"What?? You've seriously never heard of souls till now?" Maka asked with stunned amazement, utterly taken aback by a lack of such fundamental knowledge that she thought everyone knew.
"Nope, maybe that's why you can't see mine?" Nate said as he gave a shrug.
The sprawling streets and alleyways of Death City while utterly foreign to him seemed oddly homey and familiar. However navigating them had been a different story. Maka had to stop him from wandering off into dead ends about once every few blocks.
"Just because I can't see your soul doesn't mean you don't have one, it may just be hidden. Either way I'm certain Lord Death will want to talk to you..." She turned around and looked for Nate...who was no where to be seen.
About a block away Nate had took a wrong turn and ended up in an alley. He wasn't really sure how he'd gotten lost but he thought Maka had been following him and was utterly surprised to see he was all alone in the alley.
The alley smelled of rotting food and cooking trash mostly due to the sweltering Nevada sun, which Nate had just noticed had a rather large mocking grin, he paid it no mind.
He waltzed down the alley, going no where in particular. He was hoping to run back into Maka who he self admittedly was growing slightly fond of in the short time they'd known each other.
"Just give us your shit, and nobody gets hurt." A gruff voice yelled from down the alley. Nate immediately moved closer to investigate the sound out of curiosity.
He stepped to the side of a large trash bin and peeked over the top where he saw two rather large men standing in front of a girl clutching her bag, with his back against the alley wall.
One of the men put his boot on the blonde girl's shoulder and began prying the bag from her.
"See It's always the stubborn ones you gotta rough up a bit before they listen." Unable to pry the bag from the boy's death grip he raised up his boot and was ready to kick the poor girl in the face when a familiar voice rang out
"Hey! Pick on someone your own size why don't ya!" Nate yelled as he ran from behind his hiding spot towards the two men.
"People in this town just love to play hero, hey Phil why don't we show him how we deal with heroes here." The instant the words left his lips he began being enveloped in a stark white light that completely covered his form before transforming into a steel baseball bat right before Nate's very eyes.
"What the fuck!?" Was all Nate said as he slid between the large man's open legs, using the momentum from his run to get behind him and stand up.
"Okay, so your friend can turn himself from a major league asshole to a major league baseball bat. Big whoop." The large man, Phil, went to strike Nate on the head with all his might, but at the same time Excalibur's voice rang out in Nate's head.
"FOOL! You need to block the attack! Transform your arms, and use them to block."
Nate didn't have time to argue or think before throwing up his arms to block the man's relentless assault. After the first strike the man jumped back down the alley way a few paces away from Nate with his eyes wide in shock.
The look of fear on the man's face filled Nate with pure glee. So much so that it took him a moment to notice the golden shimmer and ornate glint coming off of his own arms. He looked down to see that his own arms had been transformed? Into blades?!
"FOOL! You must save the girl! You are the ultimate paragon of good as the holder of Excalibur's might"
"Yeah saving the girl was already on my to-do list thanks ass-hat." Nate said silently to himself? He wasn't really sure why he was hallucinating but right now he had no time to think about that.
Out of pure instinct he got into a makeshift fighting stance before attempting to run at the man holding the baseball bat who still stood on down the alley from him, sweat beading at his brow.
However as soon as Nate took a single step, in a flash he was instantly behind the man. The instant teleportation was enough disorient both of the fighters, but Nate had been the quicker one and before Phil could turn to attack him Nate delivered a slash to the man's back with enough force to send him flying out of the alleyway down the street.
Maka sees these two obvious ruffians come flying out from an alleyway with a giant glowing light and runs over instantly to investigate, only to find Nate knelt down in front of the lone girl.
"Hey what happened-" Maka began to ask, but Nate was preoccupied with the girl from the mugging. She was crying as she sat on the dirty alleyway floor.
"Hey, hey, it's going to be alright. Those dipshits can't hurt you anymore." Nate said as he extended a hand to girl pulling her up. Maka realized upon a closer look that she knew this girl from class, her name was Evelynn Pryor. She was a low level meister student.
As all three of them stood in the alleyway suddenly a large dark skinned man, arms laced with tattoos stood in between the opening to the alley and the street.
Maka and Eve both stood at attention, as Sid Barrett stood, stone faced in the alleyway.
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The room Nate now found himself in was at the top of the DWMA, the room Sid had brought all three of the students to was Death's room. The room where the grim reaper would hold meetings, dispatch students on missions, and overall do his day to day tasks.
The room somehow had a bright blue sky and multiple low swirling clouds inside of it. In front of them Sid stood in front of a rather large ornate mirror.
"When Lord Death comes up let me do the talking-" Maka began to say.
"QUIET DOWN!" Sid bellowed from in front of them, "You three are in a heap of trouble, especially you Maka I expect better from such a high ranking student."
Maka just bowed her head in defeat at Sid's words, no doubt afraid this would hurt her chances at turning Soul, her partner, into a death scythe.
After berating the three Sid leaned forward and made breathed on the glass of the mirror, before writing some sort of group of numbers Nate couldn't see.
In an instant the mirror began to glow, and Death stood inside the mirror