Soul Eater: Shinigami Trouble (For Rahl)
 

"Jiiiii..." A black-robed God of Death voiced as he sat at his modest tea-table, gigantic gloved hands clutching the green tea before him steadily despite their bulk. He glanced towards his mirror, the flat, burnished surface seeming no different to him than a silent telephone to anyone else. After a long moment, he raised the cup to the jagged jaws of his skull mask, by some bizarre reasoning able to pass liquid through the imperceptible gaps residing there.

"Makaaaaaaaaaaaa..." Death Scythe groaned, his red hair spilling over the table in a haphazard fashion as he snivelled. Shinigami merely stared at his young familiar, tilting his head, before he took another hearty nip of his brew.

"Makaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..." the eccentric playboy mewled like a kitten for cream, pushing his tea aside and sprawling on the table in a wretched, if not suggestive fashion, giving a hiccup, and then moaning once more, "Makaaaaaa..."

"Shaaa...Is there something wrong?" the black-robed immortal cooed pleasantly, one of his huge hands shaking in a threatening manner, desiring to administer a dose of the 'Shinigami Chop'. Spirit glanced up, teary-eyed, and then sat cross-legged, sniffling pitifully.

"Maka doesn't want to be near Papa anymore... she got such a great score in her test, the highest in her class, just like my wife—um, m-my ex-wife..." the red-head's bottom lip wobbled, only to tighten as he went on, raising a clenched fist, "I was so proud of her! I gave her a big allowance for it... but she's still not talking to me... what could have happened? Does she hate me? Money is a show of love, too, right??" unbeknownst to him, the go-between he had enlisted, the cat girl, no, girl cat, Blair, had used the money for herself to buy saucy lingerie, and through guilt had given that as a gift to the Death Scythe's daughter in its place...

"Wiii-sha... now, it's not that bad... kids are like that, these days!" the death God chirped gaily, taking another sound sip, "You should be very proud of Maka-chan! She's growing into a fine young lady, and an excellent warrior, too! She'll come 'round soooon~!"

"Y... you think so?" Blinking the tears from his eyes, Spirit looked up at his wielder, "Oh yeah! Kid took that test, too, didn't he? Did you get him something nice for his grades?" the man's tone lowered, his face dropping, "I bet he took it gratefully, didn't he? Bet he was really, really happy. Uuuaaah! Maka won't let Papa be a Papa...!"

A single comical tear seemed to bead one of the eye-holes in Shinigami-sama's mask, and he sighed, "Foooo... Kiddo, he... he didn't get as high a grade as I'd hoped, so..."

"Eh? What'd he get?" The weapon perked up, leaning forward.

Shinigami turned to the side, "Shuuu, it's not important, ya know! Let's talk about summer!"

Spirit blinked, snapping his fingers. He dug into his suit, tugging out a dog-eared paper. He opened it out; signifying that it was a roll of the latest results issued from Shibuzen University, and scanned the list of names. The paper had been blurred in points by tea, coffee, spirits and fire, evidence that the proud father had been pulling it out and presenting it to anybody and everybody who happened to take an interest in him. He squinted, running the list of names, before finally coming down to Soul, a name that he resentfully scoffed at, to Black Star, and then… Death the Kid. Each boy had a big fat zero next to their name. Spirit struggled to keep his sniggering in check, as he smugly scrunched up his beloved fatherly keepsake, and put it back in his inside pocket, patting the bulge there with content, "Well, I guess it goes to show that Gods aren't always all brains. After all, not everybody is as perfect as my Maka~!"

Shinigami's eye twitched, humiliated already by the poor performance by his beloved, notably problematic spawn, and could not control himself as he slammed one of his gargantuan white palms onto Spirit's skull, sending the red-head backwards, before slapping the concrete limp against the playboy's clothed butt, propelling him across the room with a startled yelp, "Don't be smug, or else I'll have to use my Shinigami Chop on you!" he cautioned belatedly.

The weapon whimpered as he nursed the blow to his ass and his noggin, utterly defeated in a crumpled heap by the Shinigami mirror, just as the looking-glass began to ring, "ITTTTEEEEE... T-tell me s—so-sooner next time..."

The Death God looked at his twitching weapon, and deflated, looking down at his lap, "It's sad to admit, but you're right, Spirit-kun... I have a lot of troubles with Kiddo these days... he patted his own head, demonstrating that there was a humanoid shape beneath the folds of paranormal darkness, "Gives me headaches, you understand?"

"Maka gives me heartaches, too..." Spirit sighed in understanding, folding his arms and leaning forward, "It's funny; when she was little she was so cute! I remember a time when she ran out across a street one day when a car was coming, and I was so freaked out that I put her over my knee and spanked her twice with my hand... I felt bad for that, but... even then, she was happy to listen to me and take my shelter and lectures, but... now..." his lower lip budded, "if she does something dangerous now, I can't do anything! She doesn’t respect me enough... I can't give her money, can’t teach her, can't hold her tight and protect her from everything in the whole world like I want to!" tears soaked his cheeks as he stuffed another pre-kishin soul (Shinigami still conquered the more challenging demons in his city if he had the desire to... or hungered enough) into his mouth, comforting himself with food.

Shinigami-sama tilted his head at the guy, blinking behind his mask. It was an odd thing, but he'd never once raised his hand to his son; not once in the boy's entire life. Ever since the little black bundle had torn from his own being and into a separate life, the Death God had kept the child under his wing, under his 'seven lights'. Maybe... maybe trying something new, something gentle, but firm, would be good...

Kidd leaned back and looked at the canvas, smiling in satisfaction.
Ahh, there was nothing more satisfying the world than perfect symmetry. It had taken him six hours, but he had finally drawn a really nice eight.

Looking at the pain-strikingly drawn number, he reminisced on how beautiful the number eight really was. The best thing was that it was two perfect circles one of top of the other. One could stop there, but when he thought about it, eight was four and four.

What better example for perfection than a number that made to ugly numbers, because four was absolutely hideous, into something symmetrical? Putting down his brush, he concluded that eight was the best number in whole world.
The only one that could possibly compare would perhaps be zero, but that wasn't as much of a number as it was a symbol.

"Oh, you're done Kidd? That was fast, considering it was you drawing it." Liz commented over her book.

Both his Kishin weapons, the Thompson sisters, had been in-and-out of the room he had been working in, mostly to distract him. Seriously, sometimes he felt that the only reason they were Weapons and Meister at all was because they became identical guns when they transformed.

But deep down he knew that the three of them had mutual respect and admiration for each other and it allowed them to match their souls' wavelength. He couldn't imagine having anybody else as his weapons.

Going back his drawing, he decided to measure it one more time before putting it on the center of the wall of his bedroom, which would probably take him another four hours to align properly.

Taking out his tape measure, he quickly made a calculation of the circumference and area of each circle and the radius of each side from the center. Kid was far from stupid, his terrible test scores were due to the fact that he was usually too distracted during the test making sure both ends of his eraser matched or that all his words were written "perfectly" and he usually ran out of time.

Suddenly he froze. There was something wrong. The right side of the upper circle was 0.004 cm longer.

"Ah...! Ah!" Kid thought he might fall backwards off his chair. Liz looked over at him, concerned that something had happened.

"It's DISGUSTING!!" Kid suddenly screamed, and tore the paper he had been working to hard on off the drawing table. "Nothing is more horrible than asymmetry!" He tore the paper to shred, venting his anger on the processed tree.

Liz wrote it off as another of Kidd's tantrums and went back to filing her nails while Patty ignored the whole incident as she was drawing a rooster with crayons. At least this time he didn't start crying and calling himself names, the older sister thought, the atmosphere of the house seems to have a calming effect on him...I guess it's because most things here are symmetrical the way he likes...

"By the way Kid..." She looked up from her manicure to see the young Shinigami stuffing the remains of his work in the trash bin. "None of the three of us passed the test...do we have to take remedial classes or something?"

"Maa, we didn't do that bad Liz. Besides, there's little I can learn at Shibuzen. My father already has taught me most things a Kishin-hunters needs to know and more. A test score doesn't reflect our real knowledge."

"Well good, because school is boring, remedial classes are sure to be more boring still."

"Ta-dah!" Suddenly Patty rose from her seat, to show her sister and Kid her drawing, which had originally been of a rooster and then slowly degenerated to some kind of horse-monkey.

"Wii-sha, wii-sha! How is everybody today?" A bright, playful, if slightly eccentric voice foamed from the fogged pane of one of Death Manor’s great overhead windows. As the three (or four, including Patti's outstanding rendition of a horse-monkey) glanced up, a shroud of deepest black greeted them with a tilt of the head, and a wave of a giant gloved hand.

Having overheard the snippets of Liz and Kiddo's exchange, the Death God tilted his head further, leaning to one sloping side, only to snap back up straight like an ethereal shaded spring, "Aaah, about thaaat..." he began, regaining a thin sense of sincerity, "That makes... three exams in a row, ne?" the ageless God heaved a hearty sigh, a hue of rose taking the inexplicable cheeks of his skull mask. He scratched at a the side of the visor with a gigantic, bulking white finger, "Gets a little embarrassing, ne..." he muttered fretfully, seemingly to himself, though directed at the senzu-line clad youth beneath him.

Shinigami soon waved a hand at the three, trying to ignore the mutterings and sniggers of the red-headed Kishin Weapon behind him, "Saa, saa, well... to business!" the gaze of his mask suddenly radiated a grave sense of gravity and magnitude, his deep, booming voice breaking barriers and smashing away the childishness of his usual chat, and his attentions fell upon his only child, "Kiddo."

The long break was heavy, overbearing. The very air seeming to gain weight, before the jolly tone returned, and the reaper's voice lightened in pitch and volume, "I want you to meet me in the family room at 7:00pm!" he waggled a huge finger for emphasis, "Don't be late!" he clapped his palms together, and raised a double thumbs-up, directed towards the two sisters, "Keep trying, you two! You’re doing well! I'm counting on you!"

Just as the dark shroud had begun to fade, Shinigami snapped his fingers, and returned to the screen, brightening down at his spawn, cooing in a paternal, or even maternal fashion, "Kiddo, your stripes look as cute as ever! Ja na!" the window fogged again, leaving the three to stew.

It was no surprise that the Death God made a projection of his appearance without warning in Death Manor. Kidd listened calmly to his father, quietly admiring the symmetry of his mask. He couldn't make out what his father was trying to do with his tense pause.

He knew that Shinigami sometimes had a knack for the theatrics, but his long pause made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Yet it was soon interrupted by his father's own cheerful mood. "I want you to meet me in the family room at 7:00pm!"

Kidd scowled after his father left. Seven was such an ugly number, why couldn't ask him to meet at eight? But right then, he didn't feel too happy with the number eight after his painting fiasco, but it was still his favourite number.

He stayed his Liz and Patty for the rest of the afternoon, alternatively talking and quarreling until he went to his room to measure all his paintings again and make sure they were in place.

Using the precise watch Shinigami gave him on his ninth birthday, he stood in front of the door at exactly 18:59 with 58 seconds. As soon as the the minute hand told him it was 19:00, he opened the door.

"Yes, father?"

"Hallo, hallo, how are you doooing?" The Reaper greeted and enthusiastically questioned from the get-go, the jagged tip of his dark haze springing.

Sitting in the centre of the room, exactly that, dead centre, Shinigami-sama sat with a set of tea, coupled with two plates on either side, sporting a collection of perfectly rounded treats, biscuits and shortbread, the fare entirely symmetrical. Absolutely Perfect. It had taken the God of Kishin-Death to lay them out, the painstaking faultlessness not easy for him. He enjoyed rules, lived by narrow, treacherous ones, but, for some reason... keeping things 'out of disarray' in his own home had become near impossible over the past ten years.

A huge and outsized white glove popped out from the folds of feather-like darkness, and Shinigami gestured for his spawn to sit opposite him. Having set into a kneel himself, the Elite Kishin Reaper of Souls raised his green tea to his mask, allowing for a long, hearty gulp, only to place the potted tumbler down before him, "Kiddo..."

"I can't lie very well..." the 'honourable father' began, resting a smog-coveted chin in the crook of a large palm. It was true. His lies were technically 'diversions' off the original topic. He'd done it to his own son often enough; keeping the boy's mind elsewhere whilst he spirited away without a real answer. He'd had a similar moment when Kid had asked about where he came from, who was his mother, and why was she not around. The boy had asked it only once, however, soon after he was forced to try and pursue the repulsive and horrendous (and very, very cute!) asymmetry of his senzu hair lines. Wonder where the mention had cropped up...

"Iya, I can't lie. Your test scores are getting discomforting, Kiddo..." Shinigami continued, almost apologetic, "It's not a good light to shed on your fellow students, and... well, I expect you to do better under pressure." The tone was still light and frivolous, but the skull mask remained fixed on the younger Kishin-hunter, the emotionless sockets boring deep into the youth's yellow eyes. Branding him in place, "If it were a one-off, I wouldn't be so... shaaa..." he paused, trying to word himself well for his 'neat and tidy' mannered spawn, "So disappointed..." A red light seemed to glow beneath the bone mask, only to fizzle out as Shinigami took another sip of tea.

"Never mind!" He said at last, slapping a giant hand onto the modest table, sending the plates bouncing by accident. After smoothing them back into place, he gestured for his son to take one, getting back to the point, "I thought that I'd give you a nice chance. For your annual written test this week, I want you to get..." he tilted his head back, debating on fairness. He would give his beloved son a good challenge. Test the limits! And if there was failure... he would deal with it! No mercy! The darkness seemed to bead sweat, and the Shinigami's potent aura faded a bit on reflection, "I want you to get a pass! 60%! No... 50%." A white palm drew a thumbs-up, "That's easy for you, ne? If you don't reach that, you will be punished." shadows seemed to engulf his son and himself as his habitually so breezy voice fell into ageless depth and gravity.

Kidd walked towards the tea set with a smile on his face. It pleased him whenever his father took an effort to put things proper and symmetrical, like they should. He watched Shinigami take a sip of the tea and replace his cup. He then took take to drink the same amount of tea, so they cups would still match.

All the while he heard his father speak.

"So disappointed..." A red light seemed to glow beneath the bone mask, only to fizzle out as Shinigami took another sip of tea.

Kidd couldn't recall his father being disappointed with him before. Shinigami had been sort of upset at him in a few occasions, for example when he had accidentally destroyed the beautiful Anubis.
Kidd had been able to detect annoyance in his father's tone of voice while he was being scolded for that, but he had been mostly busy hating himself and crying for damaging something so exquisite.
In the end, the Death God took away Liz and Patty's collected Kishin souls, forcing them to start from square one.

The young Shinigami felt a pang of shame. Is this what Liz meant when she called him "spoiled"? He had to admit to himself that his parent let him get away with a lot of stuff other parents would go ballistic about. When he was younger, he had sometimes pushed the limits of Shinigami's patience, sometimes deliberately misbehaving to see how his father would react. The Death God never gave Kidd too severe a scolding or even raised a hand against him, but he had the knack of making his son feel so guilty about his misdeed that he wouldn't ever do it again after being caught only once.

But he had never imagined that his father would feel disappointed about him over a test score. He had always figured that if Shinigami would ever snap about something, it would be about him letting a dangerous Kishin get away because he was too distracted.

"I want you to get a pass! 60%! No... 50%." A white palm drew a thumbs-up, "That's easy for you, ne? If you don't reach that, you will be punished." Shadows seemed to engulf his son and himself as his habitually so breezy voice fell into ageless depth and gravity.

Kid was sorely tempted to ask: "what kind of punishment?" but he held his tongue. He had resolved to himself that he would not let Liz call him "spoiled" anymore, he would take whatever discipline his father gave.

"I will do my best, honourable father." Kid finished the remains of his tea and took a pastry so that his side of the tray imitated his father's before leaving the room.

~~~

Not four days later, he was sitting again in a room full of other Shibuzen students ready to take his test. It had taken a lot of self-discipline to do it, but he had actually forced himself to study instead of drawing another eight for his room.

As the test started, he decided to write down his name last, because it was always the one thing that took him the most time. He started with the Mutliple Choice instead. A quick scan of the paper told him he knew all the answers cold. The problem was filling out all those little bubbles perfectly, leaving no lines outside the bubble and no white space inside.

Doing his best effort to fill it in quickly but perfectly at the same time, half the test-time was gone by the time he was done. Glancing at his answer sheet, he noticed what a horrible, irregular pattern his answers made. He grabbed his eraser to wipe out the ugly pattern and put a nice one instead.

He stopped himself before the eraser touched the paper. No....concentrate...the symmetrical pattern is not the right one....but it's so ugly.....I should move on to the True/False instead....

Writing down the amswers, he noticed that the answers were again asymmtrical. Who write these tests? It should be against the law! The should be beaten! Put in jail! Disgusting! He decided to put the wrong answer for two of the questions, just to make it a nicer pattern. He smiled in satisfaction. He felt much better.

He manage to get a quarter the written answer section done before Zombie Sid announced they had ten seconds left for the test. Kid panicked. Darn! I haven't written my name yet!

Drawing as fast an accurately as he could, he did a pain-staking effort in his name.

Death the Ki

"You ran out of time, Kidd, gimme that!" Without him noticing, Zombie Sid had walked up to him and grabbed the top part of his test. He yanked it away, making the young Shinigami draw a horrible, bent line across the length of his test. It wasn't even in the middle! His perfect test! Ruined!

"Wauugh!!" Spitting up some blood, Kid promptly fainted.

~~~~
Stein had been in charge of marking this time. Going through each test, he mused to himself. Well, Kidd certainly showed a dramatic improvement, in comparison to the Thompson sisters....he still didn't get a passing mark though, he got 48% which is a shame....

Adjusting the screw that went to his head, Stein put the Shinigami's test away and proceeded to mark Oxford's.

The spring of black that made for the hilt of Shinigami's shroud seemed to puncture as the test scores were issued to him. He'd deliberately given his spawn the modest deadline, something for the youth to pass with ease given the seriousness of his parent's threat. Only, that measure had resulted in failure... and now he was forced to move his piece forward with conviction. A talk with Sid had sorted that resolution out. A man who makes promises must keep them (that is the man he used to be), or a man's promise would never be heeded. Like that Grimm fairytale that he had read to his little Death ever since the boy was born. The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

"Shaa..." the Death Reaper sighed, moving along one of the perfectly aligned hallways of his grand home, his skull-mask fixed into dismay. Pausing, the dark entity allowed his makeshift, white-gloved hands to pop into view, their gargantuan size distressing him for the very first time in the entirety of his existence. He would have to use them on Kiddo's taut little backside. The bone mask tightened with misery and apprehension as the Shinigami fretted over his poor predicament. Yet... those great white palms were nothing to the great black claws of darker ages, and for that, he thanked his stars, the grinning, blood-spattered moon, and the perversely beaming sun. The worst these hands could do, if aimed with proper restraint, was redden and sting flesh accordingly, rather than tear it to blooded shreds with a single touch. With that happy, upbeat thought, Shinigami-sama was uplifted, and while clenching a fist and narrowing the eyes of his mask in dogged determination, he set off towards his son's perfect room. With its flawlessly symmetrical design. It's faultlessly neat and tidy façade. Already, the Death God felt certain dizziness take him over, but that soon melted in the reaper's gritty desire to carry out his threat and give his problematic son the first sound butt-blistering of his entire life.

Arriving at the door, with its duo of knobs, Shinigami straightened his supernaturally cloaked frame, raised a hand, and knocked thrice on the entranceway. After a moment, he voiced gently, "Kiddo...?"

Kid heard the knock on the door and his father's voice. He opened the door with slight apprehension. Ever since he had seen the test results posted on the wall outside the classroom he had known he had failed to meet his father's expectations. What bothered him was that he had been so close to getting a passing grade. So close. In fact if one rounded his mark it did become 50.

But Professor Stein had given him a failing grade and that was the final word. Kidd sighed has he stepped back to allow his father more room to walk in. His only consolation was that forty eight was twenty four twice, which in turn was twelve twice and so on. It was really nice number. In fact, he would have been happy with a mark like that had not Shinigami promised a punishment for failing the exam.

His stomach got tight whenever he thought about what a Death God might do to punish his wayward child. Both of them had really strong soul spirit (thought Shinigami's was much of powerful of course) so Kid would be able to endure chastisement which would be considered cruel to normal humans. Despite this, Kidd really didn't want to find out how Gods usually disciplined their young. He would have rather have avoided the whole thing altogether. Maybe he still could.

"Father, I want to speak to you about that test. Who wrote it? Clearly all the multiple choice and true and false answer were chosen at random! There was no harmony to it whatsoever! How is a student supposed to concentrate if all the right answers give an appalling arrangement? I'm suprised not a lot of other students failed!"

"Chaos is a bad thing..." Shinigami uttered airily in response to his son's ranting, gazing at his youth's room. The boldness of the black, the vivid purity of the white really calmed him, almost as much as a warm cup of green tea. His spiral-adorned eyes fell upon the spattering of vibrant red and crimson dotted about the boy's room, and once more, his chosen chastisement for his beloved child came into play. Like a stray, vivacious violin in a tranquil lullaby. He turned around to face the boy, and tilted his head a little, inwardly praising the charm of his son's senzu marks. 'So Cute, ne?' It made the coming task more complicated... more... negotiable. Shaaa... that wasn't right of him. That would not help Kiddo in the long run...

Hovering in doubt, and conflict, Shinigami brought to himself a resolve. For the better of his child, an undisciplined reaper, an heir to Death itself, he had to be firm. He vowed to take a step back from his current stance; that of a tender, soft-hearted, paternally-moulded soul, to that dark, unmoved entity that he had been so many years ago. The God that sought and destroyed without discussion of weakness. The God that asked no questions and meted out sentences without a jury. The unfathomable sockets of his mask narrowed, and his elegant, welcoming form filled out, ever so slightly, the Reaper allowing a little of his real self to the occasion.

After what seemed like a millennia of those dark, slitting eyes, the silence was broken by a deep and rough voice, heavy with gravity, "You disobedient child...!" the scolding hung in the air for a moment, the graceful black form towering over the youth, and then continued, "As a Shinigami, you have the mental strength to overcome these fine details despite your own thoughts on them. Yet, you chose not to. Disobeyed. Rather than mind your father you would choose to brand yourself a fool to those who should be basking in your very capable example." The gargantuan, pale hands had returned, and lay sternly on airy hips. It was then that the deep tone softened into that which Kid had grown up with as Shinigami-sama continued, "Since you're fine with accepting failure, and disregarding me, you'll be fine with accepting your punishment, ne?" A white hand popped up from his hip, and it quivered, demonstrating that he intended to use it, "So, let's get started!" he reared back and sat on the edge of his son's large, perfectly square bed, a giant hand patting his shady lap, "Saaa, over you go~!"

"You disobedient child...!"
Kidd froze in terror when he heard his father's voice change...no, his whole demeanor seemed altered. The passive, happy-go-lucky attitude seemed to be gone in an instant, replaced by the Reaper voice Kidd had seldom heard, and for the first time it was directed at him.

He listened mutely to his father's scolding, fully expecting Shinigami to order him any second to do some task both cumbersome and hard, or worse: lash out at him.
The Death Reaper did neither, allowing his voice to become more like his usual one before making his intentions clear.

"Since you're fine with accepting failure, and disregarding me, you'll be fine with accepting your punishment, ne?" A white hand popped up from his hip, and it quivered, demonstrating that he intended to use it.

His father sat on his bed, though much to Kid's dismay he was not in the middle of it. But at that moment, surprisingly, where Shingami sat was not what worried Kidd the most. He had seen the older God hover his hand menacingly and now he had told to "go over" and patted his lap. Kidd grasped the meaning of his father's intentions, but refused to believe his father would do that to him.

His own personal experience with corporal punishment being extremely limited, everything Kidd knew about spanking, beatings and lashings he had seen in books. And in every single instance, the receiver of the punishment seemed to be in so much pain that he confessed any crime, even when he was innocent. And now that his own father appeared to have the same intent, physical discipline was never so terrifying to the young Shinigami.

On the other hand he had promised himself he would not be 'spoiled' anymore and he would accept any punishment from the Death God without complaint. He had just never fathomed that the first thing Shinigami would choose to do was to hit him.

Kidd was thinking so hard, that he forgot to respond at all to his father's command.