"COOPER!" Tsubaki screams. Maka and a very battered BlackStar desperately try to hold her back as she tries to head towards the blast zone of all places.

"Tsubaki! You can't! He's-" Maka chokes on her words. "He did it to save us. Don't throw away what he gave you."

"But… Cooper…" Tsubaki sinks to her knees and puts her head in her hands.

Maka gives Tsubaki a few pats on the back. "I know. I… I don't know how…"

BlackStar sits down in front of his old weapon. "Tsubaki."

She looks up, her face completely covered in smears of dirt from fighting and tears.

"He loved you, right? Then you need to make sure you continue to make him happy by doing well for yourself. He wouldn't want you to go kill yourself looking for him in that."

The entire room falls silent. BlackStar was never this serious. Never.

"If you want, I'll go search for him. I'm made of some pretty stern stuff. But first, we gotta make sure everyone else is okay too."

Death the Kid is the first to raise out of is stupor. "Right. Kim, get ready to heal a lot of people. Maka, once Soul is healed, go out with the Thompsons and look around for survivors. I had a whole bunch of men out there to back us up, and I don't know why they haven't arrived. Ox Ford should be out there as well. Eruka, you and free-"

Kid looks around, but the witch and werewolf are nowhere to be found. "Well then, it looks like they split. Spirit, Stein, you need to go unlock the barricade under Death mansion. All the survivors I could find and didn't want to assist with this operation are there. Jackie, make sure Tsubaki ha somewhere to lie down."

Everyone complies without a word. Kid watches everyone file out to do their assigned duties.

"Kid?"

Kid turns around to find Maka shuffling around behind him. "What is it? Something happen?"

Maka shakes her head. "It's about Lord Death. I guess he didn't make it?"

Kid slowly shakes his head. "He overloaded himself getting the shield generator down. I'm his heir, so I'm currently in charge."

Maka attempts to put on a smile, but it only half works. "Okay, well, he was preparing you for the job anyway, so… good luck."

"Thank you." Kid says, then slumps he way into the seat of power in Death City. He looks around at the mostly destroyed room and up through the cracks in the artificial sky, up into the real, now nighttime sky.

"Well father, it hasn't turned out as well as I hoped it would, your transfer of power. So far, we don't have any KIA, but the likelihood of that staying is very slim. My… brother made a sacrifice to save us all, and… I never knew how hard it was to lose people before, despite the fact he wasn't even under my command I still feel responsible for his death. I guess now I'm responsible for a lot more people, and that means that I have to be as strong as you were. I have friends that will help, so I have that.

"I have no idea where you went since you died, but if you're still listening, I hope you can tell that your plan succeeded. We beat the witch, we took back our dead city, and now it's time to rebuild or move on. I'll work on that when it comes up. Hopefully, I can get everyone here back on their feet sooner rather than later. I have quite a lot of work ahead of me."

"Kid, who are you talking to?"

Kid looks to his side to see Patty looking up at him with tear filled eyes.

"I'm just talking to myself, Patty. Let's go out and see if we can find any survivors, huh?"

Patty smiles the first genuine smile Kid had seen in what seems like years, despite being less than two weeks. "Yeah, let's go!"

(O.O)
VVV

Unfortunately, the death of the master did not mean the death of the minions. All the soulless folk wandering about are still wandering about as everyone available scours the street in search of survivors.

Kid, having nothing better to do in his ruined castle of a school decided to join the hunt for survivors, and he had found a lot of his resistance fighters trapped in the taller buildings due to his inadvertent power release. Five were confirmed dead to another one of those large clown things, but their remains were hard to track down, only blood trail leading to the corpses. If Kid hadn't personally seen them this morning, he might not have even recognized them as part of his resistance.

Astonishingly, there were several pockets where DWMA student had hidden when things went south. Several of the NOT groups made it through in the girls dorm, which had been sieged multiple times but never broken into. Maka seemed particularly happy about the survival of three of the female members, ones Kid assumed she had connections with.

The blast from Medusa's box had leveled three whole blocks. Kid personally went over ever inch with an oddly subdued BlackStar, but neither of them found any trace of Cooper. While they couldn't say he survived, everything around ground zero had been disintegrated, there was absolutely no trace of Cooper or his remains. Kid made sure BlackStar wouldn't get Tsubaki's hopes up before they left the crater.

Those that had stayed behind in the mansion were found none the worse for the wear. Spirit and Stein were able to get them out with little problem. They were bewildered to be called out so soon after barricading themselves inside, but grateful for those that returned from the fight.

The soldiers that had joined up insisted on continuing to clear the streets of the Odds. Kid couldn't find a way to deny them this, he only reason being that the DWMA affiliate were the ones equipped to deal with them, but their response was to completely ignore the new Lord Death and head out anyway. Kid ended up reassigning Liz and Patty to assist them with their efforts.

Free and Eruka had shown up half an hour after the fight was over, having gone to the witches on Kid's behalf. Kid had been quite surprised when twelve witches showed up and started cleaning up, but Eruka insisted that they were there to help rebuild. Free ended up keeping his enormous yap shut the entire time, something that set off alarm bells in his head, but the witches were proving to be too useful to pass up on their help.

Maka and Soul had ended u drawing a pretty short straw, having to go into the old building and search for more of the clown guards, but the both seemed to cheerily accept their task. The reason is that they both felt they need to talk to each other without prying ears around them.

"So…" Maka begins after a while.

"Yeah. You… You alright, Maka?"

"I'm fine, Soul. You're the one that got stabbed. How are you feeling?"

Soul gives the mental equivalent of a shrug. "It's happened before."

Maka winces. "Yeah, well, that's not exactly comforting." She pushes open a door, which promptly falls over as its hinges fail. "Well, your sarcasm is still intact. That's a good sign."

Soul smirks. "This makes what, three times my chest has been cut open? If this keeps up, I'll look like Stein in no time."

Maka stops dead in her tracks. "Don't even joke about that."

Soul starts to pout. "Aw, are you saying that if I end up full of stitches you won't love me anymore?"

Maka continues to stare straight ahead, unmoving. "Soul. Promise me you won't get hurt on purpose."

"I never do. Interestingly, pain hurts. If we stay in this line of work though, we're gonna end up getting hit again. I can almost guarantee it." Soul closes his mental form's eyes and leans back, feeling Maka's hands along the shaft of his weapon form. "Let's train hard to not need Stein, okay?"

Maka gives an enthusiastic nod before remembering exactly why she was standing in a crumbling building. "Let's keep looking. We don't know how many of those dumb clown things Kid was talking about are out here, but we know that there's at least one."

"Probably four all in the same spot, knowing our luck." Soul grumbles. "Hey, isn't this where we used to live?"

Maka looks up at a building across the street. Sure enough, Soul's bedroom window is visible from their vantage point, but not much else is still recognizable from when they left it.

"It is. We'll go over there and see if anything is salvageable after we're done checking this building."

Above them, the ceiling starts to groan ominously. Maka and Soul slowly look up, then at each other.

"Run?

"Run."

Maka bolts from the third story window, twisting around to watch the now collapsing building become a pile of rubble less than half its original height. She hooks Soul onto a railing on the floor below theirs and swings into the balcony of the floor below that. She trips over some masonry that had fallen and dumps both herself and her weapon on the floor.

"Ow." Complains a rapidly more human Soul. "Next time, try landing on top of a bed."

"You mean like that one?" She points to the bed right next to where they are laying. Soul recoils as he notices the bare springs that looked less than comfortable and more than a little sharp.

"Okay, no beds. Piles of pillows."

Maka snorts. 'If anyone actually leaves a pile of pillows around in the off chance someone is going to swing through their window, I'd be amazed."

Soul's grin comes back, his jagged teeth glinting in the dim light.

The duo make their way up the mangled yet still sturdy stairs and enter their room. Most everything s decayed if it was furniture or built into the house, but a quick inspection reveals that all of Soul's vinyl's are in good shape, having not been protected by Death's soul during their relatively short stay in this city.

Maka's books, however, we a different matter. Books fell under Death's power, so all her accumulated Library books has since become piles of dust, and even some of her own that we're very old. All in all, about a third of her collection was gone. When she relayed this news to Soul, he tilts has head and says "I wonder how the library faired?"

Maka almost started crying again as she imagined it. Soul quickly reassured her that the Library wouldn't be a total lost cause, and she cheered back up slightly.

The best part was exiting the building and finding that Maka's special piano, the one that had several enchantments on it, was not only perfectly intact, but still looked brand new. Soul took one look at it and sat down at the keys. He pats the space on the bench next to him. "Care to join me?"

Maka shakes her head. "Now's not the time-"

Soul gives her the Bambi eyes. Maka had never before seen him use Bambi eyes and would never have thought him capable of it until this point. "Oh, alright. Only one song though."

She sits down nest to Soul as he gingerly tests the keys. Once satisfied, he looks over at his partner. "Ready?"

"Ready for what-"

(O.O)
VVV

Throughout the empty city, where buildings continue to wither away to nothing, a haunting tune plays mournfully through the street. BlackStar, still searching the rubble as fast as his body would allow him to move hears it and stops. Liz's ears perk up and she listens to the sad song in silence.

When the music stops playing after about five minutes, Liz whispers to BlackStar. "I bet that was Soul."

"Who else?" BlackStar rolls his eye, and then gets back to searching. He does however, acknowledge that Soul is pretty damn good with that piano. He continues to leap around the piles of rubble until-

His foot lands on what looks like an entirely secure piece of ground, but it caves as soon as his foot contacts the concrete slab. BlackStar rips through the rest of the way and crashes into an oddly shaped hole. Oddly shaped because rubble rarely forms a perfect cube around something.

"Whoa, lookit this place. It looks like someone set out a shipping container and then magicked out away after this rubble fell." BlackStar rocks back and forth on his heels a few times.

Liz starts chewing her mental fingernails. "Be careful, it's really dark in here."

"Whatever. I can practically see in the da- WHOA!"

Both weapon and meister end up on the floor. BlackStar's nose, which had taken more than its fair share of the force, had started bleeding.

"What was that about seeing in the dark?" Liz asks humorlessly.

"I don't know what you're talking about. What tripped me?" BlackStar crawls on his hands and knees back the way he came, and eventually finds what he tripped over.

"Hey Liz! I found a survivor!"

(O.O)
VVV

Tsubaki sits at the top of the stairs that lead to the building that housed the DWMA from the time of its inception to two weeks ago. She is currently remembering all the good times she's had here, all the friends she had… and all the friends that had their lifeless corpses dug up from beneath the rubble.

It looks like most of those who weren't either already grouped up or on the weaker side ended up as prey to whatever horrors were roaming that particular set of streets.

Hero, a boy that nobody really liked, but was nice enough to Tsubaki that she didn't mind him at all, had been found in front of a locked room with several young students who definitely couldn't defend themselves properly. When the ten-and-under's were asked, Hero had finally become his namesake, sacrificing himself for the sake of the rest of those around him.

Most of the survivors had similar stories. It seems everyone has seen someone dear to them die in this takeover.

Tsubaki tucks her knees up and her head down. Too much more and she was going to cry. Again.

Then she hears BlackStar shouting form the bottom of the steps. She tries to lower her head further to just not look, but the steps of the approaching party keeps drawing nearer.

BlackStar reaches the top, audibly stretches and flops down where he was. "I think that we've got almost everyone now."

Liz shifts out of pistol form. "We checked the entirety of the southwestern section, and he was the only living person."

Tsubaki hums an affirmative still not looking up.

At least, she didn't look up until a pair of rather furry arms wrapped around her.

"You're gonna have to thank Free. He's got a really good shield spell-"

Tsubaki bursts into tears, but this time, they aren't completely from pain.

This time, there's a bit of joy mixed in.