School Days chapter nine: Haunted part one: Before

.-*-.

As it turned out having about six hundred boy in one building wasn't a smart idea. The whole morning was filled with broken lips and fake farting.

Franken had been smart enough to wake up and shower, but Spirit hadn't. Twice someone had tried to break into the bathroom, and ended up stabbing someone with a fork. But that wasn't even compared with two floors above them two twin British redheads tossed a firecracker in the bathroom of a showering Native American boy.

A 6:40 Spirit sat down next to Franken and grabbed a large stack pancakes and started to shove them down at a neck breaking speed. Franken watched him for a moment for separating in the ingredients in his hash, morning them so they were in alphabetical order, and then are them slowly.

Spirit watched Franken with a small smile before grabbing the strawberry jelly and tucking it in his pants for later.

.-*-.

Victoria turned to look at her class of first years. "What is a soul?"

A hand was raised before Victoria was done talking. "Yes?"

The Japanese girl in the third row on the right side, who sat in front of Spirit and Stein.

"The soul is the combination of our mind and emotions. They're who we are."

She was wearing a white shirt with loose sleeves that suddenly got tight at the wrist, with large ruffle that sat on her small chest. Over the pirate like shirt she wore a black vest with a grey key design that ended just under her diminutive breasts. Her jeans were loose, but everything from the knee down was tucked into her boots. The only thing they could see of her features was that her hair was waist length ink black hair that was straight as a nail.

"Nice job Kami. Nice to know someone read the text book. Physically what is a soul? Franken?"

Franken looked at her steadily. "It's a ball with a tail that's on the top. It has two colors, the personality and the race of the soul."

"Nice job," Victoria said as she walked off. Franken turned to see Kami glaring at him. She turned around just in time to miss Spirit's head falling off his hand.

"What's with you?" Franken asked.

"Her eyes," Spirit whispered, remembering the molten bronze eyes of her almond eyes. Franken rolled his eyes and felt something brush against his cheek.

"I need a volunteer," Victoria announced.

Franken picked up the note while Spirit looked behind then to see Hecate grinning at him.

"Why don't you come down here Hecate?"

The girl with the cat-like grey eyes smile faulted and her kohl rimmed eyes went wide. "Ummm… Alright…" She got up and walked down to stand next to her teacher.

So Hecate, with her black and quarter length tattoo sleeves and leather pants, watched wearily as meisters examined her soul and weapons next to them drew the soul they saw.

"The race of her soul seems to be mostly human," Franken said nonchalantly.

Spirit looked up from his drawing. "'Almost'?"

"There seems to be some purple and green in her soul. Also there seems to be thorns wrapped around it. The personality of her soul is midnight blue, but it has scratches that tear it open, and inside the wounds it looks like night."

"Night?"

"It's black with white dots; only they twinkle like starts… also it has cat ears."

Spirit nodded and drew the souls to the best of his ability, than handed it over to Franken. "How's this?"

"Got the tails wrong." Franken grabbed the pencil and paper, erased the tails on both of them, redrew the race one and completely left out the one from the personality. He also drew a face on the personality of the soul: wide eyes and a smirk.

"Okay, I want you to hand those in, then meisters draw the soul of the people to your right, and weapons please draw what you think your weapon form will look like. I know this will be hard, and please be open. All your forms will be different and not everyone can be the demon scythe." Spirit signed their names on the top and handed them in while Franken turned towards him.

"What does she mean about the death scythe thing?" Spirit whispered.

"You don't know?" Spirit and Franken looked to see Kami twisting around. "Every weapon wants to be the demon scythe and every meister wants to be their wielder."

"Speak for yourself," one of the redhead boys from the firecracker incident this morning. "I'm happy being a demon firework."

His brother looked them. "And I'm happy being his meister."

"So you've already transformed?" Arthur asked, who was sitting next to Hecate.

"Yep," said the weapon.

"By accident," said the meister.

"Was looking at out files, you know, to see what we could improve in…"

"Principle caught us…"

"And let's just say we were expelled."

"Never been so proud. Anyone else transform?"

Spirit quickly turned back to his drawing, but Franken pointed at him. "Spirit did. And ate a kishin soul."

Kami looked at him in surprise. "You did?"

Spirit blushed. "Yeah, but I'm not sure if I can do it again. Besides it was Franken who killed the kishin egg."

Erick Egson, the British boy who had been talking with Peggy the other day and was Franken's room partner, spoke from behind Hecate. "You must be a small weapon then, to have such a small meister."

Spirit turned around and growled at him, his right arm glowing bright orange. The class looked at him with surprise, but he didn't notice. He was too busy glaring at Erick. From the elbow down his arm turned into a slightly curved black blade.

"Spirit," Victoria said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Can you change back?"

Spirit nodded slowly and just as slowly his arm changed back.

Victoria nodded and walked to the center of the room. "Listen all of you. Weapons I don't expect you to control your transformations. Not at first. You will transform when you feel anger, threatened, even sad. Of course that depends on your soul, your wavelength, and your weapon. You're all different. Meisters, I don't expect you all to see souls; I don't expect you all to make death scythes. What I expect is for you to do your best at whatever I choose to do with your life. Only one group has to make a death scythe."

"The demon scythe," a Scottish girl said on the other side of the room.

Victoria nodded and Spirit slammed his head on the table.

Then the bell rang and Victoria called out. "Everyone meet outside. Weapons are going to try changing, and you'll be finding your partners. Remember, you can change later. Spirit, Franken, I want to talk with you two."

Everyone left, Hecate hesitating, and Victoria sat next to the two boys, her dark chocolate hair spilling over Spirit's head.

"Well, you two heard what they said. What do you think?"

Spirit muttered something like "Father was right", but she wasn't sure.

"I can do this," Franken said simply. As though this was nothing.

"Well, okay. Spirit, you don't really have a choice, but… ummm… well… I'm not good at this stuff." She stood and wiped her hands on her pants, as though trying to wipe her emotions away. Before she walked out she stopped. "Malcolm didn't want it wither. You might want to talk with him."

After their teacher left Franken looked at his weapon. "Spirit?"

"Of all people I have to be the demon scythe."

"What's wrong with that?"

"People can't depend on me," Spirit said exasperated.

"Why do you say that?"

Spirit wrapped his arms around his hand. "I've let so many people down. No one should depend on me. No one should trust me."

"But you saved my life. From the Rake."

Spirit slowly lifted his head and bit his lip. "We're missing lunch and I'm hungry," He put a hand on the small grey boy and lead him out of classroom.

.-*-.

Outside teachers helped weapons change into their weapon forms and then find their partners. As it turned out this would be going on for the next three days.

Of course Hecate wasn't outside. She was sitting between Kami and Azusa, both of whom looked way too serious.

Marie sat next to Azusa, who Spirit and Franken sat next to him. Arthur sat next Kami, and she sat next to a girl whose name Hecate didn't know.

"Who wants to go first?" Malcolm asked. He had pulled his brown dreadlocks into a ponytail and had taken of his sandals. "Where is Peggy?"

"Mira gave her a black eye and cut off most of her hair," Azusa explained. Hecate started laughing and Marie sighed.

"She didn't come."

Malcolm quirked his head. "Okay, now weapons we're going to be trying to transform on purpose. Now has anyone here ever fully transformed?"

Spirit hesitated, than put up his hand.

Malcolm chuckled. "I knew you were one Spirit. Anyone else?"

No one said anything. Malcolm laughed. "Don't worry, that's normal. Most likely the only reason he did change was because of the kishin egg."

Malcolm turned to Spirit. "Do you remember how you felt when you were changing?"

"Confident. Like I could protect us from the kishin egg. But it was Franken who killed it."

"And he would have died without you. Normal weapon have no effect on kishin eggs. Only demon weapons can kill kishin egg. Don't down play your role. Okay?"

"Right."

Malcolm clapped his hands together. "Okay, who wants to go first?"

.-*-.

"Well?" was the first thing that greeted Nygus as she got back.

"Only Yumi managed to fully transform. I think that Mjölnir and… Spirit doesn't have a last name… the redhead didn't transform. Rolend wasn't even there."

"I guess we're holding it off then," Joe said shrugging.

Sid turned away. "No. Mira, you get the girls and Joe you get the boys. At midnight tonight we'll show them just what it means to be part of Vick's group."

.-*-.