The summers in Death City were scorching, with air conditioners rattling in every building like a skeleton rolling dice. Anyone who lived there for more than a year came to understand starting in March, it was best to hide from the cackling sun until November. Until then, a wall of heat threatened to knock the wind out of the lungs of any poor soul forced to spend time in nature.

For Tsubaki, the dry weather had left her prone to nose bleeds. She did her level best to appear dignified with drying spots of blood on her front. The people around brandished their emotions like weapons, even the happy ones, while she quietly tuned them out. Her turn to speak to Lord Death would come.

She'd been forced to come here with a shaky understanding of English, because her family carried the burden of the uncanny sword. It was her turn to shoulder the weight of the curse. For generations members of her family would be whisked away to another country and have their very thoughts molded into another language. Those that returned found it difficult to assimilate back into their old lives. Historically most ended up chained to their meisters for the rest of their lives, never to return at all.

"Lord Death is busy at the moment-"

"Then I will wait here." Tsubaki said, words sharp and still as a stone statue. It didn't matter how many times they'd try to give her the run around, she would speak with Lord Death today. He was the only one who could authorize building a similar school in Japan, and she wasn't going to take no for an answer. If she left now, she'd never get to see him, and would stay trapped at this school even longer.

There was something off about this place. People seemed on edge, jumping at their own shadows and keeping one eye over their shoulder. Whispers of a wizard walking amongst them was accentuated by the gritty feel in the air. A heavy, staticy feeling of untapped potential, like the clouds outside were pushing down against the ground. Wind howled through the halls in a dull steady rhythm and the wooden door frames ached and groaned. The school was alive, and that life was spreading up from a rotting corpse beneath their feet.

Tsubaki knew the scent of a restrained body. How magic, blood and filth combined into a cocktail that lingered at the back of the throat for days. Whatever it was, it had been kept alive for a long time. There were more than enough weapons here, one of them should have been strong enough to kill it. Either it couldn't be killed, or it was being kept alive to collect more weapons.

Chapter 6 : GREED

It was rare for Maka to be included in anything kids her age were interested in. Her grades had pushed her ahead of her peers by two years, and her classmates regarded her as a stuck up child. Never mind the fact she could run laps around them academically, all she seemed to garner from them was disdain. On the off chance she did have an opportunity to mingle with her agemates, she was welcomed with the same fascinated reverence reserved for otherworldly beings like aliens. Having a Grigori soul sucked, but it was better than being normal.

As an olive branch to her peers, she tried to keep up with the trends. Her detached approximation of rebellion was comical, given how little time she actually had to make things herself. Soaking her bangs in koolaid was the closest she'd come to being hip, and even that had been at Soul's suggestion. The lime green dye tinged every bead of sweat that pooled from her brow. He should have been here forty minutes ago.

"Come on Maka." Regardless of the heat, her childhood friend was bundled up in tweed and silk like it would summon fall weather. "He's not coming." Maybe it was because he was the son of a pastor, but he always seemed to have a sort of sixth sense about people. He warned her of her parent's divorce before it was even legal for them to have one, and he'd told her this morning Soul was going to stand her up. The love of being right was the only thing that drove him to sweat it out at the foot of the tallest building in town with her. White and black hair clung to his face like cracks in the pavement. Maybe it was the heat, but it was hard to get a good look at his face.

"Five more minutes." Maka said. Her fingers were ravaged by pins and needles in waves that ebbed and flowed with increasing intensity. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her hands. At least they looked like they were supposed to, she could barely feel them move.

"You're going to pass out if you keep standing out here."

"Snow?" Something white and shiny had landed on her hand. It was soft and broke apart between her fingers. Then another speck fell and another; it was too brilliant to be ash, too warm to be snow. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"Man, it's starting without us." He hunched over, and seemingly decided enough was enough. Without another word, he started to make his way toward the tree house. Strange things happened in Death City all the time, from people turning into weapons to talking animals. Even then, it was one of the few places the chaotic sway of magic had yet to sink it's claws into. Lord Death detested anything that had to do with witch craft, but what Maka was seeing could only be described as magical. "There's only two more today, if we're quick, we might still be able to see it."

Soul should have been here. Whenever he decided to show up, if he decided to show up, she would get blamed for not waiting for him. She reached into her pocket, so she could let Soul know she was leaving, only to find nothing.

What had she expected to find?

"This is so annoying." Her friend was already half way down the street. "Fine, I'm coming."

People were gathered in the park working on signs for an upcoming demonstration in front of the school. Soul had tried to tell his family several times that he had made other plans, but in their words, there would always be another test to watch and this was more important. Apparently, him going to the school aided to their cause, but he didn't understand why that involved him showing up to every meeting his parents arranged, down to the most menial tasks like running to the store for more sharpies. Still, if he didn't show up and sweat it out with the rest of his family and their weapon friends, he'd never hear the end of it.

"Alright, here's everything you asked for." The sky was starting to shift in hues. If they would just let him leave early, maybe he could at least pretend like he'd been at the watch party the whole time. Before he could dart away, a girl grabbed him by the ear.

"I don't think so."

"You have plenty of signs." He said. "There's nothing for me to do here anyway."

"You're supporting your real friends." She let him go. "What's gotten into you? You found a few souls and suddenly you're fine with other people being forced to fight? You're the one that said how dangerous it was."

"I told you as soon as they let girls be meisters..." A boy with grey hair grumbled. He was seated in the grass with gobs of glitter glue stuck to his hands.

"I'm not becoming a death scythe because of some girl." Soul snapped back. It was the easiest career path for a weapon to take, everyone knew that. Though, now that he was looking at all the signs people were making, they seemed to think it was the only career path. Which, no, that couldn't be right. As long as you had a meister, you could do whatever you wanted... But then the only way to have a meister would be to train at the school.

"Now you're becoming a death scythe?" The girl crossed her arms. "Eric, you hearing this? Your cousin's lost his mind." The guy on the ground wiped his hand off on the back of the sign and stood up.

"Leave 'im alone Enid." He said. "You're the one that asked him to poke around the school and figure out what they're working on. At least he's still here." Soul felt he was looking in an uncanny mirror, 'Eric' had familiar features, but Soul couldn't shake the feeling he hadn't seen them in that combination before. "You okay? You look a lil freaked." Sweat soaked the inside of Soul's jacket. Something big was happening, that's why he'd been trying to rise up in the ranks so quickly. Enid narrowed his eyes suspiciously, so he grabbed Eric by the shoulder and lead him away from the rest of the group.

"Look man, you can't tell anyone this." Soul kept his voice quiet, just in case random park goers got too close. "I'm self wielding."

"Are you kidding, that's huge!" Eric's eyes lit up. Soul interrupted him before he could shower him with praise or something equally tone deaf.

"It's cause my meister's missing." It was the easiest way to explain it. He was fortunate that the school didn't hold him responsible for it, but it'd already been a week with no word. "The school's trying to cover it up with this new program." When people died in action, the school would say as much, but they were acting as if his meister never existed. "I don't know how far they're willing to go to hide it." He sighed, because if any of this led back to him it would look really bad. He need to become indispensable before keeping him seemed like a liability. "You wanna be a jazz musician? Now's the time to push back, but I can't be there for it or they'll know I was the one who told you. That's why I got to go to stupid stuff like the watch parties."

The DWMA had a long, dimly lit meeting room, with death scythes and meisters well past their prime arguing in circles about what to do. Students didn't simply vanish into thin air. They were lucky enough there were no parents to worry about, but a few teachers were starting to get questions from students about where their fellow classmate had gone. Whatever had happened, Shinigami-sama had devoted all his attention toward a way to pull all current students out of field work entirely. That included, in the elder god's estimation, anyone young enough to fight.

"It's the Star Clan fiasco all over again." One gentlemen said. "All it takes is one bad apple for him to write the whole bunch as spoiled." There was a round of outraged agreement. "We'll all be out of a job if we can't figure out how to fix this."

"What's there to fix?" Another shouted above the noise. "We have everyone with soul perception trying to find the lad, he's gone. The kid must have been got by the kishen egg he was sent to kill." This would always get someone pointing out there was no kishen egg either. Then someone would suggest interrogating his weapon again, but they always got the same answer. Noah Ararat had gone into a book. Sometimes the child described it as a portal, or a bright light, but every version ended with all three subjects of interest disappearing without a trace. Then someone would suggest the weapon was on drugs until the men circled back to panicking about keeping their jobs.

"If Shinigami-sama is too busy with his newest project to come up with a solution, then it's time to pass the torch." Patty had given up on waiting for her turn to speak. "The school can run without him." That was what they had been doing the last few weeks anyway. With various higher level meisters taking on the tasks Lord Death typically micromanaged. "We should be discussing who should be the new headmaster."

For once she could hear herself think. Bringing up a controversial topic, like the god of order retiring, had put the fear of said god showing up back into all wrinkled hearts. Lord Death did not enjoy relinquishing control to anyone. If he found out how long the school had been running on autopilot, there would be hell to pay. It didn't quell the fear that the demon tools he was working on with Eibon were meant to replace the miester weapon pairs. Once that thought crossed someone's mind, the rounds of panicked complaining would start anew.

No amount of proposed solutions was enough to quell the growing anxiety of the old hats at the DWMA. A wizard had been brought in to help locate the missing student, and instead he and the god of order had plunged themselves into a secret project to make a different sort of weapon. The last time Lord Death tried to make something, Asura happened.

A trail of extensions cords dangled from the window of the tree house. The air was uncomfortably still as Maka climbed up to where other kids her age were huddled around the window that faced the valley. There were bowls of chips and the people forced to stand in the back were fighting over who's turn it was to use the binoculars. They didn't greet her, but they didn't go out of their way to make her feel unwelcome. She might as well be a splinter in the wood.

The one thing Maka was certain of, she didn't need binoculars. Over the white picket fences and colorful slated houses, a large white light winked in the distance. A cloud with glimmering golden hues she'd only seen in sunsets blossomed up against a flat blue sky. Two people fought over the binoculars to get a better look at the strange birds circling around the cloud in wider rings. It looked almost like a soul wavelength, but it lacked the palpable feeling of life souls gave off. It was definitely pretty to look at. She understood the appeal.

Wind caught up to them, rocking the swamp cooler like the tide, just to topple it over unknown stories to the grass below. Anytime she tried to take a deep breath, her lung reacted like sandpaper was being forced down her lungs. A sort of glitter had been carried with the wind, leaving a dull shimmer on cheeks and sleeves. Gold was an excellent medium for energy to connect through, but it was strange to see it in so much abundance.

"I bet it's a flying machine." One of the kids said.

"You always think they're flying machines." A girl snapped. She adjusted the view finder to get a clearer look at the outer rings of the explosion. "Celetrias... Ah.. Ayturnus... Clavis..." She lowered the binoculars and looked to Maka. "What does that mean?"

"I-I don't know." Latin sometimes was easy to parse out, but Maka wasn't strong on her conjugations of it. The school had been working to phase it out for more approachable terminology. "Aeturnus sounds kind of like eternal, maybe something to do with time?" She shrugged. The other kids shook their heads and resumed watching the cloud dissipate in the heavens in long reaching tendrils. Another wave of pain surged into Maka's hands, anywhere that glittered itched. "The town's downwind of the valley."

"Clouds never make it past the mountains." Someone waved for her to drop it, even though this was the first time she had the words to convey why the bi-monthly spectacle didn't sit well with her. Water vapors evaporate under the heat of the sun, but the wind was undeterred. The strange snow and the way her body reacted, whatever that thing was, it was magic and the entire town was stewing in it. She turned to her friend, holding her gold-tinged fingers up for him to see, hoping he'd brush off her concerns with another of his annoying 'I told you so's.

"I can make you one." He pulled the scarf up further on the bridge of his nose. "Or you can wear a bandana cowboy style." Bad things always happened when he confirmed her fears. "You haven't been around this much magic for an extended period of time before. I think it's catching up to you."

"Maka, what are you staring at?" Someone asked. He was promptly smacked in the shoulder by someone else and chided with harsh whispers. Her friend lifted one finger and held it up in front of his scarf. Could no one else see him? She felt nauseous; the heat was making her dizzy and she swore her friend was rippling like a heat mirage.

They met at the school, she was certain. He was in detention a lot, so when her dad was busy with work, she'd talk to him until her father was able to take her home. Why couldn't she remember his name?

"You forgot to give me one." He shrugged. It wasn't a sixth sense, he was reading her mind.

"Maka?"

"I have to go." Maka needed to get somewhere cold. Sit down where the sunlight couldn't find her and sip ice-cold orange juice until her blood could pump evenly through her body. The color of his hair, and the shape of his eyes were familiar and trying to appear friendly. He'd come out of hiding to find her. However, this uncanny figment of her imagination, it was setting off her fight or flight instinct. Something was wrong, and it wasn't just because she was seeing and hearing things that weren't there. She felt like she was going mad.

Kilik was stuck working on a paper while everyone else got to watch as another demon fighting tool was brought into the world. Even his weapons were enjoying playing in the glittering artificial snow. It was harmless for the most part, especially to weapons, but he did have to caution Fire and Thunder against eating it. Safe and edible were two different categories.

Lord Death had assigned him a special task. As one of the few duel wielding meisters, he'd risen to third star status in record time. What that earned him, it seemed, was a pile of paperwork with Eibon's name on it. The last time the god of knowledge tried to compile his own research in one place, the book had picked up enough divine energy they suspected it had a thrall of it's own. People had a habit of going missing in it's presence and now it too had vanished. So trying to recreate it fell into Kilik's hands to see which parts of Eibon's writing caused the book to wander off.

In the late evenings, the roar of air craft was common. As the city had grown around the rails, conductors failed to notice, and continued to lay upon the train whistles in their own secret code. The library stunk of ink and moldy paper. Eibon's notes were just as much a collection of drink and food as it was of magical research. What wasn't normal, was a low breathy groan that bounced through the shelves. Kilik hid as many of the papers as he could.

No one was supposed to be down here. He hadn't worked himself to the bone just to loose Shinigami-sama's trust over a bunch of old notes. As every muscle in his neck groaned with pain, he engaged the seal and pulled himself away from the desk. He probably needed to take a break anyway.

Pushing a few books out of the way, he found nothing but empty space. His instinct told him something was watching him from in between the shelves. Like a prickle at the back of his neck. Only the closest things to eyes he found, were the gold embossed 'o's on the spines of books. He'd seen a shadow flutter outside his peripheral vision, only to find his own locs had fallen into view. Then something cold dripped down the back of his neck.

The library would be fine without him in it.

Everything he needed was in his pocket. He climbed the stone staircase using every third step, ignoring the staticy whisper in his ear. It was probably just his heart, from stress. The DWMA wouldn't possibly have a ghost, Lord Death wouldn't stand for an innocent soul to roam the halls in an incorporeal state.

"Fire, Thunder?" There were tiny foot prints in the unnatural snow, but no sign of either child. "Come on guys, we need to go home." Mixed in with the footprints were pea-sized indents in clusters. Maybe they'd gone chasing after a stray. They shouldn't have been able to go that far on foot.