For generations, a great evil had been sleeping under the DWMA. A rich sky full of stars twinkled along the walls of the old death room in all it's various hues. Gone were the monuments to dead gods and the antique mirror that the grim reaper used to keep an eye on the world order. Throughout the halls, subtle changes reflected in the mission boards, no one under the age of eighteen was allowed to hunt for kishen eggs anymore, at least not unaccompanied. There were plenty of adults that were willing to take the more dangerous jobs. It was supposed to be the first of many changes to prove to Death City that the new lady on the throne of order meant to do well by the living. Tonight was supposed to be a celebrate the end her family's days clamoring to maintain order from the shadows.

"What were you thinking!?" Her voice rang out throughout the hall, chased by a cacophony of tiny bells. Glitter in her hair and a gossamer veil across her face, she had not anticipated having to intimidate anyone into falling in line, least of all her own son. Every servant and soldier held their breath and tried to fade into the background. "We did not spend the last two and half decades plotting Asura's assassination just for you to, to-"

"Showboat." Offered a man with white hair.

"Exactly, showboat at the last minute." She held herself as dignified as one could as her son glowered at the floor. "People could have gotten hurt. You weren't supposed to be there." He flinched ever so slightly. "If your father hadn't shown up-" She held her tongue. Escalating to further anger only ever caused him to shut down. Everything had worked out in the end, but that wasn't the point. He shouldn't have been at that party, she explicitly told him to stay out of sight, but no matter how much she tried to impress upon him how fragile his fate was he never seemed to listen. It seemed, if she wasn't constantly hovering, he was under the impression he was invincible. Cassanrda collapsed into the nearest chair and gestured for her husband to step in.

"You're not going to gain anyone's respect disobeying orders." He had to be fair, if any of his other men had stepped out of line they would have been thrown to the wolves. That sort of trial by fire seemed to have the opposite effect on someone so desperate for approval, his or otherwise. "I know you don't enjoy embarrassing yourself, but until you've learned some self-restraint you're not going out on field work, period." His son lifted his head to argue. "No missions. Is that understood?" All eyes in the room were on him, there would be no arguing his way into getting a chance to prove himself, let alone a weapon. They honestly wondered why he felt the need to sneak into the DWMA's anniversary party on his own when everyone here insisted on treating him like a kid.

"Yes sir." Black Star muttered with as much vitriol as he could. The furs and silks he wore feeling more like a costume than the uniform of a trained assassin. He rose to his feet from where he'd been forced to kneel while they lectured him and stormed out of the main hall.

Chapter 4 : ENVY

From the rooftop, Patty could see all of Death City, like a photo from a magazine. She'd seen pictures of it in Kid's manor of the city through the ages. The faded photographs had failed to capture just how lively and big the city felt during the eighties. Without new, featureless buildings crowding in on the historic streets, it felt more sparse and full of possibilities. Again, her heart sank.

Waking up hadn't been too difficult this time, not with how much she adored what she already had. The memories of the last chapter made her spine tense and twist into uncomfortable patterns from the physical stress alone. What she'd done to Maka was uncalled for, even if she did attack first. Maka had been blinded by the animosity toward the snake witch that tortured Chrona. It was a respectable grudge to hold. Instead, Patty had been consumed by an unwavering need to find some appropriate target to take her anger out on, and it seemed the book wasn't keen on providing a likeness of Noah for her to punish. She should have been more like Noah because of the spell, not the people she cared about. It was confusing, and she wasn't sure how she'd be able to answer anyone that might question her on it.

She was happy to be Kid's partner. In her head, she understood why he'd gone to such lengths to chase after them. At the time, given the chance they would have hurt him instead of joining them were they not forced to. Still the memory of getting hunted down by the DWMA like a potential kishen would always be a sore one for her. It had put Liz in a tough position, and like always, she'd done what she thought would be best for Patty. They would risk scamming Lord Death and pretend to go to the school for Kid's sake, in return they'd be set for life.

The building she sat on top of had her mark on it, in the event anyone else woke up, hopefully they'd remember the sign and know to stay put. However, after scoping out the neighborhood, it seemed the book was trying to give them what they really wanted instead of putting them through hell again. Or, at least, what they thought they wanted. She hated the thought of being the bad guy again.

So, she set her sights on the large concert hall with spotlights waving up against the night sky. It seemed like the safest bet, though part of her wondered if she was playing favorites. This was the only time some of them would get to speak with their lost loved ones, and after everything she just couldn't bring herself to tell Liz it wasn't real. Not alone anyway. She stood up, the wind ruffled her hair and the black selkie dress she had fluttered to expose combat ready shorts underneath. It wasn't the most formal thing to wear to a concert, but she knew the artist wouldn't mind.

There's a loop pedal at Soul's foot as he played. It allowed him to push the limits of the grand piano, and he saved it as a surprise for the last part of his set. A silent audience was always the worst part of preforming when he was younger. A bunch of other people's parents watching him from stiff chairs in board daylight with a disinterested look as they resisted the temptation to look at their phones, it had been the bane of his existence. Still, he pushed through until his skills were deemed high enough to cloak onlookers in darkness, to be the only thing shining on stage. No longer playing by feel, he could read the sets of sheet music, bouncing back and forth between the harmonious keys and the percussion just underfoot. As a solo act, he could afford to break the rules a little more than usual.

Somewhere in the audience, his family was politely watching. They didn't fully understand the 'modern' direction he wanted to take his music, but it didn't matter so long as enough people liked it. The Evans's were always more about the prestige that came with music, rather than the craft itself. Mostly on his mother's side, whatever crop of musicians were on his father's side had vanished to chase whatever muse had called to them.

After the concert, he was surrounded by people congratulating him on a successful debut. He answered the same handful of questions about how he was able to play multiple instruments while remaining seated on stage. Though annoyingly, he had to remind people even if they were recordings, it was still him playing. Dodging the suspicions of the older generation was part of the job.

"Oh my god," a familiar voice shouted from the din, "is that Wes Evans!?"

He snapped his head in the general direction of the voice. Somewhere in the gaps was a sheepish grin and a black dress. This was his concert. He'd made damn sure there wasn't a single violin track in his set, Wes was somewhere in Peru right now. How, even here, could he not escape his worst nightmare? In a series of polite, but curt phrases, he waded through the crowd to find Patty with a single drooping rose and her hands raised in mock surrender.

"Sorry, sorry; I thought it be the fastest way to snap you out of it." She offered him the flower as a peace offering. "I mean, that's why you left music in the first place, isn't it?" Like a record scratch, he was suddenly aware of the scythe form that had been suppressed just under his fingertips. The air conditioning on his skin and clashing perfumes of the concert hall lingered. A perfect recreation of his parents waved for him to come join them, though they were too far off to tell how realistic the depiction was. He hadn't heard their voices, but it still felt painfully real. "Sorry." After he took the flower, Patty rose to her feet and whipped the residual dew from her hands onto her skirt.

"What are you apologizing for?" She wasn't wrong, he'd ran from music so this wouldn't be the rest of his life. Playing piano may have been the easiest route to take to appease his family, but other aspects of it had weighed on him. The constant comparisons to his brother was just one of them. A scenario like this wouldn't have come to be, even if had been more successful in music school.

"Just seems kind mean is all." He couldn't resist signaling to the fake people that he and Patty were going to step outside. A few people tried to stop him and talk about his performance along the way, but he was wiser now. They had a grander mission to take care of. "It was one thing to make people realize they were acting stupid." He spared one last look to the shining venue with his name on all the signs. "It's not stupid to want things."

"What was it that you wanted?" He turned away from it for the last time. If he really wanted that life, he'd have to give up being a Death Scythe. It wasn't a fair trade. Patty gave him an impish grin and pointed to her chest with two downward thumbs.

"No back pain." She'd gone down two cup sizes. At least she was laughing at him for immediately averting his gaze as opposed to making a whole thing about it. "Kinda lame, but in a book of deadly sins, that's a good thing, right?" The memory of her in a violent spiral was getting vaguer, but it still left a sickish feeling in her gut. Only Liz and Kid had seen her that out of control before. "I've been trying to figure out who to wake up next." Blair and Maka immediately came to mind. He could wager that Maka's parents were probably together here, and while it'd suck to remind her that wasn't true, it wasn't anything she couldn't handle again.

"Blair or Liz would care the least."

"Blair it is then." Patty said quickly and left no room for argument. "I found something that looked like a pumpkin house, she's probably there." He agreed, but part of him wondered why Blair would wish for a house she already had. It's not like he or Maka forced the cat to move in with them.

It hadn't really mattered before when the layout of Death City was small enough to walk around, but right now Soul really missed his bike. They didn't have an exact address they could give to a cabbie, even if they did, neither of them had come equipped with a wallet. Patty insisted they traveled 'super hero' style, which involved slipping through the crowd of people exiting the monorail to the back car and sneaking up the service ladder to the rooftops. She made it look so easy to crawl all over the shuttle car. Granted, she came equipped with a pair of combat boots unlike his slick dress shoes. It seemed like a recipe for a broken ankle.

"Come on chicken." Patty dangled out from the ladder to offer him a hand. "Do you want to get caught?" He accepted the assistance, then immediately slipped on ladder like he feared. It took an embarrassing number of tries to climb up to the roof, just for Patty to give his right arm a sharp tug. "Stay down. Have you never hitched a ride before?"

"No!?" His voice cracked.

"Well hold onto something and keep your mouth closed. It's going to get fast." As the train crawled forward, an idea occurred to him.

"How do we get off?" There was a sharp lurch and he had to dig his fingers around the edge of the car to keep from falling off as it rocketed across the monorail. The city lights rushed by in streaks of blue, gold and red. Wind hit sharply around the eyes and made even the smallest hair feel like icy whips. This place was so vast, the people so intricately replicated, a sharp contrast to theme park like sets from when they first arrived. He could see someone spending their whole life in this version of Death City.

A crack and a thud tore his concentration from the skyline as something green clawed up the side of one of the cars up ahead with an unhinged drooling mouth. The kishen eggs he'd fought in the past had been almost newspapery in coloration, faded with pops of red and black. This thing acted like a kishen, but it was sickly vivid with tear stains carved into it's skin. Even still, over and over again his mind insisted it was a corrupted soul. The creature fought against the wind to claw a step forward.

"Can you shoot?" Patty shouted over the wind. Soul turned, more gob smacked than before.

"I've never touched a gun." She poked him in the cheek. "You know what I mean!" A moaning cluster of scales was slowly gaining toward them.

"Alright, then you transform." She popped up onto her hands and feet, ready to dodge at a moments notice. "What? You've never fought with someone else before?" Black Star immediately came to mind. The whole experience had him sore and coughing up blood for a few days. He had not entertained the idea since. "Oh my god, you haven't?" It seemed she didn't consider what he and Black Star accomplished as fighting, even though she was one of their opponents. "Well, it's your lucky day, I'm easy to work with." He'd seen her shoot a pistol and throw people to the ground with her bare hands. Never had she so much as touched a staff, let alone a scythe. His doubt was evident on his face. "Relax, I can dance to any rhythm."

Reluctantly, he took her hand. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd tried to resonate with her before, but it had always been in a group setting. When working with Kid and Liz, she had faded to a support role that buffered others attacks and kept her partners tethered to the fight. Without the other strong personalities, it was like shaking a limp hand. Then she adjusted rather quickly to death grip and wiping his scythe form around like a rag doll.

"None of that, get out of your head." She took advantage of the leverage he gave her. Finally on her feet, she bent her knees to meet the bob of the train car as it hurtled over the tracks. "Ready?" One nod and she had shot across the train car. They needed more terrain to work with, or risk being thrown from the train. She slid down on her knee right below the creatures stomach to get to the other side.

Back on her feet, she hooked the pole end into a groove in the car, and swung her body around like a flag to kick the creature in the face with both heels. He hadn't prepared for the kickback of a gunshot and both slipped out of control as the train took a sharp turn. With one hand, she flipped them both back onto the train car and blocked an incoming set of claws. She hand no gloves on and it was messing with his sense of tension. He was used to being twirled and slicing through things, but Patty seemed more focused on utilizing pure force rather than his blade.

"I don't know if it's a situation like Tsubaki." She didn't want to hurt anyone here severely, just incase. Neither of them could see souls, so it'd be hard to confirm until they found more people. Her heart sank as part of her wondered if she was the reason this monster had shown up.

"Behind you!" Soul shouted. Patty glanced over her shoulder just in time to duck. A brick overpass caught the monster from the chest up as they were dragged away by the rest of the train. "You alright?" She hugged the cold steel pole against her chest as the bricks overhead parted the way for more stars.

"Yeah." She was better than this. Sitting up, she let his weapon form ease to her lap so he could crawl back out onto the train car. They were close to their stop now. She needed to keep him distracted before he thought to ask questions.

The pumpkin house looked just like Soul remembered it. With a warm orange glow and the flicker of candle light in every window. Though, admittedly, he had never attempted to use the front door to get in. The only room he'd ever seen was the bathroom, so he had nothing to compare to when the door swung open and he came nose to nose with a dark haired girl.

"Blair?" He asked. It was by far the most dramatic change the cat had gone through. She was closer to their age, with jet black clothes and a demure frame. Deep set eyes reflected his own shade of ruby back at him.

"What color?" The homeowner asked with a scripted, if not exhausted air about her.

"What color for what?" Patty asked when Soul seemed equally confused.

"The underwear. I don't know why she keeps nicking them from clothes lines, it's not like she can wear them." Her fingers curled inward as she took in their apparencies a second time with soul perception. "Wait, you're weapons!?" They nodded hesitantly. She grabbed them both by the wrist and dragged them into the foyer. "I have so many questions." Blood orange curtains lined the walls with frame posters of grunge bands from the ninties. There was a variety of instruments lying around, with two couches and three lamps being the only furniture in the room. White and black zig zags were tiled into the floor. They were both sent by an unseen force into the loveseat with two china cups of coffee floating into their grasp. The girl in black paced back and forth, and dimly Soul remembered why he'd come to the pumpkin house so many years ago.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"I've been workshopping a few names, but nothing's really clicked." She bobbed her hand back and forth. "You can call me Elly. Delphi's not been a hit with the American crowd." She circled around and leaned in between Patty and Soul. "Soooo, do you remember anything from before? What about your familiars, did they come with you?"

"Um, no." Patty's brow furrowed. "We're weapons, not witches. We've always been weapons."

"Wait, like you were born that way?" Elly swung her legs over so she could sit on the back of the couch between them. "That's so crazy. Then where did you get your magic from initially? It had to be someone." She stared long and hard at Patty. "A horse? There's lots of witches with horse forms in Asia, but you're so blond. How wierd." Then she turned to Soul and her smile fell a few degrees. "And a cat." She picked at the black nail polish on her short nails. "You really don't remember anything?" They didn't know what to tell her. She shrugged off the oppressive silence as well as their discomfort. "I guess it's better than being haunted. Is it fun, being a weapon?"

"Yeah." Patty shrugged. "My sister and I practically ruled Brooklyn and now I got a scholarship for it."

"What about you?" Elly asked Soul. With two people eager for his answer, he shifted uncomfortably in his chair up against the arm rest. He hadn't really thought about it one way or the other, it was just something he did.

"Hunting kishen eggs is kind of... I mean it's school work, but I like being good at something without trying." He craned his neck towards the kitchen. Some shadows danced along the wall, maybe Blair was here after all. "Not that I'm not trying, it's just, it is." He didn't know how else to put it. Becoming the coolest, and youngest, death scythe was always the goal. He just didn't really feel like he achieved that yet, even if he had the kill count to support it.

"Can I see it?" Elly had her hands clasped together. "It's super cool, right?" There was a hint of desperation in her voice. "Can you blast soundwaves or tap into people's minds?" As she reached toward him, a chill ran over him. He stood up to edge toward the kitchen door.

"Where's Blair?"

"Right," she retracted her hand, "you came to get Blair." There was a jingle from the kitchen of a tiny pumpkin bell. "That must mean the important parts are in there somewhere." On her hand a purple blemish grew like an ink blot on fresh canvas. "Done in by a spider, what a shitty way to go." The closer Blair got the more her hand mottled into a messy impression of a hand. "Whatever you do with my magic, just don't make boring, okay?" She became a sketchy shadow of herself. "And thanks for keeping my promise."

"Elly, I want to nap. What's taking so long?" Blair walked into the room and Elly was gone. It didn't matter that there was a dead spider in her maw; Soul and Delphi couldn't be in the same room at the same time.