it became apparent, they'd have to go the next town over.
"Who closes at seven anyway!?" Bonnie pealed onto the freeway. Elaine and Cassandra held onto the doors for stability. "This damn podunct oil town has nothing for people to do."
"I saw a bookstore." Elaine said.
"Ladeeda, they have one place where you can buy books." Bonnie cycled through station after station blasting country. "Ugh, how does anyone live here?" They found a Whataburger off the freeway that was open and pulled in. "They better have a lot of money to put up with being in the middle of nowhere."
"I'll just be excited to finally focus on poison making again." Elaine sighed dreamily. "My great aunties would be delighted if they knew the Brewster method of assassination was adopted into the Old Ways." Cassandra tried to find a way to disguise her kunai, only to give up and uncouple one of them from the chains. She struggled to take off the leather cuffs while the other girls ran ahead of her. She perked up, hearing a jingle that didn't come from her chains. Across the road, a figure all in white with an abstract mask was writing something in a book.
Cassandra ran across the road, only pausing for the occasional oncoming car. In the full moon light, the Allotter was a rare sight to behold. Her throne lay empty while all witches mourned her disappearance. Cassandra grabbed then end of Iroha's sleeve, just to see if it was real. The emotionless masked turned toward her.
"Oh dear," they said in a deep voice Cassandra wasn't used to, "has it been that long already?" They flipped their golden book to a new section and started scribbling.
"Where have you been?" Cassandra asked. "Lord Death, he's taken over deciding when people will die. People's souls are left defenseless, and there are these monsters-"
"Yes, the experiment has been a great success." They said. "Of the entire population, only a fraction have ignored the rules and become corrupted. Humanity as a whole appears to be inherently good."
"You're letting people turn into monsters on purpose?" Cassandra let go of her and backed away.
"It's a test." They charted the stars in the sky, documented every word, but the only attachment they had was to pure knowledge. "If they can't pass it in life, there's no need to devote resources to aiding them after death. They're the perfect fuel to make better weapons."
"Are you listening to yourself!?" Madness, it could be the only explanation for what she was seeing. A cruel senseless desire to know all things. "You're not there when they're born or when they die. Why should they listen to you when you won't so much as protect them from the demons you helped make?"
"They make themselves, that's the whole point." They closed their book, 'Eibon' in gold letters reflected in the moonlight. "Because of them, you're able to walk among ordinary mortals and appear harmless. People fear something more immediately threatening than the old ones now." They turned their back on her. "I'm not the only one who abandoned my throne." Cassandra shook. She may have left the other witches behind, but that was because they refused to listen to her. Even out in the middle of nowhere she carried her duties close to her chest. She just didn't know how to fulfill them in a world that targeted anyone with magic.
"Cassandra!" Bonnie shouted out into the night. "You coming?" She looked back, and the fate was gone.
She smelled the fire before she saw the smoke. As they had crept back onto the compound in the middle of the night, one of the storage sheds was on fire. Hidden in the angry red flames was a tiny little souls. Cassandra doused herself in rain water and ran into the flames.
The shouts of the other girls running for help were drowned out by crackles. Thick, black smoke burned the inside of her lungs. What little protection she had from the heat evaporated once she got to the back of the shed. Huddled amongst the garden tools, a small child shivered. She scooped them up and ran out. It was too soon for someone so young to be consumed by flames.
She handed the child to the nearest set of hands, barking instructions to submerge his body in ice water to prevent further harm. Scanning the crowd she saw another young one flinch, evidence of a guilty conscience. Headless of the concerned questions she pulled the child out of the crowd.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Her tone was harsh as she towered over the child brought him to tears. "The only people who'll care for you are within these walls and you lit one of them on FIRE!?" It hadn't happened yet. The future of this family was an intrusive vision as real as the dirt beneath their feet. "Lord Death would gladly see this village burned to the ground. He doesn't need your help." One decade was all they had together. They couldn't keep spending it fighting amongst themselves over petty things like pride. "Go, apologize." She was covered in burns herself, but she couldn't be around people. She'd already said more than she should have.
Outraged voices were easy to tune out once she was far enough away. The silence of the training ground was welcoming, but still too close to the others. Past the river, she tossed off her outer clothes and submerged herself in the starlit body of water. The surface of the lake closed over her head. A blurry figure at the edge of an otherwise picturesque view of the sky darted back and forth.
All tension left her body. Her soul protection spell felt less exhausting to maintain, like the water washed away all the pent up magic she couldn't cast since arriving here. The figure darting around overhead threw something at the surface of the water. No point in delaying yet another lecture. She stood up, the water falling off her body to linger around her waist.
"What the hell were you thinking?" White Star threw the makeshift life preserver at her with his sleeves rolled up.
"I wasn't." She slicked back her hair and stepped deeper into the lake to cover her chest. "I didn't say anything that offensive. If I have to apologize to the mother I will." She twisted around to face him. He looked on in horror, his lifeline politely ignored for unknown reasons.
"What are you?"
"What do you mean?" Had she accidentally used magic to get out of the blaze? No one could have seen her wounds healing, she'd been so careful. White Star nodded to a faded warning sign of a soul getting drained.
"You're neck deep in the Kyukon lake and talking." A woman with no training should not be able to withstand having her entire essence leached off of like that. "You drink poison like it's regular tea. You keep forgetting we don't know each other." It couldn't all just be coincidence "What are you?"
Witches get slaughtered and turned into weapons. They are put on Shinigami-sama's list the moment they're born while Kishen eggs were left to fester and grow in the streets. As much as she trusted him, she couldn't trust the others.
"I can't tell you." Her body was starting to feel heavy. "All I can tell you, is I'm here to be your bride, and hope you will believe me."
Growing up, he'd heard a folktale about a crane taking the form of a woman to repay a debt. There were tons of stories like that, where people gained favor from something powerful, only to push too far and loose everything. He always wondered why the people in those stories couldn't figure out when to leave well enough alone and follow the one rule they were given.
"Okay." He held out his hand again. When she accepted it, he could feel the droplets on her skin wreck his body with exhaustion. She just shook it off with a gentle sway, like she'd been in a hot tub too long. If she wasn't an immortal, she had to be someone extremely powerful. "That thing you said, about people dying alone... you really think someone should be always there?" He averted his eyes as she dressed. "It's kind of a crummy job to put on someone. Don't you think?"
"That's how it used to be." She said. "I'm sure someone would want to do it."
"Like you?" He wasn't asking to be cruel, but she could feel the weight of the question hang in the air. She'd seen people's deaths so many times, it was numbing. She could offer no kind words or reassurance. All her power would let her do was witness the end of all things. The golden pair of scissors Maba gave her hung heavy around her neck. The previous fates in her position watched over people from the shadows, never making themselves known. It might be the easiest way to fulfill such a role, but with all the other old ones withdrawing from humanity, it didn't feel right.
"I mean, I'm only one person, but yeah."
"Next time I have a mission you should come." He shoved his hands in his pockets. Surely by now people would be looking to him to handle the aftermath of the fire. He couldn't have them see how close she'd gotten to sacred ground. "I promise to actually show you what we do."