(1987)
Goiânia had several gallery forests and more pleasant places to be. Eibon insisted Arachne should meet them at an abandoned hospital. There was little Arachne could do as a handful of spiders other than announce herself or watch from the shadows. She crawled through a shattered window into the bowels of the facility. Eibon was standing in the room, a blue glow coming from the substance they were handling. The entire room was lit up like a child's nightlight.
"Thank you for meeting with me." Eibon said. "I really need your expertise."
"It's expertise now?" Arachne crawled up on the ceiling to look down on the long-dethroned monarch of the magical world. "What happened to maniacal heretic?" Eibon's pale hair had been half shaven off, with feathers and random trinkets braided into the remaining tresses. The clothes they wore less structured now, more like random fabrics of clashing textures held to themselves with various sashes around the waist. Once a perfect beacon of light now waning into something unrecognizably callous. The witches had been quick to point the finger at Lord Death, but Arachne wasn't so sure. It was the same pattern as Asura. The gods were not meant to live and feel like mortals did, it did strange things to them. Asura's empathy had twisted into a fear of all humanity and Eibon's curiosity had turn them into this.
"The processes of creating new life was undeniably unethical." Eibon used a screwdriver to scoop out fine powder into a sieve. "But the weapons have been incredibly stable, and the trait is homozygous dominant. It truly is uniquely, new life." They flipped through the book of Eibon and pointed to the chapter of Envy. "If the process is sound, it should be replicable." They had all the necessary pieces for a child's body tactfully in a cauldron. "It is possible make a human child in the image of an Old One?" Possible, yes, but Asura had been an unmitigated disaster. The only reason Arachne had succeeded making weapons, was she had been days away from being crowned the new Spinner. If she hadn't been caught, she could have gone on to make all kinds of new and interesting things with that magic.
"It took all the magic from one witch's soul to make a weapon." Arachne receded into the corner of the ceiling where she'd be hard to grab. "Humans are incompatible with most types of magic, but the shapeshifting always seemed to stick." Humans were born to change and adapt, perhaps that was why they took to shapeshifting so well.
"What about necromancy?" If they could make a Shinigami that grew and looked the way humans did, then that would achieve a compassionate Death. One that had as much as an affinity for the living world as well as the underworld.
"It'll animate the body, but you need to give it a soul first." Arachne said. Eibon put a little water in the vial and swirled it around until is was a vibrant glowing ooze.
"That's the easy part." They drank the ooze. "The hard part will be waking up after." They reached into their own chest, and dug their fingers into a large chunk of their soul. They pulled, taking one grigori wing and severing it from it's pair with long stringy threads. They let go, and flipped a lever so the other ingredients tipped into the cauldron one after the other. As the soul floated down into the old heart, a ripple broke the water's surface. "It's beating." Eibon leaned against the metal container for support. They wouldn't have to worry about what they'd forget, the book of Eibon contained everything they ever learned. "Write this down spider, write it down." The limbs sewed themselves together in all the right places, by sheer will of the soul fragment. "If I'm as close to death as I can be, surely this one too, will feel its presence." Bubbles rose to the surface.
"It's going to drown if you don't fish it out." Arachne said.
Eibon plunged their hands into the cauldron and pulled out a squalling child with black hair. A long, healthy thread of fate was coiled deep inside the soul as it closed itself up with little fan fair. It was so squishy and helpless.
"Take what you want from the room." Eibon squeezed the wriggling thing a little too tight. "I got what I need." Not quite a shinigami, not quite a witch. The perfect balance all wrapped up in a brand new homunculus.
(1990)
The headlines that circulated around the murder of 'just some guy' Cali Jones and his legion of followers was, in a twisted way, an advertisement for the Star Clan's skills. White Star made shrewd use of the misinformation surrounding the event. Loathsome people who died of natural causes? Star Clan. Corporate big-wigs, religious zealots, doomsday scam artists; all of them could fit on the list for the right price. Though due to high volumes, their assassinations may have to be bumped back, to align with the stars or whatever Nova used to determine when people's times were. She hadn't been wrong yet.
The only thing they didn't mess with were kids. Nova was the only one who'd listen to those kinds of requests, and even then, only in extenuating circumstances. She'd seen a lot of children succumb to illness and received violent messages from the people she rejected. Every time she brushed it off, she didn't pick when people died, but she could pick how. The toll it took on her cheerful persona etched into every new wrinkle on her face.
Still, the notoriety, and the prosperity it brought was a blessing for the family. As much as Venus had fought for Nova to leave the family, she couldn't deny the results. The dining halls were filled with new trainees and the speed it took to fulfill missions was increasing by the year. Elaine and Genbu were particularly proud of how easily they could slip poisons into cocaine and other party drugs. Seiryu had her hands full teaching rouge weapons how to act as their own technicians, and Suzuka had been able to leave the field to focus on what he called brand consulting.
"White," Nova burst into his office, "sorry, didn't mean to interrupt." White Star waved her over.
"As I was saying," the man continued, "I didn't get a chance to kill her, some kid did."
"...A child killed Madame Forrest?" White Star asked, knowing by now Nova needed a name to see someone's end. "The ax murderer dressed as a bunny got Home Aloned?"
"I know it sounds bananas," the man said, "but I swear to god. This little teeny bopper comes down from the roof and electrocutes her with this hammer thing. They had a little school uniform skirt on and everything and just fed the soul to the weapon."
"I can see it." She said.
"Thank you Lady Nova." The man was close to tearing his hair out. "I'm not the only one. Bonnie saw some ten year old running around Brooklyn with a scythe in broad daylight the other day. I don't know where the hell their parents were." A twelve-year old girl and her fourteen year old weapons had been sent to assassinate a Kishen Egg? The uniform she was seeing, it had Lord Death's sigil on it. "I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to accidentally hit some kid flipping all over the place like it was gymnastics class, but what the hell are we going to tell the client?"
"Same thing we always do." White Star said. "If the target is gone, they need to pay up." The trainee nodded begrudgingly and left the office. Nova gripped White Star's shoulder, barely able to contain her excitement.
"A boy!" She said.
"It was a boy in the skirt?" She was hopping in place, the glitter from her outfit covered the walls in bright, dancing sparkles as she shook her head.
"We're having a boy!" He got out of his chair. Six years of trying and finally Nova had good news about it. For all her abilities to see into the future, this was the part she was always uncertain about. "It's super early, but I checked and this is the one. We're finally going to get to hold him."
"Nova that's great!" He held her tight. Her shoulders shook and she buried her face in his chest. As happy as he was, the way she clung to him was a little unsettling. "Don't torture yourself looking, please." Because, if she checked to see if this was it, then she had to have seen the end. "I'm right here, we're all right here."
"I know." She suppressed a tiny squeal. "We're all here."
Lord Death's attempt at a school was confusing to most at first. The decor screamed of someone trying to appeal to children's tastes, but grossly misunderstanding that maturity levels varied between six year olds and sixteen year olds. Previously, Shinigami-sama had trained weapons himself. Suddenly, he was outsourcing help to anyone willing to lend a hand. The promise of being branded as a 'safe' weapon offered to anyone who entered.
Spirit had potential. He had a classic scythe form, he got along with pretty much anyone he met, and he had the worst partner. Instead of pairing up with a pretty girl, he'd gotten stuck baby sitting his underclassmen, Stein. He just needed nineteen more souls and he'd finally be done with this whole mess for good. He been venting his frustrations to his fellow weapons when a blonde meister exited Lord Death's chambers with her head held high. From the ribbon in her hair to the color of her shoes, everything was dress code accurate down to the last hair.
"Looks like the partner poacher's done it again." Azusa said. Two stars shown prominently on the plastic badge the girl had pinned to her blazer. "Jinn was at seventy a few months ago, so it's not surprising." The smug look of superiority Kami had when looking down on her fellow meisters was not the best look. Most people found her grade grubbing off putting and her methods demonic.
"She could poach me any day." Spirit leaned against the locker and gave Kami a wink. She rolled her eyes and kept walking. "I'm going to be stuck with Stein forever. He hasn't taken a mission in months. It's like he's waiting to harvest my other kidney."
"Oh Spirit, you're so funny." Marie said.
"I'm not joking!" He felt around his abdomen. "If it's not my kidney, it's something else. I've lost twenty pounds in the last week."
"If you spent your money on food instead of... magazines, you'd be in a better state of health." Azusa tilted her glasses and blinded Spirit with the glare.
"Those beautiful angels are my only reprieve," Spirit's eyes glistened with tears, "I could be nourished by the dew of a ginko leaf if I had to; but don't deny a man his only passion in life."
"Pig." Marie shook her head and walked away.
The bathroom stalls in the girls bathroom always has dumb things written on the walls. People claiming ownership of the stall, or their partner, or little stick doodles piddling on things. Kami had seen her name written a few times, but it didn't matter. She was the first in their class to become a two-star meister.
"God, she's so annoying." A gaggle of girls from Kami's class entered the bathroom in a herd like they always did. "She acts like I'm in third grade. Just because I want to have a party, doesn't mean I have to invite everybody in our class. Just people, I actually like."
"Mom's suck." Her friend smacked her lips after reapplying her lipstick.
"I wasn't talking about my mom." The first girl cackled. "I was talking about Kami. So don't say anything, or were going to have to act like we all have mono again. I'm thinking nachos and then get the roller TV out by the pool so we can marathon Back to the Future."
"You got the third one already? Lucky." They all giggled. "I wish my dad bought everything that came out. I'd be a total cinephile if it wasn't so expensive." Kami exited the stall and the other girls rolled their eyes and looked at each other. It was deafeningly quiet as she washed her hand. As soon as she was out in the halls, she could hear them start laughing again. Jinn hadn't called her since he got stationed overseas. Her other partner too, once they became Death Scythes they just stopped talking to her. Who cares what lesser students thought of her? She certainly didn't. She definitely wasn't going to hide her face in her locker so people couldn't tell she'd been crying.
"Kami!" She braced herself, but the locker door couldn't hide her from this weirdly persistent guy. "How's the most beautiful girl in the world?"
"What do you want Spirit?" She shuffled her text books around to make it seem like she had somewhere to be.
"I was thinking, since you're between missions, you'd finally have a chance to get some ice-cream?"
"No." She slammed her locker door shut.
"Aww, why not?" He was following her around again like a lost puppy.
"Because I will have a mission tomorrow, I need my rest."
"With who?"
"I don't know yet," she gritted her teeth, "that's what I'm finding out after fifth period."
"But you just-" She stopped halfway up the stairs and glared down at him.
"I know!" Kami stomped the ground. "But if I take breaks and slack off, I'm going to be stuck with everyone for another year. I just need to get my third star and then I'm out of here." She started skipping steps to get to the upper floors faster.
"No, I get it." He jogged up the steps after her. "I'm trying to do the same thing too." And there it was. Another lazy weapon just trying to use her skills to get ahead faster. She wasn't going to fall for it again. "You know, it could be fun if we hung out a little bit at the same time."
"Do you want to be my partner?" They were at the half floor bend in the stairs. The afternoon light streaming beams of gold through Spirits hair, the blue flecks in his eyes glistening as he stopped short. "Don't pretend to be so surprised, that's clearly what you've been hounding me for."
"I was hitting on you." Spirit said, the back light making Kami look more like an angel than ever. Her face flushed as the gears in her head started to turn. "I wasn't even trying to be subtle." Granted, he hit on everyone, but that was beside the point. "I've been 'hounding' you for a date."
"You're an idiot." Before she could run off, he reached out for her hand.
"Did you really want to partner with me?" Was it finally happening? Had salvation in the form of a cute girl at long last come to separate him from his tormentor?
"Sure, whatever." She hid her blushing face and snatched her hand back. Now she was only twenty souls away from graduation instead of a hundred. She could manage that just fine.
"Ice cream's on me."
Life can be quite cruel sometimes. Nova had watched as the weeks went by and the tiny soul grew, but the thread of fate stopped weaving. It was like the Spinner's magic gave up, and left the wild wefts to fray into thread bare whisps. How much time was in two inches of fate? It was just a blip dwarfed by the lives of everyone around her. White Star worried she'd drive her self mad like this, and she felt nearly there.
"Hello again." She approached the large porcelain vessel in the family head's office. It was the dead of night, no one else around to hear. With one hand against the cool glaze she tried to sense the souls that had been memorialized together. "I don't know if you can hear me, but..." This was, a long shot, but she had to try. "I need more time. I'll take hours, minutes, anything that was left behind. Please," she rested her forehead against the vase, "I don't know what else to do." A tiny golden fleck floated up out of the jar. Then another, and another. Like flaming kindling kicked out of the fire, she collected the fragments in the palm of her hand. "Thank you." It wasn't much, but it was more than she asked for. "Soul Protect drop."
For the first time in years, she let her magic flow free to her fingertips. She rolled the fabric of time between her hands into long thin strands and braided them into the breaks in her son's fate. It wasn't seamless, but she hoped that willpower alone would keep the repaired thread from unraveling once she stopped her casting.
There was a clatter on the other side of the door. She recast her soul protection spell and eased to her feet. One of the daggers White Star collected in her hand as she silently crept toward the door. She threw the door open with the knife overhead, a teapot pointed at her face like it was a gun.
"Elaine?" She relaxed. "What are you doing up? It's the middle of the night."
"I thought someone broke in." She said. "No one's supposed to be in there after hours."
"White Star won't mind, I assure you." Nova sighed with relief. "Put that thing away, I almost shattered it." They parted ways, for their own rooms. As soon Elaine was alone, she pulled out a pager and sent a code. Venus was right, her brother hand been bewitched.
Kami is everything Stein wasn't. She was sweet, she laughed at his jokes, and she was going to be the death of him. Every single day after school, she'd drag Spirit out on another mission. He was creeping closer and closer to their goal to graduate, but at what cost?
"Ooh, here's a good one." Kami took a wooden tile off the wall. "Little kids sacrificing people to a Kishen Egg. This should be easy extra credit." She was so excited, he couldn't bring himself to tell her no. "You said you wanted to check out a corn maze."
"Yeah, at the fall carnival." Spirit said. "Kami, I don't think we should be taking missions for lower-level meisters. It's not fair the new kids."
"If they wanted the quickest mission, they should have gotten up earlier." Kami shrugged. The sun hadn't even woken up yet. "It's right here in the handbook, new missions are posted at five am on the dot." She snapped her little book shut. "Besides, now we can have breakfast together." She really was sweet, and getting to go out every day before classes was kind of nice. He missed his sleep though. "See, I'm not the only early bird. Good morning Stein!"
"Hello Senpai," Stein picked a wooden tile, "they finally opened up the farm with talking animals." His expression was dark as he chuckled to himself. "I can't wait to see how different their vocal chords are from humans." He slipped the tile into his jacket pocket. "After I get some good data, I'll let you know when we'll go."
"Haha, yeah." Spirit could feel Kami's eye twitch as they waved goodbye. She promptly grabbed Spirit by the ear and pulled him toward the nearest supply closet.
"You haven't told Stein!?"
"Well, I mean, I was kind of hoping to tell him after..." Spirit fumbled his words. His previous partner was a living nightmare, he would not take well to poor innocent Kami snatching him up at the last minute.
"You can't go on that mission!" Kami poked him in the chest.
"What's the big deal? It's just one mission."
"A weapon can't have two meisters!" She smacked him on top of his head with her book. "If he reaps the last soul with you, he gets all the credit. It isn't fair." Spirit agreed, but Stein was the one who'd done most of the work. He still needed to practice on missions too. There wasn't exactly a line of other weapons hoping to partner with him. "You have to tell him."
"I... I don't know." Stein took so few missions; it would be easier to just get what they needed and then leave the school. He had full faith Stein would disappear for a week or two doing weird tests on those animals. "It's not like he'll notice."
"Spirit," she sighed, "you like me better than him, don't you?" She batted her eyes at him. "You asked to be my partner."
"Well yeah," he stammered, "of course I like you." His eyes drifted down to her front for all of a second, before meeting her eyes again.
"You want to see them? Then you'll go tell him you're my weapon now, not his." She left the storage closet while he was shell shocked. "And we're going on our mission after school tonight." He could do it, he could tell Stein to his face that he'd been going out on missions with another meister for weeks. Even if there were scalpels and tesla coils and Stein would have to find a new weapon to experiment on. His resolve crumbled a little. He had to think of what lied at the end of the tunnel. He just had to be strong and accountable...
He could do that tomorrow.
The whole car ride over, White Star had tried to debrief the team, but he was definetly starting to loose his patience. The couple's request had been simple. A whole one-horse town had been taken over by kishen eggs. The tricky bastards had the whole thing laid out like a rat maze to trap random wanders.
"For the last time, it's not one kishen, it's a bunch of them." White Star sighed. "All the little buggers got it in their head to eat their parent's souls. All of them."
"But what if one of them is innocent?" Seiryu asked.
"Nova will let you know if something's changed," White Star said, "but as of right now it's all of them. Even the lil ones. They're all little demons."
"And then they listen to the one that lives in the corn field." Suzuka nodded. White Star hit the steering wheel.
"Nope, there's no big one, just little ones." He needed out of this car. "Remember Chuckie? It's a giant Chuckie factory. All of them are little Chuckies. That's the whole reason they're still running around killing people. They go asking for help from some monster in the corn maze and then they kill you." There was a large pop as the driver tire blew out and grinded against the pavement. "We're here."
"...I don't know boss," Suzuka said, "this kind of goes against my moral compass."
"You're moral compass is a roulette wheel. Get out of the car!" He riffled around in his pocket for a cigarette and his lighter. "Nova, can you-"
"Yep, I got it." She herded them out, giving each a detailed description of what their targets looked like and where to find them. They had a spare tire in the car, but he wouldn't be able to change it until all the little Kishen Eggs were dealt with. Normally Nova would handle a mission like this one her own, but fifteen was a lot for one person to handle in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. He hoped, for the love of god, this would go quickly. Through the cloud of smoke, he saw a preppy girl with a red scythe walk in from the distant cornfield toward the town.
"Of all the mission for one of those little shits to pop up." He smashed his freshly lit cigarette in the ashtray and got out of the car. He could see Seiryu crouched on the roof of the local church, ready to strike. He gave an exaggerated signal to her not to attack, with a solid shake of his head. That wasn't one of the ones they were after.
"Hey, kid." He casually walked over to her. "It's a Tuesday, don't you have cheer practice or math class you should be going to?" He wasn't the best decoy, but he could at least give his team time to deal with the actual problem at hand.
"I'm a two-star meister." Kami stood up a little straighter.
"...yeah that mean nothing to me." White Star shook his head. "Look, I got diaper bills to pay, and a client waiting for results. So while I applaud your blind determination to get underfoot, kindly go be brainwashed somewhere else."
"There's a witch here." Kami furrowed her brow. Nothing about the mission said anything about a witch, but she could see the uncanny flicker of a fake human soul. He looked over his shoulder and saw his wife turn in alarm.
"Starlight, a little help." She was caught in the abandoned intersection like a dear in headlights. "They're talking about witches now. I've had it to here with this day." Kami pointed her scythe blade toward Nova. "Woah, what the hell are you doing kid?"
"Get out of the way sir." Kami hopped up onto a lamp post. "I'm Kami Ta-"
"I know who you are." Nova had seen that face and that stance many times before. This was the wrong place, but that time was coming closer. "And you're mistaken." Kami sprung into action, twirling just to be blocked by the flat side of a blade. She was instantly over powered by the strike and tumbled back into the lamp post with a deafening clang. White Star winced; it was probably just a concussion, but still. "We have to leave now."
"Nova, the hell are you on about?"
"You trust me?" She was shaking. "Then fix up the car. I'm calling everyone back in." Kami was already getting off the ground. Nova fled into the corn field. The plotted stalks provided minimal cover as Kami slashed through them with the perfect tool. Nova activated every touchpad the Kishen Eggs had buried. Scarecrows on clothing lines, zipped by, from all around them. Kami sliced through the dolls without hesitation only to block two strikes from Nova's kunai. "Dear Mrs. Albarn." The title shook Kami's concentration just enough for Nova to get a solid strike across her temple. The wound was shallow, but it drenched the left side of her face in a river of blood. Her ears rang like a siren going off in her head. "Right now, you have a choice to make." She used her kunai to throw Spirit a few yards away. "You can choose any other target to finish your weapon, and leave my family alone. Or," the twin blades knicked her hair as they were buried in the dirt on either side of her face, "this will be the rest of your life."
"Leave her alone." Spirit came rushing from Nova's left. She blocked it just in time to see the headlights of their getaway vehicle flash. Grey feathers rained down from above as she soared overhead as Paradise Crane. She landed on the roof of the car. As quickly as possible, she transformed into a her human form before she slipped in through the passenger side window, right into Genbu's lap.
"Drive, now!" Nova wriggled to get her legs in the rest of the way and she crawled over her inlaws to tuck away into the back seat. She heaved a heavy sigh of relief and her shoulders shook. She had Kami pinned, she could have taken her out then and there, but it wasn't the girl's time. She blocked out everyone's rash questions and closed her eyes. The same trail of carnage was waiting for her family by year's end.
Nothing had changed.
"Nova, the blood." White Star shook her knee to pull her out of her vision.
"The child's fine, both of them are." Nova said to the relief of everyone in the car. "They'll take care of the remaining Kishen Eggs." There was a good chance, after this, Lord Death would have them on the run. "We should collect payment before the client catches on."