A familiar's only job in life is to protect their witch. Delphi hated being told what to do, so she picked the laziest and least involved creature she could for her familiar, even if it wasn't consciously. Blair spent those day mooching off her master's magic, while Delphi fought with strings and keys to channel her fortune telling into sounds. She had witnessed the awakenings of new gods and spent hours crafting the nonsensical emotional babble that fell on deaf ears. When Cassandra was crying in the court about Lord Death's emanate attack on witch kind, Delphi sang of talking blades made of spider's silk; both were ignored.

Blair didn't remember when exactly Delphi set her sights on the mortal realm. She'd sing her incoherent ramblings on roof tops, in parks and house parties. Preforming magic in front of humans without them even noticing was a thrill. She compelled people into frenzied, thrashing dances that celebrated life and the coming changes. Before every gorilla performance she'd pat Blair on the head and tell her "I'll be back."

That's what the other witches didn't understand. There was always the implication that Delphi wanted to do things on her own, without the crutch of magic to guide her. She didn't want Blair underfoot, bored and clinging to her like other witch's familiars did. She wanted Blair to have her own life. Even if that life involved collecting an assortment of pretty things that didn't belong to her.

So, Blair waited. She ignored the dirty looks from other witches when she wandered around the streets alone. It would be years before she figured out Arachne had been targeting weaker witches to experiment on. To become a weapon was considered a fate worse than death. It was a complete erasure of the soul they'd said, a denaturing of magic into something utterly unrecognizable. As the years went by, Blair continued to wait.

Then Soul showed up.

Soul looked nothing like Delphi on the outside. She wouldn't have chosen to be something as ordinary as a scythe. It didn't make sense. If her magic had been stolen like the witches believed, then anyone in Soul's family should have had the same abilities. Somehow it had skipped multiple generations. He had looked her dead in the eye and told her what was on the outside didn't matter, the soul did.

Blair's master always tried on new names and made music no one understood. A rebellious soul, that fought tooth and nail to be the coolest person in the room. Someone who spent more time protecting other people than themselves. Delphi wasn't dead, she was just someone else now. It just took a while to find a form that suited him. Though, from what Blair could see, he was still figuring that part out. There was a chance her master would go through this process of reinvention several times over.

Though a part of her always regretted not being there when Arachne had cornered her master the first time. She lost her credibility as a familiar. In doing so, she too became something outside of order, but she wouldn't make the same mistake twice. She'd make sure Soul made it to thirty at least.

"Sorry," Blair padded past Patty and Soul to the door, "slip of the tongue, it won't happen again." The two weapons shared a look. To her surprise, Soul scooped her up so she didn't have to rush to keep pace. Usually, Maka was the one that carried her around. He didn't say a word. Slowly she rested her furry cheek against his arm and curled her tail around his wrist. She had gotten what she wanted already, her master was alive and well. To want him to be something he wasn't anymore for her own comfort was selfish. The door to the pumpkin house closed behind them and she didn't look back.

The anniversary party of the DWMA had been a nightmare for a variety of reasons. Finding out a kishen had been slumbering under the school was easily everyone's top pick for most upsetting news, followed by the infiltration of a rival group of kishen hunters who planned to take matters into their own hands. Things in the city were going to be tense for a while as the people in charge struggled with the shift in power. Logically, Maka understood that was what was the most important.

It was also the night she had dropped her partner of two years in front of everyone. On paper, it made sense for the smartest weapon to pair up with the smartest meister. It was a textbook recipe for a power couple. Only, as it turned out, Ox had liked someone else the entire time they'd been together. She had tried her best to be the perfect weapon, never outshining him, always supportive of any decisions he made only for him to chase after a fellow meister. No wonder he had liked when she put a splash of pink in her hair, it had just reminded him of someone else.

As humiliated as she had been, it was satisfying to know the entire school was on her side. She hadn't even gotten to have one dance before the whole Asura thing had blown every other problem out of the water. The god of madness was dead now, but she still didn't have a partner. Maybe she was better off without one.

"Sweetheart, a weapon meister pair doesn't have to have a romantic resonance link." Her mother was trying to be supportive through the breakup. "There are other types of partners, platonic links are very stable." Maka lolled her head back against the dining room chair. She wasn't a child, she had plenty of friends who offered to step in, but it wasn't the same. "I don't like the idea of you taking missions alone. I know you're close to being a death scythe, but it's still dangerous."

"Yeah, well, apparently I was in a platonic link and my partner just forgot to tell me." She knew that wasn't fair to say, but she was just still so angry about the whole thing, and her nightmares last night hadn't helped in the slightest. "What happened to 'when you know you know'? I thought I knew, I really did." There may be plenty of fish in the sea, but everyone at school felt so vapid and phony. She couldn't see anyone that measured up to what she thought were perfectly reasonable standards. "You and papa make it seem so easy." She had made her mother swear not to breath a word of this to Spirit. If he found out, the poor boy might have been better off facing the kishen.

"Papa and I were just very lucky." Kami sighed. "It's rare for pairs to stay together after graduation. Most people have to try a few times before they find someone they really click with. This is normal, especially at your age."

If it was so normal, then why did every book and movie she watch sing the praises of finding a perfect partner? Her parents had done it, so clearly she had done something wrong. Overthinking, that was probably the problem. She had too many conflicting blueprints to go off of. A few of them had insisted once you stopped looking, that's when you'd find them. So she was going to put a very concerted attempt to not look at every meister with her soul perception and actually wing it this time. Preferably before she went up against a witch. She may be a capable fighter, but that was too major of a milestone to celebrate alone. She needed to find someone before then. Wait, no, she was supposed to not be looking for a replacement.

"Ugh, why is this so hard?"

He was not grounded.

Black Star technically didn't have the authority to decide that, but this whole situation wasn't his fault. If they had just listened to him, and allowed him scope out the school in the weeks leading up to their attack, they would have had a better understanding of how the DWMA worked. It was a good idea. His parents were wrong about a lot of things and they spent most of their time in an echo chamber with only Suzuka bold enough to point out when they were talking out their asses. They were also wrong about him being grounded. Those words technically never had left their mouths.

So he couldn't get assigned missions anymore, big deal. He'd find his own missions. It shouldn't be that hard to find kishen eggs running around. Though in the days following Asura's defeat there was a sharp decrease in madness all around.

There was also the small problem, that Black Star hated working alone. It was boring to sneak up on an opponent, kill them, and disappear without even the satisfaction that his enemy knew what had happened. Sure it was more merciful, but where was the glory in that? The DWMA kids all had at least one or two friends they got to go on missions with and powerful magical weapons that ate souls. He'd seen them all milling about with each other when he snuck into the anniversary party. The Star Clan believed working in pairs drew too much attention and discouraged it whenever possible. In doing so, Black Star found it easily to get sloppy about following the rules of being a proper assassin. What was the point when no one was watching?

He was quite literally kicking rocks down the street in the middle of night looking for trouble. What soulless weapons he did own had been swiftly confiscated until he 'learned his lesson', whatever that meant, so he was unarmed. He'd show them just how competent of a fighter he was, regardless of how many handicaps they put on him.

A draconic looking thing was routing around in the alleyway like a stray cat. Black Star cracked his knuckles to attract it's attention. The thing sniffed the air, first toward him and then toward a nearby fire escape. It shouldn't have let it's guard down. Rushing in, soul menace pulsing, he punched it in the chest just as a blur of pink decapitated it with a shining pearly blade. The creature peeled apart like torn paper and on the ground a few feet ahead was a girl with a scythe blade for an arm.

She shook the transformation and flipped, immediately on guard toward whatever had aimed to steal her prey. The uniform she wore was a cutesy, magical girl send up of the usual DWMA uniform. He couldn't sense any other students around, so she must have been working alone.

"What the hell was that!?" She stood up to meet him face to face as he wordlessly stalked forward. "That demon was slated for execution by the DWMA, you shouldn't be here." Bleeding black blades came to mind as she tried to stare him down. When other hunters encroached on each other's territory, it was never good. There was a crackle of electricity as he grabbed her by the wrist.

She should have slapped him. Rejection reactions could be painful enough without being blindsided by a stranger's wavelength. When she realized he was trying to resonate with her, she braced herself for burns or vile internal bleeding, but nothing came of it. There was an itchiness that crawled up her arm as he looked her in the eye searching for something, silently begging for her cooperation like it was a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. An intense wave of nostalgia hit her. She wriggled out of his grip, held her arm close to his chest and the pop when they disconnected left her feeling sad and frustrated all at the same time.

She never had set foot near Star Clan territory before it had crawled into the heart of Death City, but his wavelength was a comforting frequency. The glowing angel wings that had grown from her soul slowly recede back due to the sudden lack of power. He seemed just as confused. There had to be a logical explanation.

"Do I know you?"

One benefit of having a temptress of a cat was getting to ride the monorail on the inside, for free. The seats were packed with people of all walks of life. Their next destination was the DWMA. Patty had her sights set on the back row of seats, mindful of a suspicious looking ketchup stain on one of the seats, but something had stopped Blair in her tracks. Soul nearly bumped into her and was just about to say something when a familiar laugh rose above the murmurs on the train.

Maka was sitting with her shoulder angled away from the rest of the train car. In one hand she had out an overly decorated phone, either to take a picture or to show something to Black Star. Blair had stepped a little to the side so she wasn't blocking Soul, but the two didn't seem to noticed, lost in their own little world. Her head was resting against his shoulder, his arm was around her waist, and Soul's heart hit the pit of his stomach.

"Maka?" Soul called out to her as casually as he could. Maka glanced up, but unlike before, the strange facade didn't crack away and leave her embarrassed. Under her breath, Blair made a disappoint hum and blindly reached for Soul's sleeve. Maka furrowed her brow, but remained tangled up in her friend's arms like a priceless accessory.

"Can I help you?" She didn't want to seem rude, but he just kept staring at them like he'd found a hair in his food. He must have been from one of the NOT classes if he didn't have a meister with him. The more confused she looked, the more his travel companion tugged on his sleeve to keep moving.

"What are you doing?" Soul asked.

"Going home?" There were bags underneath their seats. The interaction seemed to be awkward enough for Black Star to put on more of a protective front. Which just dumbfounded Soul, because one of them should have snapped out of it with him and Blair right in front of them.

"Soul," Blair grabbed his wrist and tugged him toward the back, "Patty's saving us a seat." He was practically dragged away, and just as quickly Maka and Black Star went back to tuning out their surroundings. "I know it's bad," Blair continued in a hushed whisper, "but we're going to need a little more help." He couldn't look away and had to be guided to his seat. One questioning look from Patty was all it took for Blair to fully explain what she'd seen. "Patty, you remember how in the last chapter, you kept getting sucked in?" She nodded and followed Soul's gaze to their friends further down the car. "Even Liz holding you down didn't wake you up." That caught Soul's attention and he finally turned towards Blair.

"Yeah," Patty said with a frown, "I was able to figure out it wasn't real, but I felt real so I thought something else was wrong."

"It kept making up reasons for you to stay." Blair sighed. "One of us, I don't know who, was able to make you think of something that didn't line up with what the chapter wanted you to think. It's the opposite for them." The hypnosis was so strong, she could barely catch the color of their eyes. Even with just them sitting there, she could see the magic circulating in a vicious feedback loop. "The illusions the book made for them wasn't contradicted when they bumped into each other, it's reinforcing it."

"Then we need to separate them." Soul said. Seeing him should have been enough, but if he could just say the right thing, maybe he could get her alone. Blair put a hand on his chest to keep him from standing. A few patrons closest to them turned to give him a disapproving stare. "I'm her weapon, that should be enough to get her to stop acting like an idiot."

"But are you her boyfriend?" Blair asked, knowing full well what the answer was. "Whatever this place is telling her she is, it's someone that doesn't need a weapon. Otherwise, that would have woken her up." They needed numbers more than anything. The book could ham fist an explanation for a few minor holes in logic, but if multiple people they were close to started to needle them, something might give. "We at least need Tsubaki." The train paused, and part of him want to chase after them both as they gathered Maka's bags and walked off the train, but Blair was deathly serious. "Seeing both of you could bring up more specific memories."

"That might be..." Patty chose her next words carefully. "She's also with someone that passed away." Masume, Soul had been recovering in the hospital while they were on that mission, he'd nearly forgot. "It might be easier to get her to Black Star than the other way around, but I'm not sure how deep under she is." One person was easier to coerce than two, but that didn't stop Soul from cursing under his breath. "I told you, it's just plain mean."