Autours note: I have NO IDEA how many parts this will have but it will prbably be pretty long! =^.^=
Mari was five years old when her mom died. She could still remember watching her dad cry and her mom smile one last time. Her mom had gotten sick with cancer right after Mari's fifth birthday. They hadn't had the money at the time to get treatment but it was clear there would be no way of her getting better.
Her mom had looked so peaceful on the day she had died. There had been a doctor, her dad and her mother's older sister in the room. Mari had watched from the doorway, clutching a stuffed rabbit. It had been early in the morning when her mom died. The doctor had looked at his watch when her mother had sighed one last breath and said, "November third, 3:46 am."
The funeral had been so dark and black to Mari's five year old eyes. They had lowered the casket into the ground and everyone seamed to disappear after that.
The nine or so years following that had been bleak and uneventful; her dad had become and alcoholic, Mari had turned out to be a weapon. Her dad wouldn't let her go to the DWMA until she was fourteen. He hadn't let her go anywhere after her eleventh birthday when she had transformed a little and they had known she was a weapon. Her dad had been scared ever since the bills had been piling up and after her arm had turned into the giant blade of a claymore.
Even though her dad told her not to leave the house unless she was with him, even to go into the back yard, Mari always snuck out to go practice transforming and fighting with her arm as her weapon form. She had sliced the stump in the ground to sheds as soon as she had worked up the courage to disobey her dad. She had moved on to attacking a hastily made sort of scarecrow that, so far, was lasting longer than the stump.
She came at it from all angles, cutting its arms and chest with the blade that was her arm.
Someone coughed behind her and she froze. She turned to see her dad drinking a beer while watching her. "What are you doing, Mar?"
Her arm glowed and turned back to a hand. "You said I could go to the DWMA after my fourteenth birthday."
"So I did." He replied.
"And they said I'm supposed to go to the school... tomorrow and I just wanted to be a really good fighter so I would get a good meister and-" She stopped as her dad walked down the steps, throwing the empty beer can behind him.
He put his hands on her shoulders. "Your mom was a weapon and she went to the DWMA." Mari's eyes widened. She didn't know her mom had been a weapon too. "So that's why I'm letting you go. You look so much like your mom and I bet you'll become a death scythe." He turned. "I already filled out the forms and whatnot and turned them in last week. They excepted you." He walked into the house.
Mari jumped in the air, her long blue hair bouncing. "Yes!"
Mari was climbing the stairs leading to the academy. She would early by thirty minutes, at least she hoped she would. She tugged her old bookbag higher up onto her shoulder. She paused, catching her breath. There must've been a hundred stairs and she couldn't imagine climbing them everyday. She looked up, smiling, and began running up the stone steps.
She reached the top, panting. There was a big open sort of courtyard at the front of the huge school. "Wow..." She whispered as she looked around at the tall walls. Long red spikes and giant flaming candles stuck out of the school, for no reason, being perfectly symmetrical. "That's awesome..." She put her hands to her cheeks and spun around in circles. "Symmetricalness..."
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" A boy's voice said behind her.
Mari turned and gasped to see a tallish boy standing right behind her. She stumbled backwards, tripping on her knee-high heeled boots, and fell. Her elbows rubbed the ground, not scraping thanks to her long sleeves, but it still hurt. "Ow." She sat up, rubbing her arms. "That hurt-" She looked up at the boy. He was tall and had black hair with three white stripes that went to his hairline and then just stopped.
"Hey." He said. "My name is Kidd, Death the Kidd, Death's son. I'm already a student here, and I see that you believe in being early to school too. Oh, and these are my weapons," Two girls she hadn't seen before waved from behind him. "Liz and Patty."
He helped her up and she dusted herself off. She brushed off her black beanie as she thought of something to say. "Um.. so what's with the white stripes?" She looked at the taller girl, Liz, she suspected. She was shaking her hands 'no' in the air and mouthing the word two. "In your hair, I mean."
Kidd's face twitched. He fell to his hands and knees, pounding his fist into the ground. "Filthy!'' He said. He sounded like he was crying. "My hair isn't symmetrical! It's filthy trash!"
Liz rolled her eyes and Patty sighed. "Here he goes again."
Mari walked over to Kidd and bent down next to him. "So you like symmetrical things too?"
He looked up at her. "S-symmetry?"
Mari smiled. "I have an idea!" She took off her all black beanie and tucked her hair behind her ears. She pulled it onto his head so it covered the stripes. She patted the top of his head. "There."
He looked up at her, making her blush a little. He pulled out a small mirror and looked at his reflection. "Ohh!" His eyes twinkled. "Symmetry..."
Mari stood, dusting off her plated skirt and smiled. "Just take care of that beanie."
Kidd stood, Liz and Patty coming over, admiring the old hat. Patty smiled. "Where'd you get it... Uhh, what's your name?"
Mari held out her hand. "It's Mari. And my mom gave me the hat when I was five. It was really big, but I grew into it. She's... dead."
Kidd began to take off the hat. "I can't take this Mari."
She held up her hands, begging the tears not to come. "No, no. I want you to have it."
He looked at her, unsure. "Okay. Thanks."
"Well," Liz said. "The other students are starting to get here."
Kidd turned. "I'm supposed to welcome them and give them their pins, aren't I." Liz handed him two bags, one full of pins that said meister, and in the other bag they said weapon. "Oh!'' he said, turning to Mari. "Weapon or meister?" He held out the two bags.
Mari plucked up a weapon bag. "Weapon." She pinned it onto the waistband of her skirt.
Liz had a clipboard full of names and the numbers one and two next to different names. "Mari," Liz asked. "What's your last name?"
Mari looked down the steps as more people came up into the "courtyard". "Ikiru. Mari Ikiru."
Patty grinned. "Pretty name!''
"Thank you, Patty?" Mari replied. She smiled and nodded.
"Mari," Liz said and Mari looked back to her. "Congrats, you're in the higher class. It seams that the prophesier knew your mom... I mean, and he had high hopes."
Kidd looked back at Mari. "So you're in class with us."
She smiled. "That's awesome." She rocked on her heels, feeling something in her chest that wasn't familiar.
She walked with Kidd, Liz and Patty to the classroom where she was supposed to go, chattering happily with Patty. Mari blushed a little as she saw that Kidd was still wearing her beanie. "KIIIIIIIIDDDDDD!" Someone yelled and a boy her height and muscly with blue hair slammed into her.
She fell to the side, falling again, her books going everywhere. "No! My books!" She scrambled to pick them up while people chuckled as they walked by. The boy picked up her journal and flipped it open. "Hey!" She said.
"Hey!" The boy said to a tall girl that was very busty and was helping pick up Mari's books. "Tsubaki! She writes poetry!"
"Black Star... That's rude!" Said the girl, Tsubaki.
'Tsubaki, Black Star, Tsubaki, Black Star...' Mari was saying in her mind as she stood.
Black Star paused to read one of Mari's poems. He looked at Kidd Liz and Patty, then Tsubaki, then book again. "That's sad... like, Crona sad..."
"Wow~" Tsubaki said. "It's tough to get poems "Crona" sad."
Kidd pointed down the hall. "We really should get to class guys." Black Star handed Mari her book.
ONE WEEK LATER...
After a long class and a dissection from her teacher, Prophesier Stein, Mari stood and started walking toward the door. Someone grabbed her arm and tugged at her. "Hey!" Liz said. She stuffed a piece of paper into her hand and Kidd looked at Mari.
"We're having a party tonight at my house. There's an address on the paper. Five, okay?" Kidd was standing next to his other friends, Soul Maka, and Crona. It had been a week already and she was good friends with all of them. She looked at Kidd. She felt that feeling in her chest that she had felt ever since she had met Kidd.
"O-okay! I'll see you guys then!" She waved a little. She ran out of the classroom and down the halls. She burst out of the big front doors into the open air. She began running down the millions of steps. It was about four now so if she ran home she would have time to get ready.
She burst into the small house. "Dad! Dad! I met new friends and I'm going to a party tonight!" She looked around the empty house. The car was there so her dad would be home. "Dad!?" She set her bag on the table in the kitchen and pulled out the slip of paper Liz had given her. It had an address and a phone number and was that a little drawing of a pig in the corner? She stuck it on the fridge with a magnet. "Dad!" She looked at the clock. It read, 4:26pm. "Dad!" He never went anywhere without the car. She got a glass of water and filled it with tap water. She heard a clank come from the living room and she walked into the dark space, looking for the light switch. "Dad?" The light flipped on and Mari dropped the glass she was holding. The man that was over her dad's body with a knife looked up as the cup shattered. He was too big and his teeth were sharp. He snarled.
"Mari... Run." Her dad gurgled. She stepped back, her hands over her mouth. The man turned back to her dad and picked him up in his two big... claws. The man pulled at her dads body from both his feet and his arms.
Blood splattered across the walls as the man tore her dad in half. Mari screamed as her dad's body disappeared and turned into a blue orb that was floating in the air, and then the man ate her dad's soul. Mari was crying. She jumped forward, her arm turning into a blade. She tripped and fell to her knees. She was so weak. She couldn't even save her dad. The man stood over her. He bent down. "Ik...i...ru..." he sounded like a dog. He ran the knife along Mari cheek and she could feel her skin split open. The monster stood and turned, ripping the back door off it's hinges. It ran, jumping over their... her back yards fence.