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You’re not entirely sure what you did or who you did it to, to be honest, but your entire day had already been going pretty shit and you were too busy thinking about it to be at all prepared for the universes next act of revenge for whatever it was.
You were minding your own business like the responsible teen you were, sulking walking through town late at night after your ex-friend had decided that bloody princess Vanesa would be a better Meister for them and left you high and dry. Even if no one had explicitly said anything yet, you felt at risk of being kicked out for such poor performance ever since you entered.
You and your partner hadn’t managed to get more than three Kishin Eggs despite your best efforts, which after nearly a whole year was rather pathetic compared to almost everyone else in your class. It’s not your fault no-one’s soul resonated with yours well enough! You always tried really hard; you did! It didn’t help that your weapon liked to do their own thing and never seemed to want to train properly with you. You’d been forced to train with regular weapons on your own to try and get better, not that it helped much when the weapon you used in actual battle never wanted to consider your plans as viable options.
You have quite a few scars to show for their ‘better’ plans, you recall idly as you scratch at one on your side through your coat.
No-one else wanted to be your weapon, and even if they did, the (very) few people who’d given you a chance had quickly left with bloody noses and leaving you with burnt hands and a headache. You had almost given up when your friend finally agreed to be your weapon a couple months ago, and well… you know how that turned out.
And good for them! You are very, very happy for your former friend! Their souls were compatible and yours weren’t, it happens. So what if you’d struggled to wield them in the time you’d been partnered? So what if they had ditched you the second they realised Vanessa was a perfect match? Who cares that they’d said some cruel things to you during that time?
You were glad they had a better shot at becoming a Death Scythe.
You were.
Besides, they were a bit lame anyway. Their weapon form was a kitchen knife. What were you supposed to do with a weapon like that? Barely anything! Besides, a plain old knife was boring. You were glad to be rid of them!
Yeah okay, so maybe you were a little bitter. Barely. Just a smidge.
It’s not like you’d known them since before you joined the academy or anything. Not like you had to pretend to ignore how reluctant they were to be your weapon, even after they had apparently been excited to go to the academy. Now you know they were only excited because they were hoping to find someone better than the only other person from your primary school who had also wanted to join. They had told you so (among other things) hardly an hour ago.
You groan at yourself in annoyance and scrub your hands against your face, pausing to kick your booted foot against the worn brickwork below you. Enough of this. There was no point dwelling on it. It’s not like you have very far to start over, you remind yourself sourly. You'll just have to keep trying to find someone willing to work with you, that’s all! That’s what you’ve been doing since you got here, it doesn’t have to be a whole thing or anything.
With a newfound optimism you remove your hands from your face and clench your fists determinedly. Right. From now on, you would just work even harder and you’d be a great Meister! You wouldn’t let this stop you. Nodding to yourself, you take a step forward and-
“Fuck!” You screech in surprise as something large and heavy impacts your body, sending you flying down a side street and rolling down some stairs. Gasping, you scramble to right yourself and manage to roll with the unexpected momentum enough that you can stumble back to your feet (with minimal arm windmilling) as you slam shoulder first into the landing of the stone steps and roll yourself upwards, shakily taking a practiced defensive stance.
Ow.
That hurt like a bitch.
Though you managed to recover enough to stand, the sudden attack has left you a bit dazed, and it takes you a second to realise what is in front of you and- oh.
Well.
That’s… hmm.
You really wish you had your lame kitchen knife right about now.
In all your time at the academy, you don’t think you’ve ever seen something quite so terrifying as the evil soul before you. As a general rule, you weren’t particularly in tune with the soul wavelengths of others, but you did have some sensing ability (which you were rather proud of, even if it wasn’t strong and never really helped you). Certainly enough to have the sense to think “Oh, shit, that’s one evil bitch.” and pull yourself together fast enough to throw yourself out of the way of its claws before they could skewer you.
You hear the tell-tale sound of shoes running on pavement, though its too muffled to be boots or sneakers, and then a blur of yellow leaps up behind the misshapen creature you’ve had the misfortune to meet and slams an axe deeply into its shoulder.
It howls in pain, the sound making your bones vibrate. You barely have enough time to catch half a glimpse of a tanned face, which is half obscured by a crescent shaped mask, before the thing, faster than you would have thought possible from its bulky, stiff looking limbs, shoots up its other arm (which you have just noticed is littered in a variety of cuts, deep and shallow), grabs them in a crushing grip, and hurtles the person from their perch on its upper back, blood spurting from the fresh wound as the blade is ripped from its flesh.
The person cries out sharply in pain as a claw slices the arm holding their axe and they’re sent hurtling into the floor, the axe clattering from their hand as they roll with the impact, bouncing and slamming into the wall.
The axe skitters across the pavement and halts next to you. The second you realise this, you don’t even think about it as you snatch it up and leap for the leg, aiming to cut its hamstring and buy some time.
There’s a surprised shout from the axe as you do this, accompanied by an uncomfortable twinge in your soul, but you don’t have time to notice as the creature turns to finish the fallen person off, your swing just barely connecting with the back of its leg, but not deep enough for the damage you’d wanted.
Recovering, you spin around and, using your hands as a springboard, plant a firm round-house kick with both feet against its chest with all your strength, forcing it back onto its ass as it stumbles away when its sliced-up knee gives way.
Your momentum carries you back in a sideways flip so you’re positioned just in front of the fallen person, who is struggling to push themselves up onto their bloodied elbows. You wince at the collection of grazes littering their exposed skin from their tumble and slide along the rough ground.
As you look them over, breathing heavily to catch your breath, you notice they look pretty beat up in general- baggy yellow pants torn and some nasty claw marks and colourful bruises blooming along their exposed midriff. Warily, you eye the patch of bloodied blond hair on the back of their(his?) head and hope it isn’t serious.
There’s that muffled shout again, and suddenly with a flash of blue the axe vanishes from your grasp, startling you quite badly. You definitely don’t squeak in surprise. For some reason in the few seconds you’d wielded the weapon, you’d failed to realise it was a person.
Maybe you did hit your head after all, you think as you reconsider the slight ache there. How did you manage to miss that?!
“Sun!” The axe cries, and you turn your head back just in time to see them fall to their knees as they finish reforming into their human form. They don’t look much better off than their companion, the blue cloth of their clothes equally torn up and bleeding sluggishly from various wounds, blue hair flying loose from its short ponytail and sticking to the back of his neck with the pleasant mix of blood and sweat accumulated there.
“I’m okay, I’m okay!” The newly named Sun reassures, wheezing. “I think we bit off more than we can chew with this one, Moony.” Sun giggles, a touch hysterically as his tongue darts out to lick some blood away from his lips. The other chokes out a short laugh and continues to fret, trying to help him up quickly.
“Are you guys okay?” You ask, stumbling closer. At your voice, the one you’d accidently wielded snaps to look at you, looking unfriendly through the unmasked half of his face that you can see. Matching masks? That’s kinda cool, you won’t lie.
“Who are you?” He snaps, eyes darting behind you and back, likely keeping an eye on the thing behind you as it recovers itself. From what you could see, the both of them had managed to rough it up quite badly, but it had obviously given as good as it got right back.
“I’m a Meister at the academy.” You say quickly, glad to see Sun doesn’t look to be in too bad of shape despite the nasty hit. Well, they’re still conscious and standing, you mean. They both look like shit, but you aren’t going to say that out loud to people you just met.
He scoffs, “Yeah, where’s your weapon then?”
You try not to frown, and it probably ends up looking more like a pout. “They found someone else who matched them better today.”
Sun looks like he wants to say something, when you hear the ground crack behind you. The two boys turn wide eyes behind you and you close your eyes for just a moment, praying what you think is happening is not what’s happening.
You turn around and open your eyes.
Well, you think, shoulders slumping, just fuck me today I suppose.
It’s digging its claws into the concrete and starting to pull up chunks of it, muscles straining and bulging with the effort. Great.
Thinking quickly, you run your eyes over its body and try to note its weak points. You can do this. Probably, so long as-
“Hey, I know we don’t know each other at all and this is very forward, but that’s probably going to crush us all very painfully and eat all three of us and your Meister took a bad hit, so. Can I use you, just for this fight?” You ask, turning your head to look at Moon.
Both of their lips draw thin and they look at you, then behind you, and then at each other. Sun makes a pleading expression and his blue haired companion (brother? They look almost identical if you discount hair and eye colour) sighs and nods. Sun grins blindingly, living up to his namesake despite how unsettling the smile is with blood smeared over his teeth.
“Sure!” Sun exclaims, snatching up your hand and clasping it between his own, forcing you to turn around and face them both. Moon’s smile is just as wide, but its off-putting for a different reason. It looks a lot more sinister than his brothers does. Sun side-eyes his partner, “But! We have a better idea! Don’t we, Moon?”
Your brows furrow in confusion as their expressions morph into something more akin to mischievous smirks. There’s a loud crack behind you that makes your hair stand on end, tense with anticipation.
“We can do you one better.” Moon says, taking your other hand firmly. “Might as well, if we’re gonna die anyway.”
You are so confused, but you have no opportunity to say anything before they both squeeze your hands bruisingly tight and lean forwards until your vision is mostly full of their grinning masks.
“Let’s see how you handle us both!” They say in unison as light envelops them both. You’re very glad for their grip on you as they transform, or you might’ve dropped them both in shock. They were both weapons?! You hadn’t heard of weapons wielding other weapons before, certainly there was no one you knew of at the academy who did that! Just who were these guys?
The light vanishes and you’re left gripping two nearly identical axes. One is blue and the other is an orangey-yellow. Both have an intricate design connecting the blade to the handle, and a matching coloured ribbon to their respective blade colours wrapped snuggly around their handles and trailing off the ends to dangle in the light breeze, though you don’t have time to study them more closely which is unfortunate.
You look down at them, and their smirking reflections appear on the sides of the blades.
“Huh.” You say after a pause. Aside from a brief twinge, you don’t feel any resistance between the three of you like you have with every other weapon you’ve tried to use. Your eyes widen as you realise what this means, and it causes a flutter of hope in your chest.
There’s a growl behind you and you spin around, gripping Sun and Moon tightly in your hands.
“You know how to use an axe?” Moon asks. You nod and adjust your grip, flipping him and catching him easily to test his weight.
“This is gonna be fun! We’ve never been wielded together before!” Sun cheers excitedly and your heart does a funny thing at that. It reminds you of how no one had wanted to be wielded by you.
“Okay, let’s do this. Ready?” You ask as you adjust your stance, feeling your souls resonate unsteadily, but comfortably rather than painfully. The creature lifts its frankly alarmingly large chunk of concrete over its head in preparation to throw, snarling.
“Yep!” Sun cheers, while Moon just hums an affirmative.
Its muscles flex as it starts its throw and you prepare yourself, knees bent and braced low, boots digging into the pavement with a scrape as you slide one further behind you, calf and thigh muscles tense and ready.
It throws and you pounce forward in a dive, sliding under the boulder and surely tearing holes into your clothing but its fine. You spring to your feet once you’re clear, ignoring the ping of rubble bouncing off your back and charge low, springing to the side to dodge an enraged swipe as it tries to taunt you, but you tune out its voice. You knew from experience that listening to them talk was a one-way ticket to pain town.
With one axe, you swipe upwards towards its incoming arm to block it and with the other you once again aim for its hamstring, turning your body in a fluid motion to twirl around its side so your back is never to it. Another hard-earned lesson you’d had too many times.
Your blade connects and there’s a vaguely disgusting twinge in its leg as the tendon is severed and it howls as its leg buckles, screeching that bone rattling sound again and trying to slam you with its fist, but you manage to bring both axes up to guard yourself. You grunt at the strain, hearing the boys echo your gritted teeth. This thing was strong and you weren’t very experienced, and you also don’t know how powerful Sun and Moon are so all three of you are at a slight disadvantage no matter what right now.
Your boots slide backwards as it continues to try and force its fist down, the other clutching its leg. This evil bastard must really have a thing for crushing its victims, geez. Its then it seemingly remembers it has another hand and promptly tries to grab you with it.
You yelp and yank the axes down, hooking the bottom curve of the blades against the bones in its hand, shifting sideways enough that you can jump and twist yourself around the large wrist, hooking your legs around it briefly. The hand barely misses, and it lets out a sound of surprise at the sudden lack of resistance and punches the ground, leaving fractures in the cement.
Quickly, you jump to your feet and try to get off your extremely risky perch, but it moves its fist and you lose your balance, tumbling to the ground hard with a thud and a wheeze as the air gets forcefully knocked out of you, briefly paralyzing you as your diaphragm spasms and you desperately gasp for breath, blades clanking and scraping as they hit the rough surface with you, though you do thankfully manage to keep your grip.
“Watch out!” Sun shouts suddenly and before you could even try to react to his warning, there’s a flash of yellow light and abruptly Sun is standing above you, turned to the side slightly, one arm still an axe blade as he stops the double handed slam that would have squashed you into paste. Fucking shit this thing really likes to try and smash you with its fists.
“Shit.” You gasp, trying to regain your wind as you push yourself to your knees, then to your feet. You look up at your enemy and try to think of something to do, maybe if you throw-
“Throw me.” Moon suddenly growls as if he’d been reading your thoughts, and you look down at his face in the blade. “Throw me at its head, hard as you can with lots of spin. Sun can’t hold that forever.”
You hesitate a moment then stumble back a few steps for better throwing distance and lift your arm back, setting your aim. You really wish you’d practiced throwing axes a lot more, but it can’t be helped.
“Now!” Moon shouts and you throw him as hard as you can. The blade sings as it soars in the air and picks up speed. At the apex of the throw, Moon materializes with only his arm a blade and a feral grin adorning his features as he flips himself for the extra momentum that his now heavier weight assists with perfectly.
Your opponent barely has time to look up before Moon slams into its face.
At almost the exact same moment of impact, Sun shifts and materializes back in your hand, shouting “Throw me!” at you before he’s even fully in your grasp as it falls forward and jolts when its unsupported hands hit the ground, jolting Moon’s blade just a little deeper into its skull.
You don’t hesitate and throw Sun towards Moon, who jumps up like he was expecting it and snatches Sun midair, somehow flipping himself midair again, just barely missing the same spot he’d hit earlier when it unexpectedly moves its head to the left slightly, causing Moon to inadvertently slice off some skin and an ear instead. (Ew)
It stumbles, but it’s not dead yet and makes a clumsy grab for Moon. Moon hisses and leaps backwards in a backflip, transforming as he does so. You dart forward and catch them both, not stopping as you twist on the spot and hop backwards to avoid the sluggish attempt to swipe you, though you trip a little avoiding its sharp claws.
It lifts itself up and grabs another chunk of concrete that it quickly sends hurting towards you. You manage to dodge, but you don’t realise until its too late that it had also thrown itself at you and you scream in pain as something cracks when its body weight slams into you for the second time that night.
You’re sent sprawling again barely a moment after you hit the ground as it slams a fist directly in front of where you’d been nary a second earlier, had your momentum not carried you away in time to save your ass.
It seems to go feral, not giving you a moments rest as it keeps coming for you, seemingly numb to its serious injuries as it does its utmost to kill you for its dinner.
Block, slash, miss, dodge, block, block, trip- fuck!, dodge, slash, dodge- shit!
Hot pain lances across your face as its claw catches you, sending blood dripping into your eyes. Frantically, you swipe at it with your sleeve, trying to find some distance that it refuses to let you take.
Unexpectedly, your foot meets air and once again you find yourself rolling painfully down a flight of stairs, thankfully much shorter than the last time.
“Are you okay?” Sun asks worriedly, sounding tired. You nod your head, and push yourself to your knees, grateful that for the moment it seems to have lost you, though you know it’ll figure out where you went very soon.
“I don’t know what to do,” You gasp. “I can’t get close enough to do any real damage and its moving too erratically for me to throw one of you again.”
Sun and Moon glance at each other, you notice as you keep most of your attention on the way you’d come, wiping away more blood dripping into your eyes.
“Well… there is one thing we could try.” Sun hedges and you look down at him, brow raised for him to continue. “We’ve never done it before, well, technically we have but not with us both at the same time… but! We could try and, you know.”
It takes you a moment, but then your eyes widen. “Do you mean you want to try soul resonance with me?”
They both nod. “From what I can tell, we seem to at least be compatible since you can use us with no issues.” Moon adds. “I don’t think we have any other options.”
You take a breath and consider. You’d tried this exactly once before and it had not ended well, which to be fair was on you. You had known it wasn’t going to work and it had probably been the single most painful thing you’d experienced, and you weren’t eager for a repeat, but… nothing about this situation felt strained. Your souls seemed to be resting comfortably next to each other easy as breathing. And really, what’s the harm? You were likely to become part of the pavement even if you tried something else, so why not go out with a bang? It might not even work anyway, but what’s the harm in trying?
“Aright.” You agree, a grin stretching onto your face in excitement. You probably look rather feral yourself, with how much blood is likely covering you. “Let’s do this, soul resonance time!”
You concentrate and start expanding your soul’s wavelength to begin gently pressing it into the souls of the other two, feeling it bounce back at you out of sync, which was uncomfortable and a little painful with the doubled energy until you adjusted and sent your wavelength only into one, who got the idea and passed it to the other who then passed it to you, creating an orbit of energy cycling between the three of you. With more practice you might have been able to do it the way you originally tried, but this would work for now.
Energy rumbles around you and you instinctively bring the axes together, feeling as they shift and reform, and it takes you a second to realise they are joining together, requiring you to swiftly adjust your grip accordingly. The handle lengthens and thickens under your palms, blades expanding until you’re holding a great-axe much larger than you are tall.
With a bright grin at your success, you give them an experimental swing and spin around your body, feeling how it moves and the weight difference in the head of the blade. Just in time too, as your enemy appears ahead of you, roaring as it prepares to pounce and crush you.
“Ready boys?” You ask, bracing yourself and shoving all your pain away to the back of your brain.
“Ready!” They cheer, grins audible in their voices.
It leaps at you and you jump out of the way, managing to keep your feet as the ground quakes when it impacts your previous location with a mighty crash.
Getting an idea, you run up the stairs and spin around, seeing the thing turning itself around, absolutely covered in its own blood as its drags itself back towards you, a hand darting forward and reaching out to grab you from your higher perch. You wait, bracing yourself as Sun and Moon fret and ask why you aren’t evading or attacking then- there!
You jump onto its hand and use it as a springboard, raising your great-axe high and bringing it down hard with deadly precision on the part of its skull Moon had already mostly carved open. There’s a little resistance, but then your blade sinks deeper and the asshole ceases moving like a puppet with its strings cut as its head is unceremoniously cut in half.
Relieved, you hop off the now fresh corpse, pulling the joined brothers free as you release your soul energy, watching in fascination as the Kishin egg appears, floating calmly before you.
Sun and Moon rematerialize at almost the exact same moment on either side of you, the rush of energy evaporating and leaving you exhausted and drained. All three of you stare at it for a long moment before Sun lets out a whoop and tackles Moon in a hug.
“We did it, Moony! Yes! Our first tough one!”
Moon smiles, a small, fond thing as he begrudgingly returns the embrace. “You did good, Sun.”
You smile. “Thank you for saving me, Sun. I would’ve been a pancake if you hadn’t jumped in.”
“It was no problem!” Sun beams as he lets go of the other, his face amusingly almost exactly matching the grinning expression on his mask. “Thank you for using us both! No one’s ever done that before! It was lots of fun!”
You chuckle and rub the back of your neck, “Ah, don’t worry about it. It was really nice fighting with someone who matched so well, even if only just this once.”
Moon looks up from where he’s holding the evil soul and stares at you for a long moment, then he slowly looks over at Sun who now has his back turned to you. You have no idea what happens between them, but Moon rolls his eyes skywards as if praying for strength, but it seems more like he was just being dramatic for the sake of it if the slight twitch of his lips is any indication.
“Well,” He says, eyeing you. “Who said it had to be just the once? Could be fun.”
Your heart flutters and you feel your mouth drop open in surprise. “You mean- you mean you guys want to be my weapons?”
Sun nods rapidly, dragging Moon forward so they’re closer to you. “Yeah! It’ll be fun! And a lot easier for us both to get all the bad souls we need so we can become death scythes together!” He rambles, before adding, “And I’ve always wanted to go to school!”
Moon nods in agreement and hands the soul to Sun, who startles and tries to protest, pushing it back. “No, no, no! You earned it more, you take it!”
“No, I took the last two. It’s your turn to have one. You did really well, too.” Moon insists. Sun hesitates before sighing and carefully shoving it into his mouth and swallowing.
You grin. Turns out today wasn’t so bad after all, you muse as Sun pulls you into a bear hug that you laughingly return- though not without a wince as your ribs shift unpleasantly.
Seems like everything was finally looking up. And, you add to yourself as you limp walk back towards the academy with the brothers, Moon supporting you with an arm over one shoulder and Sun’s over the other, maybe it’s not just you who got lucky today, if how excited they seem to be is any indication.
This was gonna be fun.