Chapter Text
The god of Death had been sitting in his mirrored room, unwinding for the evening when the sound of glass shattering startled him and caused him to rise. Oh dear... and that had been on of the older mirror, an antique.
“Lord Death!” Two weapon and meister pairs entered, all down-trodden and quiet except for one person, who was practically spitting in anger. “We need to speak with you immediately.”
“Ah. Hello, Kami. How's it going? What's the word?” He somehow didn't think using slang was appropriate but the feeling her soul wavelength was giving off pushed him to want to keep things neutral and calm.
“Did you know, my lord,” She said, her words whips, “that your prized student has been performing illegal experiments on his partner since they met?”
At least he had the decency to keep his head down, Lord Death thought.
Franken Stein had arrived at the academy at the age of eleven years. Now sixteen, he had been partnered with the laid-back Spirit for 5 years. Spirit himself had just turned 18 years old and his eyes, usually sparkling with life, were as dulled as his partner's. Lord Death knew that Kami and Spirit were an item - even married with a child now! It appeared that she must have seen something in Spirit that he had missed. He glanced over at the fourth person in the Death Room. She remained quiet, her eyes flitting from Kami to Stein and back again.
"Franken, is what Kami is saying true?" Death asked, gently. This was one he'd rather not lose. He was too smart; too powerful.
"Someone has to learn what's inside a weapon..." he mumbled, scratching the side of his head.
"That's what books are for!" Kami yelled, Spirit cowering slightly behind her. "There's plenty of research out there about the anatomy of weapons! You've been doing this to Spirit for FIVE YEARS!"
Stein turned his eyes on the older woman. "I can't trust something that's outdated. Knowledge can and should be improved upon... Studying such one subject extensively, for such an amount of time... it is more useful to me."
"And do you think experimenting on your partner granted you new knowledge?" Death was becoming impatient. Spirit had the makings of a death scythe and he was desperate at this point. The old guard was, well, becoming ever older and he hadn't had a scythe to wield in almost a decade.
"... I've learned enough." He replied simply, flatly.
Kami's face twisted up in even more anger, her soul flaring. Stein turned his head towards her, face split in half with a smile.
"Is that a challenge, Kami?" His quiet voice was tinged with latent madness. "Are you sure your weapon will be up for it?" He barked a laugh when Spirit flinched.
"Stop." Death held up one of his over-sized hands. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You will partner with Spirit to get the remaining souls he needs to become a death scythe."
Kami nodded, her soul retreating slightly.
"If you'll excuse us then, Lord." She took Spirit's trembling hand and left the Death Room.
Stein pouted, rage and madness oozing out of him.
"As for you, Stein." Death looked at him darkly. "Suspension. Indefinitely until we figure out what to do with you."
His eyes widened. "No, Lord, please don't put me there!" Very rarely did he panic, but he had been put there before, in the dungeon, when he first arrived. They needed to analyze him, find out what he needed... and what they needed from him. He never admitted it to anyone, but it was too dark, too quiet, too bright, too loud.
"I'm sorry, Stein." He said firmly, but not unkind. "We need to figure out what to do with you. You can't act like this on a whim. In this academy or this world. You need to remember what it means to be afraid."
In 15 years or so, she would look just the same. DWMA's receptionist. The old lady. Grandma. It seemed that everyone had a name for her. She was not a weapon, and her soul, while strong, was still over shadowed by her sheer physical prowess.
"I am sorry, young Mr. Stein." She said, wrapping restraints around him. "Please be patient."
She escorted him past the Torii gates, down the steps, further and further away from the light. The lower they went, the worse Stein felt. He couldn't explain it, couldn't understand. He wanted to bang his head against the wall to make the noise stop.
However, when they stopped, it was outside a cell less further down than he thought. They were still technically above ground, the sleepy sun drooping in the sky.
“Someone will be checking on you every hour.” She said, opening the door and ushering him in. “And if you need to, you can talk to whoever checks on you. Your meals will be brought, and you will still be allowed access to Two Star level books from the library. Lord Death feels it is important that you still study. We all have high hopes for you.” She untied him and waited until he was seated before turning to leave.
“Thank you, ma'am.” He said, no expression, but overall polite.
“You can get through this.” She reminded him, closing the door and locking it. “We know that you want to do good.”
The last person in the death room remained off to the side, unnoticed. Kami's old partner. So enraged had she been at spirit's treatment that Marie Mjolnir was left behind, forgotten. She was the youngest of them, 15, but her strength combined with Kami's put her on levels above others her age.
"Marie." His voice, even gentler than before. He knew she didn't deserve this, but he knew what she wanted. "I believe if you partner with him, he will make you a death scythe."
Marie nodded. "Yes, Lord Death."
“Your wavelength will be good for him. Everyone is so relaxed around you, even Franken smiles sometimes.”
“I...” She blushed a little. She knew she shouldn't forgive Stein for hurting her friends, for breaking up their resonance team, but she was young and she was kind. And Spirit had Kami. Someone needed to be there for Stein. “I will continue to look out for him, sir.”
He reached out his hand and patted her. “If anyone can do it, it's you. You and Spirit are destined to become my personal weapons. I can feel it, and I look forward to it.”
He seemed to want to go on, so Marie stood quietly and listened. “The world will not remain as it is. This is an unprecedented era of peace. I would like to keep it that way. An ideal world, where one could raise a child.”
“Do you think Franken poses a threat to that peace?” She asked, a very slight edge to her voice.
“I think that, if left to his own devices, he would have become so. I think perhaps we got to him just in time.”
She turned away. “I will check on him tomorrow, first thing.”
He nodded, already lost in thought again, and waved her away.
In his room, he saw the eyes. The scuttling of creatures not there. Knowing they weren't really there did little for his unease. He could either remain tense, fighting off the Madness, or he could relax and let the images take hold.
They always did, in the end. He cackled, fingers reaching into his pockets. How kind of god, the meister thought, pulling out a lighter. He let me keep my toys. He had, in the name of experimentation and an effect to quell the insanity, tried about every single recreational drug out there. Alcohol. Even sex. Which surprised people, for some reason.
Every action has an equal, opposite reaction. He had quipped at them. And he wanted to know what those reactions were. If it could distract him, it could help. But those indulgences were just that – distractions. They faded eventually, stopped working on him. The only constant was nicotine. It always felt the same, and that's what made it work. There was no guess work involved. One cigarette meant a few more moments of mental clarity that he wouldn't have had before.
He pondered the outcome of this latest violation of the rules. Surely, Death would send notice home to his parents. They would, of course, be embarrassed and irritated, but they knew any chastisement would fall upon deaf ears. So it had always been.
He turned his thoughts more towards home, the past. He was not by any means a sentimental man, but he knew objectively that his childhood was good and his parents loved him. His precociousness was rewarded with knowledge, access to things beyond those his age could care about.
Yes. Percy and Mary Stein loved their son very much. But they were medical doctors, not soul specialists. So when the DWMA came asking questions about the things he had already done, at age 10, they had decided to let him go.
“Ah...” Lost in thought, his cigarette had disintegrated, burning his lips and chest. He brushed away the ash and laid himself out on the cot.
Time moved faster while he slept, after all - the only practical use it had to him.