As soon as she was able to, Kami started to take missions again. At first, Spirit didn't mind. On his days off it was easy to tote her around and keep the apartment in order at the same time. He was without question, the strongest Death Scythe, tasked with being a role model for the in coming weapons at the academy. Standing next to Lord Death for meetings was a cushy, consistent job. It made it all the more frustrating when Kami claimed to forget when he worked, and leave Maka with him during the school's hours.

When she was a baby it wasn't a big deal, but she was going to be five soon. The preschool let out at noon on the dot. Someone had to be there to pick her up an help her with lunch. More and more frequently he would get last minute texts that a 'quick' mission was running over and he'd have to leave during his break to go get his daughter.

On those days, he'd set Maka up in the conference room with whatever white board markers that had been left lying around. His locker at work collected kids books and the odd movie to throw on the projector for her. She'd be so good about staying put and waiting no matter how long his meetings ran or how many times the same movie played on loop.

That evening, when he was able to clock out, Maka was laughing and talking adamantly to her puzzle on the floor. Occasionally she talked with her toys like they were real people, but this was the first time he saw her interact with an imaginary friend.

"It's better here." Maka insisted. "Other kids are mean. They don't let me play." Spirit knocked on the door frame. His tiny daughter jumped up to her feet, the puzzle forgotten.

"Time to go sweetie." He helped her pack up the toys and puzzles. With pin point pupils, she looked back into the room and waved goodbye. "Your friend's not coming with us?" He asked as he picked her up.

"No." Maka laughed. "He stays in the basement." Spirit followed her line of sight to the corner of the room closest to Lord Death's office. Her eyes went back to a vibrant green once they left the room, pigtails roughly pulled up by clumsy hands despite his numerous attempts to get her to like a different hairstyle. With a frown, she pat the top of the puzzle box. "Bye-bye trash." She said. "Sorry, I made you clean papa."

"I helped you clean." Spirit said as they loaded up the car. Too many things about today made him feel nauseous. "Why does your friend stay in the basement?" He asked. Maka perked up a little when she got to keep her puzzle in her lap.

"God hates him."

Spirit hated confrontation. He paced back and forth in the kitchen, waiting for Kami to finally come home. When he had tucked Maka into bed, he noticed a number of puzzles and toys were missing. Apparently, wanting help resulted in punishment. He had wondered why Maka stopped asking to go places other than the school. It turned out, if he wasn't home, the answer was always no. Those were things that could be talked about on a later date, what was more concerning was her eyes.

"Has Maka told you about the 'Basement Man'?" Spirit asked when Kami got home.

"I told you she had a few imaginary friends." Kami shrugged. She unpacked a fancy desert she'd gotten while she was out, like it would make up for her being late yet again.

"Yeah," Spirit was tense, "well this imaginary friend lives in the basement of DWMA. He's been grounded, for forever, because his papa hates him. He's not allowed to eat or go outside. Apparently papas rip off people's skin off when they're naughty."

"Did she say that?" Kami bit her lip. "Where on Earth would she hear something like that?" Spirit slammed his fist on the table.

"The Kishen!" He snapped. "She's been talking to the Kishen at the school. How long as she been talking about her imaginary friend Kami?"

"That's impossible." Kami brushed past him. "He's been sealed for hundreds of years, and besides that, she's four years old. Just because you got stuck with her today-"

"Kami, she was using soul perception." Spirit followed her into the living room. "I saw her eyes change color, just like yours do and she was pointing right where the dungeon is. I don't know how she could come up with all that stuff unless someone told her those things." Kami was doing everything she could to avoid looking at him. "How long as she been talking about the Basement Man?"

"Soul perception doesn't let you talk to people." Kami's complexion was sallow.

"How long Kami?"

"I'm not sure... a month or two." Kami sat down on the couch. "Don't look at me like that. Why would anyone think a child playing pretend was actually talking to someone. If you're so worried, take her to Shinigami-sama."

"She can't keep going to the school." Spirit said.

"So that's what this is really about." Kami said. "I'm sorry you can't go hang out after work like you used to, but that's part of having a kid. You can't put everything on me. It isn't fair." It isn't fair that she brings up the other moms she thought he was too friendly with as a reason to question his judgement. It isn't fair that he refuses to let a stranger watch their child when both of them are working until Maka's old enough to tell them what happens when their gone. It's not fair any time he thinks something is wrong, she's quick to assume he means she hasn't been a good mother.

"I'll take her to see Shinigami-sama." Spirit said instead. Truly, he was worried that the only person their daughter considered a friend was the slumbering Kishen below the school.

Growing up around the grim reaper, Maka found any of Lord Death's masks friendly. The elder death god tilted his head left and she mimicked him. He tilted his head right and she did the same. With other people in the room, she wasn't as eager to talk to the Basement Man.

"Where's your shape?" She asked and pointed at Shinigami-sama's chest.

"Well, I'll be." Shinigami-sama got down on her level, and examined her pale eyes closely. He put a comically large finger to her nose, and she focused on the mortal world again. "Interesting, very interesting."

"What's wrong with her?" Spirit asked as he watched his daughter get distracted by the graveyard surrounding them.

"Nothing's wrong per say." Shinigami-sama said. "It's just like you suspected, she's able to see souls. It's perfectly normal for children her age to be more sensitive to such things." He shook his head. "What's interesting, is the sealing spell didn't stick. Normally I can limit little-ones access to those kinds of abilities until they can handle it, but it slid right off without her trying to resist it. I don't think any magic would be terribly effective, curse or otherwise. She's going to be fine." Spirit was relieved, but not being able to prevent her from hearing the Kishen was unnerving. There had to be some other way to separate the two without causing another fight at home.

He thanked Shinigami-sama for his time and lead Maka out of the office. She ran down the hall to the balcony, excited to be able to leave before the charm of being at the school wore off. Through the bars of the railing, she saw a young boy practice basic fighting stances.

"Cool." She got up on her tiptoes to get a better look. She wanted to try fighting, but her parents always said she was too young. The boy perked up at the sound of praise from overhead and abandoned his teacher. A few well placed jumps and he was standing on the railing to look down on her.

"Hi!" He said with a huge smile. From the courtyard, Sid panicked, looking for the quickest way to the balcony where he could scoop Black Star off of his perch. Spirit put a hand on Maka's shoulder as Black Star swung his legs around to land on the concrete in front of them. "Are you staying at the school too? They brought in a different kid a few days ago, but I'm not allowed to talk to them. Are you a weapon or a meister? You look pretty weak, you're probably a weapon, hunh? What's your name? My name is Black Star." Spirit scooped her off the ground, wary of the tattoo on his shoulder.

"Sorry, I didn't know you'd be here today." Sid said.

"It's alright," Spirit struggled to keep Maka from squirming back onto the ground, "something came up."

"Daddy, I want to play!" She was too far away, and she had so many things to say, but her father kept trying to keep her up where the grownups were talking about boring grown up things.

"Is that like training?" Black Star asked.

Against his better judgement, Spirit set Maka down. She chased after Black Star, keeping up with his constant babbling in a way only small children could. There wasn't much for them to do, but the novelty of meeting seemed to be enough to keep them entertained.

"Training?" Spirit asked.

"It's the only thing we can get him to do that keeps him out of trouble." Sid said. "We've tried everything." As Sid vented about the third preschool told that them Black Star's behavior wasn't a good fit for the class, Spirit was thankful the worst of his problems was Kami taking too many missions.

"Maka got Kami's eyes." Spirit sighed. "I'm hoping she grows out of it. Shinigami-sama said he can't suppress it at all. It's so strange." That was the most he could explain before his tiny child shouted 'liar' at the top of her lungs.

"No, I'm not!" Black Star said. "I live here. Sid, tell her." What proceeded was the worst tantrum he'd ever seen his daughter throw.

"You said no kids." Maka sat down on the concrete. "No kids!" Through the kicking and crying, she let slip that this wasn't the first time she'd come to the school.

"Alright, time to go home." He picked her up and she used all of her strength to be a dead weight. A horrendous scream of outrage followed as he lifted her with ease. Because she didn't want to go home where it was just her books and stuffed animals. This whole time she could have been talking to someone her own age when she visited instead of being bored in the conference room. She didn't have any friends like the kids on tv. Only toys and classmates that ignored her. She lacked the words to eloquently express how hurt she was her father had contributed to that loneliness. All she could muster was an ear piercing. "I hate you!" Before she devolved into incoherent screaming and sobbing.

"No!" Black Star was picked up before he could chase after them. The tiny gears in his head turned as he saw someone who didn't find him scary or annoying carried off screaming against her will. Only big kids were supposed to go to this school, but she had been here before. "Let me go!" Being overpowered and ignored filled him with a rage his tiny body didn't know how to handle. Sid would try to redirect that anger toward something he was allowed to hit, but it didn't change he'd been lied to. Sid wouldn't tell him when she'd come back. He wasn't allowed to leave the school grounds to go find her either. He couldn't calm down fast enough and was dragged kicking and screaming to his room for quiet time instead of getting any answers.

Black Star had been difficult from the moment he learned to walk. He itched to destroy things. Anything that could be taken apart, had to be removed from his room. Even board books hadn't been safe from being torn up. The preschool teachers all had the same story when Sid was told he wasn't welcome back in the class. He broke things, he wouldn't share, he disrupted the class anytime the teacher was at the front of the room instead of him. The only thing Sid could get him to sit still for was combat training. The praise that came from mimicking the older kids seemed to satiate the squeaky wheel so to speak.

It was frustrating, because when Sid was teaching class, Black Star was a model of good behavior. In fact, his biggest problem was he was too friendly with the older kids. He'd do anything for their approval and Sid even caught one of his students trying to trick the poor boy into eating sand for a quarter. Now he had a new problem.

"Can she come play?" He'd forgotten her name, but not that one of the teachers at school had a child his age. Every time Sid held a class or they passed Spirit in the hall, Black Star would ask the same question. It seemed to be one of those ideas his mind latched onto like a vice.

They had tried to keep the two separated. Kami had made it explicitly clear she thought Black Star staying at the school was a bad idea. Both were too young to understand that Maka's mom was the reason Black Star had to stay at the school to begin with. It was too late, and now, every day Sid heard the same question.

"I could watch Maka for you." He told Spirit when he saw him hand in hand with his daughter after another one of his interrupted lunch breaks. "We were just going to work on tai chi today, nothing terribly dangerous." Spirit looked down at his daughter, her eyes glossy and full of hope. There were still small dusty foot prints from her kicking his seat when she found out there was another kid she could've been playing with. He let go of her hand and she zoomed around, full of so much excitement, because now there were new places to go.

Tai chi practice quickly devolved in to the two young children running around the courtyard. Black Star a few steps ahead and Maka desperately trying to catch up. She refused to believe they were the same age. To her, it was the most logical reason for him beating her at every odd little game they came up with.

When Spirit came to get her, there were moans of protests, but this time when he asked if she had fun she didn't hesitate. She launched into a scattered explanation of playing pretend and the cool bug they found. All notions of the Basement Man had been forgotten.

"Best part, same shape!" She rocked forward in her seat, trapped by the confines of the seat belt. "Not prickly or cold." Spirit nodded, not quite understanding, and Maka's limited vocabulary struggled to keep up. This was important. "Papa! Say it's the best. Best shape. "

"It sure is." Spirit said. "I'm glad you made a new friend."

She was satisfied enough, but it was clear he didn't really understand. Black Star thought sitting still was painful, like sitting on sticks, and she never thought to describe it that way. He thought the preschool classes were too easy, and he hated having to wait for other kids to figure out how to do stuff when it was so obvious. He was more comfortable talking to bigger kids and adults than his teachers, because teachers acted like he was a baby. She had never, ever, been able to understand what was going through someone's head like that before. When she wanted to talk about killer whales or the entire plot of her new favorite book, she was able to capture his attention easily, because it was always something new. It was like the past few years she'd been speaking in a language the other kids didn't quite get, like they were on completely different wavelengths.

"Can we come back tomorrow?" She asked.

"Sweetie, it's mama's turn to pick you up from preschool." Spirit said. In the rear view mirror, he saw his daughter deflate at the notion. It was no fun being by yourself, and if she had the choice, she'd rather come here to play than spend all evening in her room. As scary as it was, she wanted to try asking her mom, at least once.

The answer was no.

On school days after lunch, Black Star has his own visitor now. Maka tried her best to catch up to him, but she tried too hard to be perfect. She'd stop mid stances to repeat them until she got it just right, instead of going through the whole motion and gain strength. She smuggled her favorite things into her backpack to bring to the school, toys or games she never got to play with as an only child. Then she would show them to him one at a time like a treasure trove.

Next year, they would be going to real school. The names of them didn't match and Sid said even if they did go to the same place, there was no guarantee they'd have the same teachers. All Black Star understood was, in a few months, he wasn't going to be able to talk to his friend at all.

"Hold out your hands." Black Star said. Maka did as she was told, expecting for him to give her something instead of grabbing them tight. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to concentrate.

"What are you doing?" Maka leaned forward a little.

"I saw the big kids do it." He said. She pulled their joined hands in and out, trying to find some kind of rhythm while he stood there in silence. "I can do this." He could fight just as good as them. He knew all the answers to their tests. So, he should be able to do that glowy thing the weapon-meister pairs did. "We're going to be in the same class."

"Really?" They wanted the same thing. He could feel the crackle of untapped power under his skin. All he had to do was reach out, and they'd resonate, and then the school wouldn't separate them. He couldn't find anything other than her hands to reach out to, so he channeled everything into them.

There was an electrical -like blast. Maka was sent flat on her back, her pigtails disheveled. The shock quickly melted away and Maka openly sobbed in the dirt. Sid was running up to check on her. She looked perfectly fine, but she insisted over and over again it felt like he lit her on fire.

"I wanna try again." Black Star said, but Sid kept him away as he checked her for any injuries.

"What did you do?" Sid asked.

"The link thing." Black Star said. Maka hadn't stopped crying and Sid looked really mad. "Maka was moving, so I messed up. I can do it." He pouted, because Maka was being a crybaby, it couldn't possibly have hurt that bad. Now other adults were coming, and he was going to get in trouble.

"I told you, you're too young to do those exercises." Sid handed Maka to Spirit, muttering what happened under the disjointed explanation Maka tried to give. "You can't link with someone who isn't trying to link back. What you did was like hitting someone. You need to apologize." Sid held him there until he did, despite Black Star's protests that it wasn't the same thing. He didn't mean to hurt her. Even if he really did, Sid just said it was her fault for not reaching back. He finally mumbled out an apology, but it wasn't fair.

The change was gradual. Maka still saw Black Star occasionally once school started, but the gaps in time made it harder to step back into their rhythm when there was more and more they had to remember in between. The list of things he meant to tell her about dissolved into the ether in a matter of days and he only got to see her once every other week.

She collected homework to do in her free time while he could barely write more than a sentence or two. She read through dozens of books while he hyperfixated on one game he'd try to beat for months on end. Then his grades started to slip. It wasn't fair, he understood everything the teachers said, he just never noticed when it was implied he should turn stuff in. Tests were painful to sit through, and he would fill everything out as fast as he could so he could escape the quiet. He didn't know how doing all those little boring things came so easy to other kids. Maka said the same barbed thing all his teachers would say, it must be because he didn't care enough. Well, if that was what everyone was going to think, why waste his time trying in the first place?

She didn't understand how he couldn't read the books she's give him for his birthday, even when he knew how much she loved them and said he liked the idea of the stories. The older they got, the less she could fathom him shrugging off D's and C's when an 89 was a nightlong lecture in her house about how she could do better. It was frustrating to watch him pick and choose what was worth his time, like he was the center of the universe. The only thing they ever seemed to agree on anymore was that going to the DWMA was the most important thing for them to do.

"Sid finally signed off on an apartment! I don't have any furniture yet, you know, money." She didn't have the heart to tell him she pulled herself out of the EAT courses yet. Before she thought she could do both and make everyone happy, but Shinigami-sama said she couldn't have a partner then. "At this point, I might just sleep on the floor." He nudged her shoulder, a little irritated she could stare off into space when he was sharing exciting news. "What's your problem?"

"Mama's been looking at apartments too." That was going to be her segue into telling him she was going to be a meister. Before she could get a word out about how this meant they'd actually be in all the same classes and how she was looking forward to it he shook his head.

"He finally signed the papers?"

"What papers?"

They were on the roof of the school. She could hear the birds scratch at the tiles overhead. He looked away from the ant sized students back to her, seemingly just as confused as she was. Then he clenched his jaw, because the number one piece of gossip from the faculty lounge is news to her. No one's said a thing to her about the divorce for nine months, not even her own parents.

"They should have told you." He wouldn't be able to answer any follow up questions, but she deserved to know. So he told her what he knew for sure was true. "Your mom filed for divorce."

He'd also heard that Spirit was refusing to acknowledge it. That part of the annulment involved him loosing a bunch of rights as a parent and even with lawyers, he'd probably loose them anyway. All that unwanted advice hadn't stopped Spirit from dumping all his paychecks into it.

"Oh." The threat of divorce had been tossed around the house for a while. "They were probably waiting until school started." She understood logically that Papa always had trouble being too friendly with other women and her mother worked all the time. They'd barely all been in the same room in years. It still soured her impression of the last few weeks. Mama had been happier when they were uniform shopping and going over the coming school schedule, but she probably was happy over the papers lapsing into default. Not because she was planning on coming back to Death City. If Maka was staying in one of the school apartments, her parents wouldn't have to fight over who she'd be living with.

"Balls." Black Star said, and it was enough to crack the numb emotionless mask that threatened to creep across her face. She laughed a little, only for a few tears to manage to sneak through. "This is why I'm never getting parents. Too much trouble."

"Don't get a hamster either, they bite." He effortlessly took her off-handed comment as a prompt for what the best kind of pet for the apartment would be, and filled the silence with his own voice until Maka could control her breathing. It was a really shitty end to summer vacation.

Black Star's big introduction to meisters and weapons alike was met with the meager applause of one weapon. He was happy to have a new fan, but in that case, he should have had an audience of two. He offered the new girl an autograph and she accepted it, because apparently some people are really cool like that.

"I already have someone in mind." He said after introducing himself as a meister. "She saw the rehearsal, so she was probably saving the front row for all the newbies." Tsubaki congratulated him, but was a bit nervous going inside alone. Most of the students were a few years younger than her, and she felt she stuck out like a sore thumb. "Nothing wrong with being the best." He said, and it hyped her up enough when they enter the cheesy meet and greet, she actually smiled. "Hey Maka!"

Maka turned from the white-haired weapon she was talking to and introduced him as her partner. One look at Maka's bronze meister badge, and he was suddenly aware of just how painfully small his world was. He didn't know anyone there but Maka, and that advantage had been rendered meaningless. Maka recognized Tsubaki from summer school and Soul met Tsubaki during the placement exams. That sickly feeling of being shoved in the shadows was enough to drive him stir crazy.

"Have you found a partner yet?" Soul asked.

"I think so." Tsubaki gave him a look, like she had understood the mine field he had just walked into.

"Yeah." Black Star stood up a little taller. The look of utter disbelief on Maka's face was a tad cathartic, even if she wasn't jealous. "It's only fitting for a god like me to have the prettiest weapon." Maka's face twisted up like she had just sucked on a lemon. It was cruel to twist the knife like that, and it didn't make him feel any better. He just couldn't stop running his mouth.

"Depends on what you consider pretty." Soul said, with a dorky attempt at a photogenic pose. Which, dang it, of course Maka's choice of weapon would be cool as hell. The tension in Maka's shoulders released when Black Star laughed alongside him instead of at him. She really couldn't take another person in her life walking out on her, and the drool covered slacker she found was her safest bet at rebelling against her parents who dumped a life plan in her lap before walking away. For the foreseeable future, this was it.