Angela was finally getting the hang of shapeshifting. She could make herself taller or shorter now, and it was easier to mask her voice. She tried playing with it during her secret combat training with Penny, but it always left her off kilter.
"The first thing I'm going to do when I'm queen is fire Mrs. Bruiax." Penelope huffed. "I do not need a hat to be good at magic."
"Who said you're going to be queen?" Angela lightly teased. "You can't even land a single hit yet." She was great at dodging, even taking the time to file her nails, but Penny didn't make a single attempt to strike.
"It isn't the right time." Penny shrugged. She bent over backwards to avoid a hit than stood back up. "Besides, now I'll know all your moves, so you can't assassinate me." She dropped her nail file in the grass like it was a microphone. "What about you? What would you do?"
"I'd rework the treaty with Lord Death." She said. "If he ever finds out how this school is run, there will be way less meisters, I assure you." She could see him running with the strict, genderless uniforms and the arbitrary curfews. "There should be more spots for witches to attend the DWMA. Everyone here wouldn't be so scared of weapons if they actually meet one." She knelt down to pick up Penny's nail file. Ever so gently, Penny kicked her shoulder.
"And the great patience of Penelope pays off again!" She congratulated herself with a little dance. "You never said time out."
"I barely felt it." Angela dusted off her shoulder and gave her the nail file back. Her new friend seemed a master of waiting for the perfect time to strike. "It doesn't count."
"Yes, it does." Penny said. "Technically, in order to win I had to hit you, and I did. You never said how hard, or where, or even when. Finding loopholes in the rules is what makes a good witch." She said. "Why do you think there are so many here?" She immediately got out her phone and vigorously started searching. "Oh my gosh, check this out, I could wear a little doll hat to her next class. Why didn't I think of this earlier?"
"Is this all you do?" Angela asked with a laugh.
"Kinda?" Penny said, searching for the smallest hat she could find. "It's more like, how I feel safe. The first Penelope used every trick in the book to end up at the bottom of Shinigami's list, and I've survived 3 lifetimes doing that, supposedly. I don't remember any of the others."
"Yeah, I don't know how much of that junk I believe." Angela said. "I shouldn't call it junk, but you know what I mean." She walked over to the brick wall of the garden. A few floors below all the other witches were running around having a good time. "Even if I met another Dart Frog witch, she wouldn't be my mom. She'd be some little kid."
"...There's a Dart Frog in Principal Endora's garden." Penny bit her lip. Somewhere out there, there was a weapon that had stolen that magic.
"You get what I mean." Angela shrugged. "I'm not a thief or an angel of death, even if my magic would make it really easy." Angelos stole from the wicken queens and hid from Lord Death amongst other corpses. There were not many records past when she went into hiding. "The first thing I'd do as queen, would be to make a soul protect anyone could use." If she could have learned that spell sooner, no one would have been able to find them. They wouldn't have had to keep running. Over head, a warning siren wailed from every mermaid statue on campus.
"A fire drill, really?" Penny groaned. They were forced to leave all their combat practice stuff in the grass. "Next order of business. Less stupid drills!"
The closer they got to the ancestral home, the more dirty looks Maka caught thrown their way. Black Star seemed immune to it as they rounded the corner. In the past, the area on the map was surrounded by lush trees and rock formations. Everything had been cut down to make room for more coffee shops and densely packed housing.
"We should get Nishin soba tonight." Black Star said while Maka squinted at the map on her phone.
"Before we leave?" Maka asked.
"We don't have to leave right away." Black Star laughed. "Have you never poked around places after a mission?"
"Of course." She said reflexively, then added a little sheepishly. "Kind of." He laughed at her again. "I had to study sometime. I couldn't do that if I was constantly goofing off."
"Kid's paying for the whole day." He raised his eyebrow suggestively. "We can always leave in the morning. Besides, there are some small Kishen Eggs in the area. We can knock out a few missions on the side while we're at it."
"A few?" Maka grinned. "What's the rush?"
"Is this some kind of joke to you!?" A woman they didn't know yelled at them from a passenger window. Maka narrowly avoided a cup being thrown there way.
"What they hell is their problem?" Maka straightened her jacket with a huff.
"Eh, it happens." He never brought up the rude people he ran into during missions when they were kids. It wasn't exactly a prime conversation topic and nothing would come of shouting about how unfair it was. It would be impossible to avoid now they were partners. "Not as much as it used to, but word gets around." He felt around the outer rock wall to the building. There was a whistle, like air escaping a crack. If he could find where the door was.
There was a sharp crack from above. Two whips lashed out at his hands. The digital camo the weapons was wearing made it hard to pin down her location as she dove for cover near the garbage.
Black Star held out his hand and Maka transformed with ease. He let her guide his sight, by focusing in on the soul that was trying to sneak around to the other vantage point.
He stabbed through the recycling bags. The weapon slid to the left, using her hands to man the two bull whips that bled up into her hair. With wide circular strikes, she tried to gain more distance. The ends of the whips danced on the ground like snakes waiting to strike.
He lunged between the whips and rotated the blade so it'd strike her right down the middle. She pulled her braid through to stop the blade. Her shoes grinded against the concrete as she braced against the powerful blow. Then she noticed the tattoo on Black Star's shoulder.
She dropped the ground and scurried back up the cliff side. Black Star was halfway up when she flipped over head. He dropped to the ground, and came face to face with a board and a sharpie.
"You want an autograph?" He asked. She emphatically nodded. He tucked Maka under his arm as he uncapped the pen.
"Black Star!"
"I've waited my whole life for this Maka, let me have this." He scribbled out his name. The girl turned to show off the tattoo on her back before taking the signature.
"That's the main murder suspect!" Maka shouted.
"Oh right, I forgot that's what we were doing." He took the blade off the staff, the chain gleamed in the sun. "We need to talk kid." She held up her arms in a giant 'x' followed by a bunch of hand gestures. "You can't talk?" She nodded, repeating the sequence of gestures. "You literally can't talk." Another nod. "Well, shit."
"Is there anyone we can talk to?" Maka asked. The girl grimaced in a way that eerily reminded them of how people thought of Excalibur.
Underneath the ancestral home, was a sterile metal base. The girl they followed kept trying to sign to them, but the most Maka could understand was a bunch of 'I's, 'no's and a motion that looked like her blowing a kiss with two hands. Whatever it meant, she didn't seem to mean any harm.
They all came to a laboratory, with a line of empty holding cells. At a desk full of monitors, a boy with two headset microphones sat with his arms crossed. He was expecting them.
"You threw out the earpiece, didn't you Kiro?" He ran a hand through his two-tone hair as she wildly signed at him. "I am not distracting! If you'd listened to me, we wouldn't be in this mess." She flipped him off, then signed something else. "Are you sure?" He looked at the other two. "She wants to take you to meet auntie." He held up a hand. "Not the weapon, just you."
"It's okay Maka," Black Star said to her, "meister's aren't completely helpless without a weapon." The element of surprise was their best bet if this was a trap.
He could feel Maka follow him with her soul perception as he rounded the corner. Kiro offered him a mask. She signed for him to cover his nose and mouth before opening a wine red room. Poisonous plants all grew toward a giant porcelain doll. Lace masked the ball joints and mingled with the overgrowth.
"What is it Kiro?" The creature's voice was like stone grinding into pavement. She looked him up and down with glass eyes, pulled by the vines like a puppet on a string. "It can't be." She went to reach out, then thought better of it. "Kiro, my glasses, please." Kiro put a set of spectacles on a rod into the grasp of the doll's frozen hand. It's eyes set in and then up as amber liquid streamed down the porcelain cheeks and nourished the plants at her knees. "Hello dear, it's been a long time." She lowered her hand to the ground. "You were this big when I saw you last. You may call me Elaine." A Kishen Egg, rooted in place by her own design. There was a sharp crack when she frowned. "We're being watched."
"That would be my partner." He said. Kiro signed something as well. Elaine's jaw unhinged when she laughed.
"On behalf of your departed parents, I wholeheartedly approve." She said. "Especially if you can help us."
"I don't need your approval." He said. "We're here because she's killed people." Kiro held up a single finger.
"One person." Elaine translated. "A man that knew her name." Kiro cycled through a few signs and finished with her pointer fingers and ring fingers at her mouth arching outward. "He attacked her first, she's innocent."
All Maka could see was that Black Star wasn't alarmed. The girl had taken him to a room with something similar to a Kishen, but he hadn't tried to attack yet. Perhaps she was just mistaken.
"Where's the small one?" The boy at the front desk asked Maka. "It's like she disappeared off the face of the planet."
"You mean Angela?" Maka asked. "She's somewhere safe. What do you need her for?" At the back of the room, a doorway opened. A sickly person with steel colored hair lingered in the brilliant white light of their office.
"We need her to say she lied." They said and motioned for her to come forward.
Large cloth Ofuda hung on the walls of the inner office. Thick incense smoke cloaked the inscriptions in a haze. Various healing herbs hung in the window to dry. On the far wall, rows of tiny wooden drawers reached up to the ceiling.
The new leader of the Star Clan was called Sirius. Under all the kimono was a conjoined soul, one part burning brighter than the other, a few years younger than Maka. They gestured for Maka to sit, with the pink haired assassin guarding their back.
"I apologize for Roz's ineloquent attempt to get in contact with you. We had no other options." Sirius said. "She's our best fighter, but she wasn't able to recognize either of you."
"I did!" Roz crossed her arms. "After I made a boob of myself, but I figured it out... sort of."
"My mother came out of hiding to meet with the new Lord Death," Sirius explained, "but we lost contact with her. When we sent Kiro to find her, she was attacked by an old member of the DWMA staff. At this point we could only assume the worst." They could tell Maka didn't believe them. "Ryu went to the school to see if her soul was there, but it wasn't. We found her empty body on the outskirts of town, Ryu's still looking for her head." Cold, calculating, no way for a child to talk about their mother's remains.
"When did this happen?" Maka asked.
"Two weeks ago." She could chalk it all up to shock, or even their profession. It was still a lot to swallow. "She was hoping to speak with the person who purified the Allotter." They tapped on a set of papers with different seal designs on them. "It might be the key to reversing kishenism. Now that the god perpetuating madness is gone, we have our best chance at succeeding." They wanted to talk to her?
"What about the magical tool?"
"What magic tool?" Sirius furrowed their brow. "If there was a tool that could help, Shinigami-sama would have given it to mother years ago." Akane said that no one in the Star Clan would place a tattoo over a chakra, but theirs lined up with the heart, a symbol of compassion. "Someone didn't want us talking to the new Lord Death. That's why we need the little witch to say she lied. Kiro's not the perpetrator, she was supposed to be the third victim."
"I need to talk to Black Star," Maka said, "now."
Victim one, Venus Suta, a double agent from the Star Clan that had been working with Shinigami-sama for decades. Victim two, Yuu Suta, a mentor to Meme, Akane and Ao. He'd trained other members of the Star Clan in his youth. Victim three, an ex member of DWMA security that was trying to attack Kiro, the child of a deceased member of the Star Clan. Victim four, a different member of DWMA security with no connection to the case. Staff had been doubled by then, and that's when the break in happened. She hated to admit it, but it was clear the person they were after changed targets once they realized they'd been caught. Stein had gotten back to her immediately; the fourth victim's corpse was still lingering. Which made the only victim that full passed on, the one eaten by a Kishen Egg, and the one Kiro delivered to the underworld. Whoever was behind this had to have been the one to take the magic tool.
She was led to the wine-red room, where Black Star was casually talking with a Kishen Egg. Maka had seen the soul wrapped in seals before, but now she understood why. It was the only thing holding the Kishen Egg's humanity together. Maka's bravado faltered a bit as she neared Black Star. They were outnumbered in a closed room that was difficult to breathe in.
"This is the one we were told about auntie." Sirius said. "The purifier."
"I did not agree to that name." Maka hissed under her breath when Black Star snickered at her. She couldn't help notice Roz stand between them and auntie.
"It's okay dear." Elaine placed her large, gold coated hands on the ground and bowed her head as much as her porcelain body would allow her to. "She's just as afraid of me. If I must die for my crimes, I would like to do so as a human. Or, at least, as human as possible." She lifted her head. "Is that agreeable to you?" Black Star nudged Maka's arm.
"She wants you to try that soul dive thing on her." Black Star said. "They've been protecting her for the last twenty some years just to see if it works."
"I don't know..." Maka saw the vines constrict the doll's hands in place. "The only people it's worked on so far are gods. I'm not sure a regular person could handle it."
"Then they'll know for sure." Black Star offered her his hand. "I'll help you." Maka took his hand. She didn't need his help, but it would be easier to transform if things went south. She focused with her soul perception and the seals glowed. The will of Maka's weapon form wanted to see something new, this was it's chance to prove it.
Cracks ran across the dolls arms and legs. Maka could see the white silhouette of a person inside the doll. The seals ripped apart. All of the doll's glamor melted back into a misshapen monstrosity. A ceramic nightmare of a dragon that burst through the vines and right toward them. Maka transformed, her blade now made of glittering onyx. She could feel the chain better as Black Star muttered his instructions for the trap star under his breath.
He darted around the room as the dragon chased them. Left, then under and through. He pulled tight on the chain, it glowed a brilliant gold as it constricted around the target and shattered the porcelain dragon. What was left in the trap was a woman with cracked, glassy skin. She lurched forward and dry heaved. Whatever Maka saw come out was viscerally nauseating. Then the trap constricted once more and she was gone. Sirius held Roz back as the dust settled.
"It worked." They said. "I know this isn't what you wanted, but it worked." Twenty innocent souls floated in a room of wilting plants along with one weak Kishen Egg. "It's not their fault she wasn't immune to her own poison." Maka transformed back, practically shaking when Black Star caught her. Sirius gave them a book of the seals. "Take these to the new Lord Death. It's the only proof we have we're on your side." Anyone who once knew about their deal with Shinigami-sama was dead.
"Oi, let the kid go." Black Star said. Sirius let Roz go. She fell to the floor, the stillness in the room made her weak. Kiro punched Black Star in the shoulder. "You're not going to feel better until you can land a real hit." She tried again, but it was just as weak as the first one. She was too upset to do any real damage. "We're going to get your name off this list."
"Black Star." Maka whispered under her breath. "We can't go around making promises like that, we can't-"
"And when your name is off this list." Black Star continued. "You can learn from real weapons how to throw an actual punch instead of hiding around in garbage. Okay?" She nodded and wiped her eyes. "Maka and I have to go, but we'll see you around." Kiro nodded, flipping them off for good measure on their way out.
Daylight had long passed when they made it out of the ancestral home. The street lights flickered as Black Star kicked on of the cans that got loose during their previous fight.
"You don't have to worry about me making false promises." Black Star said. "I got the kid's name earlier, remember? The autograph." He held his phone up with a little twist. "She was never on it to begin with. She was a suspect, but Kid and Chrona hadn't made a decision yet."
"She still killed someone that wasn't on the list." Maka said.
"Mifune wasn't either." Black Star let the implication hang heavy in the air. "Did she look like a Kishen Egg to you?"
"...No." Maka followed close behind.
"Then I believe her when she says she had no other option." So much for going out to eat tonight. "You should be more excited." He pulled her in by the shoulder for a side hug and squeezed. "You didn't just execute a Kishen Egg today, to got it to spit out the souls it took. It'd be like a vegan diet. No innocent souls used in the making of this weapon." That got her to finally lighten up a bit. She rolled her eyes and tried to act like he wasn't being funny.
"You realize that might mean it will take longer to get to the number of souls we need." She said.
"No, no, no," Black Star crowed, "we need a positive attitude right now. We've narrowed down our suspects from the world to one city, and likely another annoying internal investigation. Which means it's soba and sake time."
"Ugh, I'm never drinking again, thank you." Maka said. "But I will take you up on the food."
The lights were low in the soba shop and fairly empty for a weekday. There was a low chatter and the clinking of flatware at their backs as they were lead to the bar, were one of the chefs had fresh lump of dough he was rolling and folding into a throng of noodles. A small pot of green tea sat between them, the first cup Maka poured still obscured by a cloud of steam. In the limbo between their order and when food would arrive Black Star recounted the trilling tale of one of his many botched missions from their youths.
"Why don't you cover it then?" Maka asked with a laugh. Her finger grazed the edge of his tattoo, a flare of gooseflesh left behind when she pulled away.
"Listen, listen." Black Star leaned toward her, his elbows firmly routed on the table. "Tattoos are cool." He complimented her laughter with a shot of sake, happy to have pleased his audience of one. "What about you, worst mission you ever went on? And don't bring up Blair, I already know that one."
"Okay." Maka said as she combed through for something similarly light in tone. "Alright, so when Faith was still a newbie- I feel so bad, I would not shut up. Like it was way past being a good senpai and slid straight into teacher's assistant territory. He wouldn't interrupt me, even when I was basically repeating myself." Black Star swung back and forth on the bar stool, every now and again he'd bump into her leg or the wall of the bar. "So we're deep in this forest looking for a raptor-like kishen that has been attacking local researchers, and we're following the river because at this huge waterfall is where it's main hunting grounds were. The whole time, I can see it as this blip far at our right, so we're close." She bit her lip. "I'm going off about how terrain affects your fighting, and how sometimes there's illusions that warp your perception. It had been over an hour of walking next to this dang river when I finally wonder out loud 'how far are the falls anyway?' and Faith points towards the target and says about four miles that way." She sighed. "The river we'd been walking by, that I insisted would lead us to the falls, was one giant circle."
"No." Black Star laughed.
"The researchers had been studying the area to figure out how the water fall connected to this big loop of a river." Maka groaned. "It had been in the news a week ago, and I was so embarrassed that I changed across this river. Wet socks, climbing up this weird mountain with Faith apologizing to me even though he did nothing wrong. Just as we get to the top of this water fall, a tail decks me and I tumbled right past Faith sixteen feet down the cliff side right into a tree." It was funny now, but at the time she had been so furious. Black Star had stopped swinging around, his leg up against hers under the table while he snickered at her. "At the very end of the mission, we're on the bus back. He looked down at his lap and in the quietest voice goes: 'Senpai, could you wear shorts under your uniform?' I just about nearly died inside."
"I'd pay money to see that." He easily blocked a rogue swipe at his head.
"You saw plenty," Maka said "you referred to it as torture, remember?" He just laughed it off. When their food arrived, Maka was more aware of her bare leg pressed up against his shin, and the gap of warmth from where her skin rubbed against his. The fact he doesn't just pull away to focus on his food rattled around in her head and made it hard to focus on what else he had said. Face flushed toward her bowl of soup, she berated herself weighing just how harmless it would be to not pull away either, even though she was the one that said they shouldn't cross any professional boundaries.
Once the check was split, it was easier for her to calm her racing heart and act like nothing had happened. It was all in her head, a mountain out of a mole hill. He didn't say a word about it on the drive back to the hotel, too content to fill the silence with the sound of his own voice.
In many ways, Tsubaki had been excited to come into her own as a Death Scythe. The Oceania offices were bustling with large slopping rooftops. Inside, gifts from the many countries they served were neatly arranged in glass cases like a museum. In contrast to the colorful art, the uniforms they wore were monochrome with the slightest sheen of a skull embroidered in the sleeves and pant legs.
"We have a confirmed ghost citing around Apia, Samoa." Said Mere, one of the two-star meisters working under her.
"Who you gonna call?" Tsubaki asked when she took the paper work.
"You." Mere didn't crack a smile. Azusa had run a strict office, full of people who took their job seriously. It was something Tsubaki had been looking forward to, but she hadn't expected her coworkers to be this severe. "What's Lord Death's policy on shades?"
"I'm not sure." Tsubaki flipped through the report. An innocent soul was luring children to a tree to play in, from as far as two towns over. No one had been harmed, but it was unusual. "Back in the day, Kid was the one to go on those kinds of missions. I'll have to ask if he's appointed someone else to the role." The ghost in question had only passed a few weeks ago. Usually with a shade that recent, it was due to a Kishen Egg hording to avoid the prying eyes of Lord Death.
"This is the one of many." Mere shook his head. "We can't leave it all up to one student."
A familiar scent and soft sheets greeted Maka in the morning as she buried her aching head under the covers away from the sunlight. Maybe she had overdone it with the battle and training yesterday. She didn't usually wake up before her wake-up call. If she wanted to get to Black Star's before their meeting with Kid, she had to get dressed soon.
Only, she was still in her clothes from last night. From the sweet darkness of the covers, she opened her eyes and searched the perimeter. She felt her own soul, the smallest twinkle out of the corner of her eye, and Black Star somewhere in the other room accompanied by the dull hum of the TV. Right, they stayed in Kyoto for the night. She must have fallen asleep as soon as they got back from dinner. Black Star didn't have to take her back to the room though, she could have taken the couch.
What the hell was that other thing though? It wasn't quite a soul, more like a spark. A pinpoint dot drifting, that kept escaping her focus anytime she tried to look at it too long. She pulled the sheets back, fear reminding her how Arachne had fractured herself into little pieces when they were kids. There was nothing. Except for the sudden blinding migraine from sitting up too fast. She was getting too old to just fall asleep wherever and be fine the next day.
She moved slowly to the table in the other room, her eyes still blurry as she adjusted to the light. White rice with some kind of topping, and a side of miso. Black Star was waiting impatiently for the coffee maker to spit out the last cup.
"Aww good morning sunshine." He laughed as she fumbled for chopsticks. She'd have to manage a thank you for breakfast once she could form more coherent thoughts. "That's mine." She'd already eaten a decent portion of it. Leave it Black Star to put something sweet on all of his breakfast food.
"Sorry." She covered her mouth, still halfway through a bite.
"It's fine," he grumbled, "I can make more." He trailed off when he put the coffee down. "You're eating my salmon too?" She notoriously hated raw fish, and the rice she was eating was slathered in natto, but it all tasted fine.
No.
"Maka?" He took the plate from her. "It's just food." Her brow furrowed, that thing she'd seen earlier floating around in the bed. It had just been a migraine coming on. She hadn't actually seen something. There was no way.
"I need to go to the bathroom." She ran into the only place in their hotel that had a door she could lock. It was just her imagination. People's tastes changed when they got older all the time. She was tired and achy from fighting in a way she wasn't used to. It was all perfectly rational. As soon as she used her soul perception, it would be just her and Black Star begrudgingly making his breakfast again.
And a little drifting spark.
"Shit!" She was hallucinating. Left over madness from the black blood. She'd been pushing herself too hard. Even the other day, her mom said she was in... a state. "Fuck." Maybe, if she had a break from training, and wasn't under slept all the time, her sight would go back to normal and not see some spot. Who was she kidding? They weren't going to stop training unless she had a good reason. It was too early to go making rash decisions on a hunch, because it was just a hunch. There was no way.
"Tsubaki said your paperwork got approved." Black Star called from the other room. "After we report back to Kid, we should properly celebrate." There was no way she'd gotten knocked up by her partner, they weren't even dating.
No, no, no, no, no.
"Maka?" She returned to the table, glaring at the half-finished bowl of natto rice, because she was still hungry and it still looked good. "You're allowed to like new things, get over it." He flicked a spoon towards her. Defeated, she sat down, and ate the rest of her breakfast.
"Thank you for the food."