Okay, something different. Not PoaH, but that should be coming soon. I've been working two jobs for the past six months and it leaves me very little time to write, but I've been working on this particular story idea for damn near a decade since I first got interested in Anime. It was, to my memory, my first Fanfiction idea that I started actually writing stuff down for.
The early stuff was about what you would expect from a 16-year-old (which is to say… bad), but while the characters, plotline, and even Weapon/Meister pairs have changed, it is still all based on a single throwaway line from 1 panel of the manga, which I is usually the premise I myself look for in a fic.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to the story I want to tell and how I want to tell it, this story takes place in the ANIME universe, NOT the manga. The manga is a complete story, while the Anime leaves a lot to be desired and a lot more stories left to tell, so it's perfect for what I want to do.
This is just the first chapter of the Prologue. The other two will follow (eventually) in much the same way as the source material. Each of the first three chapters will focus on a Weapon/Meister pair.
That's enough from me. I hope y'all enjoy!
SE:N
A small, emaciated dog trotted through the abandoned husk of an old apartment building. It is thinner than others of its species living outside the exclusion zone, though not outwardly unhealthy. It sniffed the ground and growled, its hackles rising as the sound of a vehicle passing by outside shook the apartment's weathered walls. It padded over to the empty door frame and whined quietly at the sight of several soldiers emerging out of the car with loud laughter following them. They gathered around the hood of the armored truck, lighting cigarettes as they glanced around their immediate surroundings with high-powered flashlights. The dog's whines went unnoticed as it tucked its tail between its legs and scurried away, darting through a hole in the wall and into the desolate street opposite the soldiers.
Demyan Kovalenko took a long draw of his cigarette before exhaling and turning to face his men, three of them trying to convince the last to take one of the remaining few in the pack. He huffed a laugh and walked over, slamming his hand against the teenager's shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. "Don't listen to them, Nil; they may say it puts hair on your balls, but what would these three know, eh? They're all as smooth as a newborn."
"Oh, like you're much better, Captain? Remember the vodka incident last month?" Demyan scowled, focusing on his squad's instigator, Erast Tkachenko. He loved the man like a brother in his heart, but most days, he was as pleasant to deal with as a kidney stone. Erast grinned mischievously and tapped a finger against his chin. "Now, what was that girl's name? The one with the beard?"
"Hlib, I think," the squad's mechanic, a squirrely man named Oleh, said with a smile. Demyan growled and flicked his lit cigarette at Erast, who dodged out of the way with a guffaw.
"At ease, you roach." Erast smiled in that way Demyan had come to recognize as brewing trouble. Intent to not let Erast's oversized mouth drag down their patrol, he grabbed his rifle from the truck and jerked his head to the side. "Lot of ground to cover. Someone's been killing plant workers; that stops tonight."
"Sir? I overheard you and Director Ivanov talking. Is it true this man is a–" Nil cut himself off with a startled gasp as the sound of glass breaking cut through the otherwise quiet night. Demyan's jaw clenched, and he clicked the safety off on his weapon.
"Technically, it's classified. We could be punished severely if it got out, but since you're nosy enough to eavesdrop on a secret conversation, Nil," Demyan's voice dropped an octave as he leveled the younger man with a glare, causing him to shrink back. Seeing the expectant looms on his men's faces, he realized that, while Nil most likely did listen in on them, it was most likely not his idea. 'That boy has no self-preservation skills. They always stick me with the worst recruits.' Demyan frowned and closed his eyes, fighting off an oncoming headache, then turned back to the empty streets. "Yes, the man we are hunting is a Kishin Egg. He has been hunting plant workers and devouring their souls," he said gravely, watching the color leave his comrade's face. Even Erast went quiet at the proclamation, rightfully so. They'd all heard the rumors before, no matter how much their superiors tried to keep them contained, even after a myriad of classified documents had leaked online confirming their existence to the broader public.
"I thought Death's men usually handled cases like this. Why the hell are we being sent after a monster?" Their squad's final member, the quiet and gruff Nazar, hissed. Demyan frowned as the atmosphere became ever tenser the further away from their truck's headlights they got. He'd always hated Pripyat. Even without the threat of a Kishin Egg, the once-thriving city was far too quiet and eerie for his tastes. He held up a fist to stop his squad's progression as they reached an intersection.
As Demyan turned and looked down each road, he tried to figure out just how much he could say without causing trouble. After several moments of silence, he decided he didn't care much about what their superiors thought. If they were sending him and his men to their deaths, then they should at least know why.
"The Kremlin refused to let their Eastern European branch send anyone. They claimed they had too much work to do in the Urals. Those clown things have been popping up again," he explained. Erast let out a derisive snort, and his grip on his rifle tightened.
"Russian bastards. They don't need every single one of Death's men, surely. One Weapon and Meister pair would be plenty. They don't give two shits about us." Demyan agreed, yet when he saw Nil shaking like a leaf at the center of their formation, he felt the need to try and set him at ease.
"The Kremlin may not, but I have worked with Tsar Pushka before. He's a great man and would not take this lying down, especially with how vital this area still is. While he can't come here himself, he would not leave us to deal with this issue alone." It was a bald-faced lie, considering he'd only met Tsar once when he was around Nil's age and hadn't actually had a conversation with the man longer than three words. Still, he'd been able to read some reports on the missions run by the DWMA's Eastern European Branch, and every single one described Tsar as a man of integrity and loyalty to his men. He wouldn't leave them to die, surely.
Almost as soon as the thought had popped into his head, a low growling sound emanated from somewhere on the darkened street to their left. At once, four barrel-mounted flashlights swung in the direction of the noise, but there was nothing. Erast cursed stray dogs under his breath while Nil laughed nervously. Demyan's eyes narrowed as he continued to sweep the street with his light while his men relaxed.
As they continued on their way, the scar tissue marring his back and shoulder began to itch—memories of his first encounter with a Kishin Egg and how horrible it had gone before Tsar arrived. 'I lost my whole squad in Afghanistan to that thing, and he came in to dispatch it within minutes. I'm not overly enthusiastic about our chances here either, so putting our hope in Death is our only option.'
In Afghanistan, the beast had come out of nowhere and ripped through his squad, primarily friends from his training or school days, before he'd even had the chance to fire a shot. 'To think it was just one big coincidence that Tsar was on assignment looking for the bastard. Soviets wanted so badly to drag him into the war that I was certain the rumors on the frontlines were just that. I didn't believe them until the beast was… right on top of us,' Demyan thought before freezing, some instinct inside him pulling his rifle up towards the upper levels of the nearby apartment buildings. The instant his flashlight swept over an abandoned restaurant's second story, he saw bright red eyes reflected back at him.
There wasn't even time to scream for his men before the monster – large, muscular, covered in hair, and wielding a butcher's knife – was on top of Oleh, its comically wide jaw latching onto his squadmate's windpipe.
"Oleh!" Nil screamed, dropping his gun and falling backward. Having gotten over his initial shock, Demyan roared out the order for his men to shoot, though he was sure it was a useless endeavor. To the soldiers' dismay, their bullets had minimal effect, bouncing off the monster's skin as the sounds of tearing flesh and gunfire permeated the night.
"Ublyudok!" Erast roared as he grabbed Nil by the back of his neck and began dragging the young man, who had gone rigid from shock, back towards the truck. It spoke to how long they'd worked together that Demyan and Nazar acted immediately, circling to the opposite side of the beast and keeping up their fire to draw its attention away from Erast and Nil.
Still hunched over the motionless body, now corpse, of Oleh, Demyan watched with some fascination as the beast's eyes tracked something he couldn't see before plucking it out of the air and shoving whatever it was down its gullet. 'Damn, that must have been Oleh's soul.' Sharing a glance with Nazar, the two spread out to catch the Kishin in the crossfire, hopefully distracting it from the retreating Erast and Nil.
Finally, with Oleh's soul consumed, the beast seemed to register that it was peppered with ineffective bullets and whipped its head around to face Nazar, whose finger froze on his trigger.
Then, the beast began to move.
It was much faster than Demyan would have thought with its large body and lanky limbs. It reminded him of a bear, the way it ran on all fours, shrugging off the bullets Nazar was shooting at it. Demyan swore and began sprinting after the beast, which reached Nazar and tried to bite down on his head, only for its teeth to shatter off the metal of Nazar's gun. The Kishin growled as it tossed the weapon aside, and for a moment, Demyan felt a sense of relief as he got closer to Nazar, only to watch in horror as his oldest squadmate collapsed with a butcher knife sticking out of his chest.
"Nazar!"
"Demyan! We have to leave now!" Erast bellowed, snapping his captain out of his shock. Demyan turned and saw his remaining two squadmates had retrieved their vehicle and were both looking back at him with wide eyes. 'U nastupnomu zhytti, staryy druzhe,' he thought as he sprinted towards the truck.
Even as he was only a few feet away from salvation, Demyan couldn't help but look over his shoulder at the carnage behind him. Oleh's corpse lay in the middle of the road with his throat torn open, while Nazar stared up at the beast with unseeing eyes as it tore into his chest with the knife. Again, Demyan watched the beast pluck something invisible out of the air and unhinge its inhuman jaw.
The beast's body quivered as it swallowed, then turned to face Demyan. It stared at him with hungry red eyes, its teeth dripping with Oleh's blood. For a brief moment, he was a nineteen-year-old private again, staring down the maw of a Kishin. His feet pounded the pavement even harder, and with a burst of strength his old body hadn't shown in over a decade, he leaped the final few yards into the truck bed.
Erast slammed on the gas, nearly sending Demyan back out of the truck. After getting his bearings, he looked back through the truck's back window to see Nil curled into a ball in the back seat while Erast swore in Ukrainian, Russian, and even some colorful Latvian. "This is the bullshit they send us to fight? How many men were they planning to feed this monster?"
"Just drive, Erast. Get to the checkpoint; they'll have something there." From the derisive snort, Demyan knew Erast saw right through his lie. 'Fuck it. Maybe a massacre will open their eyes. Better us soldiers than that thing breaking into the Sarcophagus for its next meal.' He glanced down at Nil and felt a slight pang of guilt. Despite his proficiency with a rifle, he was still just a boy.
"Fuck! We must have put a hundred rounds into that thing. How is it still alive?" Erast shouted, causing Nil to flinch at the sound. Demyan said nothing at first as he searched through the truck bed for a weapon of some sort. He'd dropped his rifle during his mad dash, and he doubted his trusty old Soviet Makarov – which was nearly older than Erast, let alone Nil – would be able to do much against that thing. His hand landed on a flare gun, and he scowled.
"A person who eats the soul of another loses their humanity in exchange for power. I've seen one eat an entire magazine from a Gorunov. Besides one of Death's Weapons, I'm unsure what could kill it." Erast let out another loud curse. Demyan glanced down and scowled as he heard Nil whimper. 'I don't think we're getting a miraculous appearance from Tsar this time. Those bastards at Command are willing to let us die to appease Moscow. To hell with them; I've too much pride to go down without a proper fight!' He thought as he lifted the flare gun and aimed at the quickly approaching beast.
The first shot sailed wide of the Kishin's head, but it caught its attention, giving Demyan enough time to reload. While he'd renounced his parents' religion as a young man, he found himself praying to any god listening as he lined up his next shot.
The flare soared in a burning arc right into the Kishin's open gullet, making it scream in aggravation. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have much more effect than that. In the driver's seat, Erast glanced over his shoulder and growled. "You're pissing it off, Demyan! Hang on!"
With minimal warning, Erast swerved hard off the main road, making the entire truck groan as it briefly became airborne over a roadside ditch before slamming into a field of waist-high grass. It proved to be a fruitful maneuver at first, as the beast seemingly couldn't fling itself about with reckless abandon as it could using the streetlamps and dilapidated buildings of Pripyat. Of course, it could still run much faster than the average human, and with their army-issued truck being as old as Nil, if not older and not entirely made for off-road driving, their reprieve was more akin to buying time.
Within mere moments, their truck began to make very unusual noises, and each bump became more and more jarring. Demyan peered over his shoulder and went cold at the sight of the beast's back arching above the grass as it tore after them on all fours. "Damnit, Erast! Get back on the road before this thing falls apart!"
"Da!" Erast called as he turned, this time making the truck groan dangerously onto a still overgrown but much less wild road. 'Only a few miles until we reach the checkpoint. We might actually escape this fate,' Demyan thought, only realizing too late and cursing himself. His grandmother had always raved about jinxes and curses, implanting the unconscious paranoia into his psyche from a young age.
This time, however, his jinx manifested itself as the Kishin lept out from the tall grass ahead of their truck, its mottled, gray skin almost translucent under the glare of the headlights. Erast, quick-thinking as always, swore and flipped on the high beams just as the creature pounced at them with its knife raised.
It was just enough to blind the Kishin, so instead of bursting through their windshield with its knife raised as it must have intended, it slammed its upper torso into their hood and jarred the vehicle out of control. They were alive, but as the truck skidded across the pavement sideways before coming to a bouncing stop, Demyan knew their time was still limited. Through the near pitch black, he could make out the shape of the monster getting to his feet.
"Get us out of here, Erast!" He bellowed, groping behind him for another flare. He listened as Erast swore and turned the key over… only for the engine to sputter and die. Nil sobbed and curled in on himself on the floor of the truck's cabin. Demyan hissed through his teeth as his hand closed around another flare. He was inwardly proud at how quickly he came to his decision. "Get this truck started and get to the checkpoint! I'll buy you a few moments!"
"Fuck!" It spoke to their dire situation that Erast didn't argue, instead slamming his fist on the steering wheel, inadvertently honking the car's horn several times. Demyan took a deep breath and leaped from the back of the truck, the flare gun rising to level with the approaching shadow's head as soon as his boots met pavement. 'Watch over me,' he thought, stepping towards the beast, whose hackles raised.
Demyan fired at the exact moment the Kishin pounced. He missed.
Instead of being resigned, as he always thought he would be to die in battle, Demyan instead felt anger at the unfairness of it all. He was angry at his leaders for not taking the threat seriously, angry at those who prevented the DWMA and Tsar from sending aid, and angry at Death himself for not keeping his promise to protect them from Kishins. The anger he felt allowed him to stare fearlessly into the eyes of the monster as it leaped for him, its claws poised to tear into his chest.
A displacement of air, a flash of gray, and a pained scream. That was all Demyan's mind was able to process before realizing that he wasn't dead. "The hell?" The truck finally roared to life behind them, its lights flashing on and bathing the street in light.
Standing in front of Demyan… was a child. A boy even younger than Nil, no older than sixteen, dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans (not nearly enough to keep out the nighttime chill) and holding a short, silver sword. Then, he noticed the Kishin's howling and ripped his gaze away from the newcomer to see the beast cradling its arm, which now ended in a bloody stump at the wrist. When the boy spoke, his voice carried in the dead silence of the Pripyat night.
"Boris the Animal. You've strayed from the path of humanity and have become a Kishin. In accordance with the will of Lord Death, your soul is now forfeit!" The boy said, his voice appearing to echo. To Demyan's bemusement, the boy's shoulders hunched up, and he whipped his sword around to be directly in front of his face. "Shut up, Sarah!"
"'Your soul is now forfeit, Mr. Kishin,'" a female voice, the "echo" Demyan had heard, emanated mockingly from the sword. Demyan was immediately transported back to his youthful encounter with the Tsar. 'That boy… is a Meister, which means that sword is also a person.'
"We're supposed to declare their last rites! That's the rule! If we don't, then Lord Death might say the soul doesn't count towards our total," the boy argued. There was a derisive snort from the sword and Demyan felt the hope that had welled in him at the realization wilt a bit.
"You are literally the only person who does that every single time, Erik. No one else has ever lost a soul because they haven't told the Kishin that they're a Kishin, dumbass," the sword, Sarah, shot back. He heard the boy, Erik, inhale angrily before he held his sword arm outstretched and began shaking the weapon violently.
"Don't call me a dumbass, dumbass! If you ever paid attention in class you would know this stuff is important! It's like the Miranda Rights!" Erik cried, bashing the weapon onto the pavement angrily, causing Sarah to shriek and begin spitting expletives. Just then, Erik heard the soldier behind him swear in another language and brought Sarah's weapon form up just in time to block Boris the Animal's wild swing with his long, gnarled claws. "It's rude to interrupt people, y'know."
The beast just growled and flung itself backward, its eyes never leaving Erik's weapon as it reached into its shredded clothing and produced a rather large butcher knife. Erik just raised an eyebrow and lowered his stance. It only took a moment for Boris' bloodlust to outweigh its caution, and it leaped towards him again, swinging the knife in a wide arc, which Erik easily sidestepped.
"Your technique is horrible." Boris the Animal howled in rage and dove at Erik with reckless abandon. However, even its quickest, more brutal swings could not break through the Meister's defense. He parried, blocked, and outright sidestepped a few attacks, yet barely seemed phased. In fact, the mildly annoyed expression on his face seemed more due to his Weapon's incessant mocking.
"O-ho, now we're showing off for the soldiers?" Sarah asked, this time her voice did not come from her weapon form, but instead reverberated through Erik's mind. He barely paid her any mind at first, hooking his sword around another wild stab and slicing right through the Kishin's remaining arm.
"Gotta make this interesting somehow," he shot back snappily, though his eyes never left Boris as the creature stumbled back with a whimper, its head lowered towards its matching stumps. Those who became Kishin Eggs, however, rarely were the type to give up and die peacefully, so Erik didn't bat an eye when the beast charged again, its maw opened into a warcry that soon turned into a dying wail as the sword pierced its chest.
Erik stepped back as Boris the Animal's body contorted before crumpling away, leaving only a glowing red orb behind. The familiar weight in his hand vanished as Sarah transformed. Her long, steel weapon form turned into a short, athletic girl in a tank top and shorts, a hungry grin on her face.
Erik always hated this part, turning away as Sarah approached the soul, instead focusing his attention on the soldiers. The two in the truck had gotten out and were staring at him in disbelief. Their leader just looked tired, relieved, and grateful. "Hello! Are you all alright?" The men didn't say anything, which made his shoulders droop. 'I knew they should have sent Alexei,' he thought morosely. "Do… any of you speak English?"
"You are one of Tsar's men?" The leader asked in heavily accented English. Erik let out a sigh of relief – he had enough trouble speaking to people without a language barrier – and held up a hand in greeting.
"No, we're from the DWMA. Lord Death sent us after he got Tsar's request." The second eldest man scoffed at this and looked at Erik with skepticism.
"They sent a child? This creature has been killing people for months with no response and they send a child to help us?" Erik frowned, but it seemed the man wasn't angry at them specifically. Even with his limited people skills, Erik could tell the man's anger was really fear. Of course… Sarah didn't realize that.
"Hey, we did a better job than you! Don't look a gift horse in– Ow! Erik, what the hell?" She cried as her partner smacked the back of her head. He'd seen the youngest man, just a few years older than him, close in on himself at her harsh words.
"Please ignore her. She doesn't leave her kennel very often, so she doesn't know how to interact with others," he said sardonically. As soon as he heard the sharp intake of air, he ducked and backpedaled away from the furious girl now charging at him with her arm replaced by a sword blade. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the two older soldiers sharing a look.
"Regardless… you performed admirably. Without you, we would be dead. We owe you a great debt," Demyan said loudly, trying to be heard over the swishing of air and muttered curses. At first, he thought his words had fallen on deaf ears, but after being smacked hard on the ribs by the girl's sword blade, the boy turned to smile bashfully at them.
"You don't owe us anything. We're just doing our job," the boy said before his face hardened. "If anything we should apologize for coming so late. We were told there were more of you on patrol tonight…"
"They were good men. Their blood is not on your hands. If help had been allowed to come earlier, their lives and many more would have been saved."
"Speaking of which," Erik began warily. He and Sarah wore matching sheepish impressions. Demyan frowned and raised an eyebrow at the two teens. "Officially… we came here against orders."
"Unofficially, our teacher gave us the go-ahead after one of our classmates wouldn't stop threatening to come himself. He has no stealth skills, like, whatsoever so that would have been a shitshow. If anyone asks, the Kishin probably killed itself and you didn't see anything," Sarah said, wiggling her fingers in the air toward the three soldiers sardonically. Erik rolled his eyes.
"Going against the orders of Ivan? Knew I liked the look of you kids," Erast said, his voice amused but still slightly shaky from the whole endeavor. Demyan felt his shoulders drooping as he finally let down his guard. If Erast could find the time to be an ass, everything was right with the world. "Still, the fact that children did our job better than us makes me feel pretty useless."
Demyan frowned and opened his mouth, but one of the students beat him to it. "It's what we've been trained for. Fighting Kishins is about the apex of our skillset. I'm sure if this was a traditional battle in a war – what you've all trained for – Sarah and I would feel pretty useless too," Erik said, successfully catching both Erast and Demyan off guard once again.
"Besides, only thing that can kill a Kishin is a Demon Weapon. Coulda nuked this place and he'd still be crawling around stabbing anyone left," Sarah interjected. Erik opened his mouth as if to correct her or admonish her crass tone, but she punched him on the shoulder and grinned at the soldiers. "Not that that wouldn't be cool! Imagine a person with the power to be a nuke! Closest we've got is Alexei and he usually only causes that much destruction by accident."
Erik let out a long-suffering sigh but said nothing. Demyan was surprised to see movement in his periphery and watched as Nil sheepishly approached the girl. "Excuse me," he began in broken English. "I was wondering… you ate that thing's soul, yes? How does it taste?"
"Gettin' the urge to consume some souls, eh?" Sarah replied. Seeing the soldier's wide eyes made her guffaw and slung an arm around his shoulders. "Sure, I'll tell ya. Just remember, if you try it for yourself I'll have to kill you." She winked, causing Erik to face-palm. Then, she began to drool as she explained, "It tastes amazing! Like a mix of cotton candy and a snowcone, but with a sorta irony-bloody aftertaste.
'And on that note,' Erik thought, turning away, bowing his head apologetically at the leader of the soldiers, who watched warily as Nil's excitement turned to uncertainty. As his partner continued prattling, he walked over to the soldiers' truck and tapped on the glass lightly. "Excuse me, would you mind if I used this?"
"Uh… no?" Erast replied. He turned to Demyan, who shrugged, and they both watched as Erik breathed on the glass, leaving a fine layer of condensation. Unaware of their bemusement, he reached up and began to write on the window.
"42-42-564, whenever you want to knock on Death's door." Sarah snickered and turned her attention away from her latest victim.
"You don't have to say that every time we call, nerd." Erik felt his cheeks warm up slightly and nearly turned around to yell at her again when the surface of the window rippled and an image appeared.
"O-ho! Hi, howdy, hey, how's it going?" Erik fought the urge to smile as Lord Death's familiar mask appeared much too close to the glass, the far-stretching blue sky of the Death Room visible behind him.
"Lord Death, it's Meister Morrison reporting in. We've completed our mission." Death bounced back and clapped his comically large hands together.
"Well done! I'm glad to hear it!"
"That's soul number fifty-seven, Lord Death. Better get used to my face, because soon I'll be your newest Death Scythe," Sarah interjected, shoulder-checking Erik out of frame. The boy glared at her before shoving her back and, seeing the challenge in her eyes, Death looked helplessly at someone off-screen. Erik heard a sigh and turned to watch as Professor Stein rolled into view.
"Coincidentally, we just received permission to take out Boris the Animal from the Eastern European Branch. To not arouse any suspicion, Tsar is requesting the two of you stay in Ukraine for just a few more days. Give it two or three and you can still be back before the term begins." Sarah groaned behind him and Erik couldn't really blame her. He had been hoping to spend the last few days of summer vacation goofing off and watching some shows he'd gotten behind on. 'I wonder if any video rental stores around here have English shows…'
"Gah, that's so stupid. I don't wanna stay here for that long! Should have just sent Alexei, at least he knows the language. What the hell do they even eat in Ukraine?!" Death and Stein watched as someone off-screen spoke (probably a soldier) which drew the girl's attention away, giving Erik a chance to speak again.
"No worries. We brought our Death Card this time, so we should be able to find a hotel to stay in. Just send us over the flight details whenever you get a ch–"
"Oh, what the hell do you mean 'this time', huh? I told you to remind me to grab it before we left for Amsterdam, you asshole," Sarah spat, shoving Erik out of frame once again.
"I shouldn't have to remind you to do something that obvious, idiot! It's common sense to make sure you have everything packed before leaving for a mission!"
"Says the one who forgot to pack underwear last year when we went to Manila?"
"Oh my god! Let it go! At least I went out and bought some instead of complaining nonstop like you did when you left your phone on the plane from Jakarta!" Lord Death hummed as the two's shouting got louder and the insults pettier.
"Well… Good job on your mission. Come back safe. See ya!" He said before wiping the mirror away. The last thing they saw was Sarah leaping on top of Erik's back and clawing at his hair. As the Death Room descended into silence again, Stein began cranking the bolt in his head.
"Are you sure about making those two into Two-Stars? Behavioral issues aside, there's also Erik's condition to take into account," he said as he lit up a cigarette. Death just stared silently at the mirror, which Stein took as a hint to go on. "Resonance is an essential part of upper-level combat missions and if he can't achieve it, their survival rate goes down dramatically."
"With the way our plans are going, they won't be taking too many solo missions anyway. It's too far along in their development to stick another pair in their place. Their team scores too highly to consider breaking them up. They've already suffered one tragedy," Death replied mournfully. Stein shrugged and took a long drag before blowing the smoke up into the air. "Besides, we'd be hard-pressed to find anyone with a will to improve like them."
SE:N
Back in Pripyat, as Erik and Sarah continued to argue loudly, even as they were herded into the truck by the Ukrainian soldiers, neither noticed the pair of amber eyes watching them. Hundreds of feet above the decaying buildings, sitting atop a broom and silhouetted against the moon, was a woman with long orange hair. As the truck drove off into the night, she rested her chin in her palm and yawned.
"Such a boring assignment. I don't know what Mistress sees in these children. We should be scoping out military targets! Not some child with a soul so weak he can't sense a Witch's Soul without Soul Protect!" she shouted to the empty air, flailing her limbs wildly. Then, she froze, sensing a familiar presence. When she glanced over, she saw a crow perched on the end of her broom and sighed. "Hello, Mistress."
"Kohaku." A voice emanated from the bird, though its beak didn't move. The witch, Kohaku, hated the way its lavender-colored eyes bore into her. "Your report?"
She sighed and flapped her hand flippantly. "The boy's soul is inexcusably weak, but he attempts to make up for it in combat through technique. The Kishin wasn't much of a challenge, but I doubt even a first-year student at that school would struggle against it. The weapon is a Demon Sword, but I sensed none of the usual tells from her. I doubt she falls. In essence, a totally useless assignment. Neither of these two are worth the effort to study."
"I see. Return at once. The time draws near." Kohaku watched in morbid fascination as the bird twitched, and then became engulfed in flames. As the last burnt feather fluttered away, she drew herself up and her hair began to move. 'Using my own magic in front of me. If it weren't the Mistress, I'd be pissed off,' she thought.
She watched the now distant tail lights of the truck with a haughty look on her face. Behind her, her orange hair formed into nine long, pointed tails, each flickering with sparks of embers. "Centuries of waiting will soon come to an end. If this is your best, Lord Death, then the Mistress' beautiful dream will finally become reality. Our Lord's awakening will make you wish for Asura."
SE:N
Well, what can I say? I like cold-opens that don't introduce the main character for a while in my first chapters lol.
Let me know what y'all think. I honestly haven't interacted with the Soul Eater fandom much, so I'm curious to see how this is received.
If anyone is actually reading this, thanks for giving Soul Eater: Next a chance!