The headmistresses office was a time capsule of the 60s. Tall wooden walls with set in book shelves made the ceiling look miles high. Random geometric shapes were hung on the wall. All the furniture was sharp, sleek, and green. Blue shag carpet held generations of incenses and ash in it. It was all a little too sculpted, too uncanny.

"This is the second time in two days." Endora pushed down on a plastic bird head and set it in motion. It would dip into colored liquid and come back up for air. Her silver hair was curled in a slick bob, looking like sheets of metal. "Apparently you said some upsetting things to your classmates."

"I only said the obvious." Angela couldn't slouch in the perfectly curated plastic chair. "They act like they never went outside."

"They haven't." Endora got up from her glass desk and opened a door to the garden. "Walk with me?"

Her office lead out into a lush greenhouse. Grass peaked through the grey cobblestone path. All the trees and flowers had been left to grow wild, reclaiming the chiseled columns and fountains left behind.

"Every witch has their own familiar." Endora said. "Sometimes they are similar, but they are all unique." The edge of the path was marked with stone platforms that supported sculptures of different animals: cats, bats, and wolves. "All the ones you see here have been lost, permanently." There were some newer ones further into the garden, a python and a black widow. "There are many witches who believed that if you left the magical world, you deserved what happened to you." She tapped the top of the snake's head. "A divine punishment of fate." She stopped at a large featureless statue of a crane. "But people still go, even knowing the risks."

Angela hadn't left the magical world on purpose. She had followed her mother back and forth like she was supposed to. She waited as patiently as she could, but after a few days of being alone, she'd left the apartment looking for food. By the time Mifune found her, her human father had long passed away.

"It's that kind of thinking that has the new Allotter refusing to return. Though we're all grateful one has appeared at all." Endora took an orb out of the claws of the crane. "Does this look familiar to you?" She held it out to Angela who shook her head. "It's a very old test."

Angela took the ball and rotated it in her hands. It was warm despite living in stone. Endora made a wide spell circle in the air.

"Picture this symbol in your mind and tell me what it shows you." She said. "It doesn't matter what you ask of it, just think of whatever comes to mind."

A divination spell? Angela rolled the ball in her hands. She would love to have some sort of grand destiny. Something only she could do. Mifune, Kim, Tsubaki, Black Star so many people risked a lot just to save her; and what did they have to show for it? Why her?

The crystal went pitch black. Tiny lights one after another appeared like paint splatters. One towards the bottom brighter than the rest.

"What does it mean?" Endora asked.

"I don't know." Angela rotated the ball, the dots remained firmly in place, like a peephole in a planetarium. "I think they're stars."

"Are they good stars or bad stars?"

"What are you talking about?" Angela pursed her lips. "You can see the same thing I do. It could be a location, or a constellation, or an event. It could mean anything."

"Exactly." Endora took back the orb, a little disappointed. "It is what you choose to do with it. When your vision comes to pass, you should have the answer by then, but that takes time. More than two days." With the orb back in it's resting place, she turned to Angela. "Everyone here is training in the hopes that they one day will be chosen by Maba to take her place. It is the only position a witch can hold that challenges Lord Death. Is that what you want?" If she became the next queen of witches, peace talks between the two sides would be so much easier. She'd be like a hero.

"Sure."

"Then that is why you're here Ms. Angela." Endora said. "Not to pick fights or compare yourself to other witches. If it happens again, I'll have to actually punish you." She looked back at the statue. Another dead end. The last time the Inevitable hid for this long, horrible things happened.

In the dead of night, a woman with white rabbit hat stumbled across the pavement. Magic wasn't outlawed in the mortal realm anymore, but seeing a skull mask in the audience of her show sent shivers down her spine. Lord Death's old, grim mask had become a symbol of pride for the old guard of meisters and weapons. So as soon as she got her payment, she packed everything she could in her trunk and wheeled out to her hotel. She couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, even though every time she glanced over her shoulder, no one was there.

The lady at the front desk spared her a glance and a nod. The dim lighting of the lobby hardly enough to chase away the chill as she punched the number to her floor only to remember she needed her key first. She riffled through the front pocket of her bag to find it missing. Then, with a few delayed taps, waved her phone in front of the sensor pad before punching in her floor.

As the silver door slide shut, she breathed a sigh of relief. The rattle of the elevator a comfort as she could see in the mirror wall, that she was at long last, alone. There was a chirp, as the elevator opened up to an empty floor. The rest of the building had gone to sleep, or at the very least, were observing the curfew set by the hotel. In the privacy of her own room, she kicked off her heels onto the tacky carpet. Her trunk hit the floor with a thud and she dialed groaned as her manager insisted on calling her back instead of texting.

"What do you mean you can't kick them out?" The bunny witch huffed when she was met with a bunch of corporate babble. "I don't care that they aren't 'hurting' anyone, that was clearly meant to scare me." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Then tell the venue it scares the kids. Wasn't that the whole reason they retired that look? If another one of those freaks shows up at my show, I'm walking off set." She threw the phone on the bed. "Unbelievable."

Something black and gold skirted out of view of the bathroom mirror. The feeling of being watched back and more present than ever. She turned, a set of golden sheers plunged through her chest painlessly and then snagged on something deep inside her. The warmth from her limbs drained instantly and someone roughly grabbed her soul before she could figure out what had severed her connection to her body.

A white gloved hand popped the soul with bunny ears into a jar. It bumped against the glass walls helplessly, but ultimately aimless as it settled into blissful unconsciousness. Two gold coins were placed on the body's eyes. They placed the plastic key card they'd stolen next to a burning pile of incense and left the room.

Black Star and Maka arrived at Kid's office bright and early. After thinking about it all night, Maka had gone ahead a grabbed the paperwork for a permanent weapon training permit. It felt a little drastic of a change, but she liked training with someone again, instead of doing it all on her own.

"Love what you've done with the place." Black Star said. The walls of Kid's office had been desecrated with what could only be described as a shrine to Tim Curry from his Broadway days in Spamalot. "The paper flowers are a nice touch."

"That's where your report on the case went." Kid said, his eye twitched. "Someone broke into the archives and while we were investigating, that happened." He loved Chrona dearly, but the sooner that disaster of a weapon was back on the moon, the better. "Though it's good to finally have some good news." He said. Maka and Black Star looked at each other and then back at Kid.

"Umm, thank you." Maka said.

"See, told you he be happy to have you go into the weapon track." Black Star nudged her. Kid tilted his head, ever so slightly in confusion, then hastily changed the subject.

"Of course." He flipped open a pad of paper, each page carefully cut in the shape of Texas. Complete with all the ridges and valleys. Kid closed the pad and shoved it to the side. He needed a better lock on his study. "How is the investigation going?"

"...I was going to ask you that." Black Star asked. "Maka's mom showed up and said she was taking over."

"Kami told you this?" Kid hit a button under his desk. "When did this happen?"

"Yesterday, during the break in." Maka said.

"She was here at the school?" Kid said.

"Yeah," Maka said as Chrona walked in, "why would that be a problem?" Kid turned to Chrona.

"We fired her." He said. "You saw me, I gave the whole speech, she got her two weeks, she's off the payroll." He paused to clarify. "Kami Tanaka."

"Yes, I was there." Chrona said. She saw Maka and Black Star shell-shocked in their chairs. "What's going on?"

"She's still taking missions."

"What do you mean you fired her?" Maka couldn't fathom a scenario where that would be the right thing to do. "What did she do?"

"There have been several meisters and weapons that have refused to abandon my father's list. Kami was," he corrected himself, "is one of them."

"It has to be a misunderstanding," Maka said, "I know she can be kind of stubborn-"

"She threatened to kill me Maka." Chrona said. Granted, a lot of people had over the years, but they weren't on the payroll either. "No hard feelings or anything, but she knows she's not welcome at this school." It was a logistical nightmare trying to part ways with someone who still had the respect of several high ranking DWMA members.

"We can't have her interfering, especially since the goal is to question the suspects before making a decision." Kid said. Chrona was able to weed out the authorization request they needed from the origami roses. "Go to Asuka, see if you can get any leads on where they moved to. We'll handle the rest."

"Oh, and before I forget, Maka-" Chrona paused when Kid tapped their arm. They tried to get some kind of explanation, but Kid kept trying to say it silently with his eyes, which he should know by now told them nothing. "G-good luck?" Maka and Black Star left the room with their new instructions in hand. All the while Chrona and Kid were confusing each other with half whispers and vague pantomiming.

"Those two get weirder every year." Black Star said.

The set of stairs to get to Asuka were cracked and overgrown. The look out towers that once loomed past the treetops had long caved in on themselves. Maka used the skull key they'd been given to unlock the fortress door and pushed inwards.

She hadn't expected the grounds to be so green. Wildflowers in yellows and purples thrived as far as the eye could see. Masking the shacks that once had been homes in a quaint, picturesque frame. No birds were chirping in the trees, no fuzzy little creatures called this place home. Besides the distant babble of a stream, all was silent.

"Hello?" Black Star called out. Maka smacked him with the back of her hand against his chest. "Don't want to be rude." Black Star joked. Walking through the waist high plants carved a path through nature as they made it to the main training hall. Maka spared a glance back at the broken flowers they left behind. If someone had come in this way, they would have known.

"Hello~" Black Star sang out to an empty hall. "I'm home."

"Black Star, no one's here." She said. A long table laid smashed to pieces next to the far wall, blanketed in a thick layer of dust. The scars of swords and knives preserved in the wood grain.

They past room after room frozen in time. Dead landline phones with gimmicky covers, rotted posters, moth-eaten clothes; it was all so normal looking.

One of the larger rooms had a bunch of baby things shoved in a closet. Maka dug through the drawers looking for diary entries, maps, anything that could point toward a secondary location. Black Star poked through a chest at the end of the bed. He pulled out an old cookie tin full of labeled crystals to find a some sparkly blue thing folded up in the corner.

"Hey, Maka." He held the vintage dress up. Each bead fogged over by age, but still trying to shine. "This your style?" She gave him a flat look as she snapped one of the draws shut. "I guess that's a no." It was really pretty, but it was more the principal of the thing that got her. Black Star dropped it on the bed and closed the trunk with his foot.

"There's nothing but old photos in here." She flipped through the pages as Black Star rounded toward the back hall. Generations of weddings and birthday parties left to mold in a drawer. She rounded the corner, seeing a brief glimpse of Black Star in some kind of office. A shelf of different kinds of jars, some shattered from years in the sun, lined the uppermost wall. Maka stepped around a broken end table to where Black Star was putting a stack of papers back where he found them. "Find any secret passages or fake drawer?"

"You read way too many detective novels." He bit his lip. "Let's go check around the back." He forced himself to laugh. "People always like to leave stuff in the yard." An old obstacle course had been left to be consumed by grass and dead leaves. Signs with different colored stripes had faded in the sun. Long lines for rope dangled from the tree branches like popped balloons. "Race ya?"

"What are you-" Maka saw him jump up on one of the old platforms. "Can you at least try and take this seriously?" He whistled the same notes as a driving game count down.

Three.

Two.

"HEY!" He dashed away from her, able to leap up into the trees while she ran to catch up. "Black Star!" It wasn't long before he changed courses, traveling up the mountain side. The over grown trees melded into tendrils of wisteria caught in the breeze. For all his ducking and weaving, he couldn't avoid her soul sight. She dashed right where he was planning to land. As he touched the ground, she looped her arm around his waist and sent them tumbling off the grass to a flat plane of rock. "What has gotten into you!?"

He was on top of her, but she was the one who had him pinned, too afraid he'd take off the moment she let go. She could feel his heart beat bludgeon against her chest. Heat radiated off the toned plains of his back. Which she was not going to let herself get distracted by. Not when he'd acted so childishly.

He laid there for a while, finding his breath a little too close to the shell of her ear. He kept his face out of sight until he could plaster a smile back on that would sooth her growing apprehension. The adrenaline could only postpone reality for so long. He'd be damned if he let her see stupid gut reaction he had to something he should have already known.

"It was bad." He knew she'd have more questions. There wasn't much more he could say about it. The reason Shinigami-sama had banned any of the teachers from telling him about his family a betrayal and understandable all at the same time. There was already more pressing things to worry about. The last thing he wanted was for Maka to coddle him over something neither of them had control over. He pushed himself up onto his arms to finally look Maka in the eye, hoping she'd ignore any trace of vulnerability and let it go. This case would keep stirring up old resentments she had no idea about. They'd been lucky they hadn't run into anyone who noticed so far, but if they continued like this. "Maka-"

"Move your head." She gently pushed his face out of the way. They were under some kind of pavilion. Embedded into the ceiling were five small mirrors and a large circle around it. "It's a trap." Black Star leapt off of her. He hadn't sensed anyone. "No, up there. Isn't that the trap star formation?" She pointed and he slowly walked to where the center of the target would be. Bellow them was a faded mural of Japan. "That one lines up with the Hoshi dojo." Maka realized. "And Shin village over there."

"Well Ms. Detective," Black Star gestured to his spot on the map, "up for a trip to Kyoto?"

All of the magical tools had been locked up in the underbelly of Shibusen. Kid had a small research team devoted to studying and classifying the different items, as well as how to counter their effects should they fall into the wrong plans. So far, the initiative had been an effective way to rehabilitate those that fell under the Book of Eibon's curse.

"The good news is, all the magical tools are accounted for." Gopher said after they had recovered from the break in. "The bad news is, something else was stolen." A sketch was held up to the mirror of a pair of sewing sheers.

"What does it do?" Kid asked. He'd never seen anything like it on one of his missions.

"We're not sure. The piece predates Shinigami-sama's era." Noah said going through what little notes he had. "It's ritualistic artifact dripping with residual magic, we found it along side other deadly objects like the Ark of Famine. It likely belonged to a witch."

"So it kills people?" Kid asked.

"Probably." Gopher sighed. "They'd have to know how to use it first." Kid would have to send Soul and Patty out to look for it. "On the bright side, we looked into that painting from Shin you sent us, you don't have to worry about it."

"It's a scrying painting." Noah showed a close up image of the mural. Each stroke was made with small circular motions. "The ash changes colors when used with divination magic. This wasn't someone's desire, it's a prediction." He zoomed out and gestured to the black hands reaching out from Asura's eyes to the sky above. "One that's already come to pass." Someone had predicted the Kishen's release, a world covered in black blood, and the lengths he'd gone to hide. Tsubaki said the Kishen Egg that had hunted Death Scythes was already taken care of, but then why had someone gone into the home recently?

"Who's the other figure in the painting?"

"Fool!" Excalibur leaped in front of the mirror, startling everyone.

"We have to go." Noah hung up immediately. Kid furiously turned towards Excalibur.

"Why are you-"

"Morai!" Excalibur pointed his cane at Kid's face. "Sweet princess of the stars. Consumed by Asura so he could defy her tapestry of fate." One of the Old Ones who passed during his father's fight with Asura. "Her fragments are but pale imitations; children playing with leftover scraps of destiny." Kid fought the hypnotic pull of Excalibur's fantastical delusions. "This new world would not have blossomed under her tyranny. She always cheated at chess!" A board laid out of only kings on one side and queens on the other. "You shall be red, and I shall be white."

"We don't have the correct pieces." Kid said as Excalibur captured one of Kid's kings.

"Now, you move here." Excalibur pointed to a square.

"That isn't how you play." Kid got up. "I'm not playing with you. I have other important things to take care of."

"You have to play." Excalibur said. "You can't go making up rules, just so you can take more of my pieces. I made this board, and I say it's your turn to move here."

"The rules are there so it's fair for both sides, there's not point in playing if you're going to say what everyone does." He hated getting swept up in all this. "Chrona, he's in my office messing with my stuff again." Excalibur laughed to himself as he scooted all the pieces around the board. In many ways, Kid was exactly like his father.

Maka and Black Star landed in Kyoto. It was late in the evening, Maka had been jumping through their contacts on the mirror, updating the others on what they found. She'd barely noticed the dirty looks of the locals as they'd gotten to their apartment like hotel.

He hadn't realized how much Maka had openly been staring at him the last few weeks until now. With those weapon papers signed, she'd tried to build back up a wall of professionalism. No more searching his eyes when she made vague, cryptic statements or studying his scars as if they'd change without her noticing. Now, he'd get a prickle at the back of his neck and turn just in time to see her look at her phone or whatever was handy. If she was going to pay him special attention, the least she could do was let him enjoy it, instead of working brick by brick to be a 'proper' partner.

The subtle implication he should probably should do the same was even more frustrating. Not that she had ever said anything to suggest it. The most harmless of actions, like glancing at her exiting the bathroom after a shower, felt like a trap. The image of her darting out in his old shirt to pull clothes she'd forgotten to bring back into the humid room burned into his mind. He was left staring at the open suitcase like she'd reappear, when he should have been paying attention to Angela's finally opening up about how school had been going.

"And then, she said if I did really good, I could become queen!" Angela told him over the phone. He could hear her pacing around the dorm, close to bursting with excitement. "Penny showed me her familiar, and it's this little leopard gecko. They use the same cages as chameleons, so she said she I could have all of her old stuff. When mine finally appears, I could keep it in the dorm here."

"Penny?" Black Star asked.

"Yeah, Penelope," Angela said, "we're partners in ADC, but I've been secretly teaching her actual combat. She can detach her limbs and grow new ones. It's so gross. We're going to see if she can make like, a mannequin out of them for training purposes. The teachers here are so weird about 'fights'. They said I can't touch anyone at all and that 'stupid' is a bad word. So I figure if we make a person out of arms, it's a something, not a someone."

"That's great, I'm glad you've made a friend." He would need pictures of their horrifying creation whenever it was finished. "That thing you drew, Maka said it looked like the constellation Orion." At the mention of her name, Maka perked up and came over, back in her own clothes. The towel she'd been using thrown over a chair to let the air do the rest of the work, and as soon as she looked him in the eye he turned his attention to the phone.

"Yeah, but what does it mean?" Angela waited until Black Star had her on speakerphone.

"Orion's the oldest Greek hero in written record." Maka said. "Though, by today's standards, he wouldn't be the most heroic. He definitely was the most powerful, the greatest hunter to ever live, envied by the gods. The constellation is made of some of the brightest stars in the sky." There was a deafening silence on the other line. "It appears the brightest at the end of winter. There was also a cult around it."

"Maka, she gets the idea." Black Star said. "Why do you want to know?"

"...no reason." Angela sighed. There was still no way to narrow down why that was what she saw. She'd hoped since it was stars, it had something to do with Black Star, but he was just as miffed as she was. "Thanks for trying though. I'll talk to you later, it's supposed to be light's out right now." She hung up without another word. Black Star stared back at the call screen, they'd only talked for ten minutes.

"See, she's having fun." Maka came up behind him shook his shoulders a little, but he couldn't help but worry.

"Too much fun." He muttered under his breath. That had been a terribly suspicious 'no reason' to end on.

"Listen to you." Maka rubbed his shoulders a little. "Has hovering helped any of this, at all?" His silence spoke volumes. "You have to let her figure it out on her own."

"I just don't want her to think I abandoned her at some school." She squeezed his shoulders one last time. He brought one hand up to hold her right one against him. She easily forgot that some people didn't see school as the escape she did. "We got to figure out if you got any abilities that'll trap those rookies."

Typical, anytime Black Star didn't want to think about something, he'd dive head first into some crazy exercise. Training was diversion, punishment and exoneration all wrapped into one. They had a long day tomorrow, and Maka wasn't up to running around a new city in the middle of the night.

"How do you plan to do that?" She asked. He patted the seat beside him on the couch bed and turned to face her.

"You gotta transform first." Black Star said. "Then I'll go in and ask whoever else is in there." He raised an eyebrow when she seemed concerned. "You've done it before, the little red guy."

"That was the black blood, that wasn't apart of Soul." Maka said.

"If there's nothing there, then we'll figure something else out." He rested his hands palm up on his lap. "You said if I had any bright ideas, you'd try them. This has always worked in the past."

"Alright." Maka sighed. It was easier for her to transform in and out now. She relaxed into her weapon form. "Now what?"

"Now's the hard part," Black Star said, "you have to relax." It'd been a long, stressful day, and he really wanted to feel like they accomplished something other than running around in circles. Despite his frustrations, they maintained a steady resonance link. His eyes slipped shut as he went into a meditative trance, like many times before.

Golden stalks of wheat stretched out as far as the eye could see, glowing like fireflies under a moonless night sky. Black Star was standing in the heart of an observatory. The walls were lined with shelves full of knickknacks and figurines of the things Maka had studied in the past. Large standing maps marked the places she had gone to for missions and the floor was covered in disorganized piles of charts, and other resources pertaining to the case. In the center, an ornate golden telescope. The stairwell down was covered by a thick black curtain. Maka pulled it back just enough to slip by before closing it again.

"I was expecting a library." Black Star said with a wry smile. "This is much prettier."

"Shut up." Maka ushered for him to follow her up to the telescope landing pad. "You can see everything from here." He took one look through the lens and immediately pulled back. The glowing dots in the sky weren't stars, they were the souls of other people in the hotel. "The closer they are, the easier it is to see."

"That's great for finding things about other people, but we're here for you." Everywhere else the telescope would show him was just more wheat fields. "What's out there?"

"Nothing important." She said. He went back down the stairs and towards the curtain. "What are you doing!?" She ran over and blocked the entry way.

"Trying to go outside." He said. "This is the only way out." She squirmed a little in place, feeling him push with his wavelength even though he was just standing there. "It can't be that bad."

"I'll lead you outside." She said finally. "But no getting distracted, no poking at things until we're out." She led him down to a dark part of the observatory. Slick black walls were hidden by a dense maze of broken trinkets. He recognized some sports equipment, a torn-up wedding dress, a first-place trophy for hand-to-hand combat, and something that looked like Soul's favorite headband from high school. "What did I just say?"

"I'm coming." Black Star hurried up behind her. "Sorry, just a lot of cool stuff down here."

"It's just junk." Maka pushed open the exit, briefly blinded by the golden light. "Alright, here we are." The occasional breeze made the wheat bend in waves. He put his hands in his pockets and started to wander. "What are we looking for exactly?"

"I don't know." Black Star shrugged. "Last time, it approached me." He wandered out further, the stalks sparser as they stumbled across a small pond. In the center, a blue crane was nudging it's beak against the water's surface. Like it could move the position of the souls in the sky just by touching their reflection. "Hello." It looked up at him and cocked it's head to the side. "My name's Black Star, who are you?" It rushed forward, it's talons sunk into his shoulder and a beak pulling at his hair. "Hey, woah, what the hell?" The bird settled a little, still inspecting him for any flaws before dismounting onto the ground. "What's your name?"

"Black Star, you're talking to a bird." Maka said. He cupped Maka's face in his hands.

"I know what I'm doing, but you have to let it do the talking." He said.

"I'm not-" She saw the bird ruffle its feathers in disagreement. "Fine." She pulled away from him. "Go ahead." Black Star turned back to the bird.

"What's your name." The bird tilted it's head left and then right.

"Don't remember." It said, with a tight anxious tone. "Too fresh. No point in picking. It'll change anyways." It looked him up and down and nudged him in the shoulder with it's beak. "Wrong. Too still."

"What do you want me to do?" Black Star asked.

"Something new." It's eyes sparkled. "That bloody, rage-filled snake-thing, it always craved courage and power. So boring, so droll. I crave more than the mere envy of the gods." It circled them overhead. "The path of the warrior leads down one well-trodden road. Show me something new."

"Maka, you trust me, right?" He asked. She nodded, as he firmly grabbed one of the stalks of wheat and broke it in half. "I'll do whatever you need me to." He separated the stalk from the flower. The spirit overhead sung out a chaotic song as the wind howled. "So, show me what you're hiding." He took a bite of the flower, and instantly felt grief on his tongue again. There was something more benign underneath it. The rush of emotions that come at the final chord of a song, all joy and satisfaction and hope another will start again. The flower belonged planted in the ground, not harvested.

"Blind faith," the bird landed in the pond, "I remember it. Your's is a warm sort." It cocked it's head up toward the sky. "I can't unbury what I haven't hidden, but a bright light can go a long way." Somewhere buried in the things Maka called junk, was what they needed. "Please, continue to surprise me."

Black Star opened his eyes, and stared at the silver grommets that held the blade to the rest of the polearm and pressed on one. It slipped down easily and with a slight tug, the blade popped off. As he pulled, a coil of chain followed it. Now he had a scythe blade and a staff. He kept feeding out more chain and let it coil over his lap. There was enough to use in some of the smaller trap techniques he used. If he could just teach Maka the formation, she could help him out.

"See, I told you." He laughed. Suddenly her weapon form was encased in light and she was human again. "Maka?" She was out cold. The mediation must have taken more out of her than he thought. "You should have said something." He nudged her awake, earning an incoherent string of questions. "Come on, we already agreed, you get the real bed." She groaned as he helped her to her feet.