Author's Note: Hi, Everyone! Welcome! This is my first Soul Eater fanfic, so I'm super-excited to get started. I recently fell in love with the series, both the anime and the manga, so I decided to tell my own story. There is an OC here, but I'm going to try my very best so she's likable and fun, just like the rest of the characters in Soul Eater. Keep in mind that the story is from Kid's point of view! Your thoughts and feedback are loved and appreciated.

Balance, Chapter 1

To Balance One's Lifestyle

I glanced ahead, down the dark hall of the abandoned university. I had been in the building for almost half an hour, but there was still no sign of any suspicious activity. Perhaps the information from Father had been wrong. It didn't seem like the place was possessed by any demonic spirits. No, it just looked like a university that had not been cleaned in a very long time. The thought of such a terrible crime made me wince every so often, and the destroyed lockers against the graffiti-covered walls weren't helping. I bet that the delinquents who tarnished such a beautiful hallway had had no order to their crimes, none whatsoever.

"Oi, Kid," I heard Liz say in her gun form, "we've been here for a while, and there's still no sign of the target. I'm starting to think that we've been sent on a wild goose chase."

"Goose chase!" Patty squealed as the twin gun. "Goose chase!"

I sighed. "Let's stay a little while longer," I insisted. "We should at least stay for an even amount of time. Let's give it another ten minutes. That way, we'll have been here for an even forty. Of course, in a perfect world, we'd stay for eighty minutes."

"I am not staying that long!" Liz shouted. "It's the middle of the night! I'm exhausted!"

Suddenly, I heard a loud crash down the hall. "What was that?" I gasped. I ran down the hallway, expecting to see the target, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. A light that had been dangling from the ceiling had crashed into a broken desk on the cracked tile floors.

My face twisted in disgust. "So unorganized," I hissed.

But then I heard something else. It sounded like breathing, and it was coming from behind me.

"KID!!" Liz screamed. "LOOK OUT!!"

I jumped out of the way just before a giant hammer came crashing to the floor. The unstable building rumbled ominously, and I gasped as some of the floor crumbled. This was going to be tricky. I had to defeat the enemy without causing damage to the building.

"Ken L. Fiction," I began as I turned to the monster, "you're the murderer who has been working college students to the brink of insanity. After they're exhausted and vulnerable, you take their lives by eating them from the inside. You contaminate all the caffeine they drink! I will not allow you to continue this madness!" I lifted Liz and Patty towards the monster. "Education should not kill; it should enlighten today's children so they can lead the world tomorrow! I'LL BE TAKING YOUR SOUL!!"

I fired a few bullets, but the monster managed to dodge them. It was quite fast, but it was also jumpy. I assumed it was from the massive amounts of caffeine it consumed to continue killing. It hand two books for hands, and the paper pages transformed into blades.

"You little creep!" Fiction shouted. "You're the son of that Shinigami, aren't you? Shibusen is a lie! The students there don't work hard enough. They shouldn't sleep! They shouldn't eat! The more time they spend studying, the more souls I get to consume! STAY OUT OF MY WAY!!" It charged towards me with the sharp pages, but I was able to jump backwards and land perfectly on my two feet.

"Hey, Kid," Liz said out of nowhere, "how are you able to fight that thing?"

"It looks perfectly symmetrical!" Patty added.

I shook my head. "You obviously have no eye for real perfection. Take a closer look." I pointed to Fiction's right hand. "See the book there?"

"Uh, yes," Liz replied, unsure. "What about it?"

That did it. I hoisted the guns up again and shot at the creature. "THE RIGHT BOOK HAS ONE MORE PAGE THAN THE LEFT BOOK!!"

I could feel Liz jerk back. "You could tell that between all the fighting?"

Patty laughed. "That's our Kid!"

Fiction moved out of the way and jumped up to hit me with the blades again. I sprinted behind him and shot again, this time hitting him. I took a moment for celebration and then hit him again. Fiction doubled over and turned to me with red, glaring eyes. The pencil sticking out the center of his forehead glowed brightly, and it transformed into a blade. He swung his head at me but missed. I jumped over his head and landed next to a pile of rubble.

That rubble concerned me. This fight had gone on too long. "I have to end this before the university collapses," I gasped. Turning back to Fiction, I steadied myself on the ground. "Liz! Patty! Let's do it!"

"Right!" the sisters cried together.

In no time, bright lights surrounded us. "RESONANCE OF SOULS!!" Liz and Patty transformed, and I aimed the guns at Fiction. He was getting ready to charge at us again, but the timing of the guns was faster.

"Three...two...one!"

"DEATH CANNON!!"

But just as I was about to fire, I noticed something. No! I couldn't let this happen!

The next thing I knew, the building was completely destroyed. Liz, Patty, Fiction, and I were stuck underneath the wreckage, but I was content. I had fired directly down the middle of the hallway. "Good work!"

"Good work?!" Liz shouted, jumping up as a human. "You call that good work?! Patty!"

"Coming!"

I watched as Patty transformed into a gun, and Liz fired at Fiction. In a moment, the creature disappeared, and we saw his red soul floating in the air.

"Kid-kun, we really need to discuss this."

Liz, Patty, and I stood before my father back at Shibusen. We had been called down to speak with him as soon as word got around about the result of our mission. I ended up giving Fiction's soul to Maka and Soul; I didn't want a single soul for Liz and Patty's collections.

"I don't see what the problem is, Father," I explained. "We were able to retrieve Fiction's soul, and he is no longer a threat. Mission complete."

"Not really," Father replied. "Kid-kun, you were expected to take out Fiction without destroying the university. I was planning on renovating it so we could turn it into a supplementary Shibusen building, but I guess there's nothing we can do about it now." He paused for a moment to sigh. "Still, I would like to do something about you, Kid-kun. You know I have always allowed you your love of symmetry, but this is getting out of hand. We need to fix this."

I was flabbergasted. Was Father really trying to change me? No, he couldn't do that. He couldn't be this heartless, no way! Didn't he understand that symmetry was a part of my very being? Without it, I was nothing!

"Father!" I cried a little louder than appropriate. "You can't change me! I will never give up symmetry! It is my goal in life to make everything in this world symmetrical, to make this very world symmetrical!"

"I know that, Kid-kun."

"Then why are you trying to 'fix' me?!"

"I never said I'd fix you personally. I just want to do something about your need for symmetry. This is not the first time symmetry has gotten in the way of your mission. Liz-chan, Patty-chan, would you care to remind Kid-kun of what's happened?"

"There was that one time at the pyramid!" Patty squealed. "Kid left us to make sure the paintings in his room were perfectly aligned!"

"And there was this other time when he forced us to crash directly in the center of a ship after we had already crashed once," Liz sighed as she rubbed her temples. "There are plenty of other examples we could give. Would you like us to elaborate, Shinigami-sama?"

"No, no, that will do," Father replied. "Thank you, Liz-chan, Patty-chan."

I couldn't believe this. My own partners had turned against me!

"You're all in this together!" I accused, thrusting my two pointer fingers out at the sisters. "You're siding with my father on this. I can't believe you're trying to take my beloved symmetry away. This has all been part of a plan, hasn't it? I KNEW YOUR BREASTS WEREN'T SYMMETRICAL FOR A REASON!!"

"SHUT UP!!" Liz screamed, yanking at my collar. "Shut up about that! You know I'm a size smaller than my sister. Get over it!" She let go and took a deep breath. Then she put on a caring face. "We just don't want you to be so preoccupied with symmetry that you can't complete missions properly. We just care about you, Kid."

My eyes started to water. "You guys..."

"May I make a suggestion?"

I hadn't noticed that Maka's father had been in the room with us the whole time. The Death Scythe took a step forward and said, "I think if Kid-kun had someone else around to worry about his symmetry for him, he'd be able to pay more attention to his work. If someone was around, say, a maid, he could go out without worrying about symmetry back at home."

Liz pulled a face. "A maid?" she repeated. "You serious? Pervert."

"HEY!!" Spirit shouted. "I wasn't suggesting that for perverted reasons! It's a legitimate idea! Don't you think so, Shinigami-sama?"

My father contemplated the idea for a moment and then clapped his hands together. "It's a plan!" he agreed. "Kid-kun, what do you think? If we hired someone to work for you, would you forge about keeping at least your room perfect? Then we could slowly work towards you completing the mission and leaving the symmetry in general to the maid."

I thought this over. One of my greatest joys in life was organizing things. I loved the satisfaction I got out of putting things where they rightfully belonged and finding the symmetry hidden in the world. If someone else was doing such things for me, would I lose that satisfaction? No, I wouldn't. No, I'd still be able to organize things outside my room. Plus, it would probably be nice to have someone else perform all the chores I hated. It might even be nice to have someone else do the chores I didn't mind doing. It would be great to know everything was clean and orderly coming home from a mission. Sometimes I would come home so tired that the only thing I would want to do was lie down without a care in the world.

I grinned. "I like this idea. Let's put out some flyers and see who applies for the job!"

Black Star's eyes popped. "Over twenty different girls applied for the job in a single weekend?!" He could barely contain his excitement as I nodded. "Yahoo! That means we'll be seeing lots of pretty girls around here! I can't wait! Maybe I should put out some flyers for a maid..."

I sat back in my seat of the classroom and sighed. "I think they all want the job because they want to get close to my father. If they can say that they worked for Shinigami-sama on their resumes, they can easily get more opportunities for careers. I'll have to look through all the applications from last weekend carefully."

"Besides," Maka interrupted as she flipped another page in her book, "having a maid isn't easy. She may clean the house and do the errands, but it's up to the employer to provide her with a place to live and clothes to wear. Nowadays, maids get paid a lot more than they did in the old days. Adding to that, the employer has to pay a proper amount for every chore done. That means the more chores she does, the more the employer has to pay her."

I sighed. "I think I can handle it. I'm not going to ask her to do too much."

It was true though. Over twenty different girls had sent me full applications, so I had quite a bit of work ahead of me. There was also the matter of money and where the chosen maid would live. I decided not to think about that though. My mind kept slipping to the possibility of one of the candles in my room burning slightly faster than the other ones.

"Good morning, Everyone!"

We all looked up to see Stein-Hakase speed into the room on his rolling chair. He smiled as he made it to the center of the room, much to my enjoyment, and pointed to the blackboard. "As I'm sure you've all seen," he began, "your final exams for this semester are coming up. They'll be at the end of the month! I hope all of you are studying well. Today, we'll be going over the basics of what you'll need to know for your exams. Let's get right to it!"

"Ugh," Soul moaned, "I don't want to take an exam. They're so uncool."

"And I don't know how to deal with them," Crona murmured.

I watched Maka try to comfort the person next to her while Soul continued to complain. Behind me, Black Star was shouting about how he was going to come out on top with a score better than perfect. Tsubaki agreed but tried to calm him down at the same time. Next to me, Liz twirled a lock of hair around her finger, and Patty giggled something about a giraffe.

I couldn't focus on the exam. Other than the maid issue, there was only one thing on my mind, and it wasn't symmetry.

"My birthday is right after the exams..."

After my classes were over for the day, I said farewell to my friends and made my way to Father's room to look over the applications. At least one of the girls had to have everything I was looking for in a maid. One of them had to be able to understand the beauty of symmetry. It wasn't too hard to see how pleasing it was to the eye.

I greeted my father as I entered his room, and the applications were waiting for me on the table before him. Father placed a cup of tea in front of me, and I set forth examining each girl.

"Let's see," I mumbled as I looked over each paper. "This one has nothing on her resume. I don't want her. This one doesn't specify any reason for liking balance. She won't work."

It went on like this for a little while. Honestly, I was annoyed. My flyers said I wanted a maid who would comply with my need for symmetry, and yet none of the girls could follow up on that. Not only that, but the photos they sent along with their applications did not please me. Something about each one of them was off. One would have only one earring. Another would wear a shirt with a design on only one side. No, this wasn't working.

"We'll have to release more flyers," I sighed as I picked up the last application. "Unless this girl is everything I'm looking for, none of these people can comply with me."

"Aw," Father sighed, "I was hoping you'd like at least one of them. This is like when I tried to match you up with a partner, Kid-kun."

But I couldn't hear anything my father was saying. No, I couldn't. This application in front of me...This could work. Everything about her...It could work!

"Father!" I exclaimed. "This one! I want you to hire this girl!"

"Tsuriai Kousei?!" Black Star shouted. "For real?! That's her name?!"

"That's 'Balance Organization' in Japanese," Tsubaki realized. "Wow, I had no idea someone could be named that. It's so untraditional."

"But it's amazing!" Soul offered. "It sounds like she's perfect for you, Kid!"

I nodded and grinned. "Father called her and told her to come to Shibusen today. I wanted to know if you all wanted to meet her with me today."

"You asked Shinigami-sama to hire her without even meeting her?" Maka asked, skeptical. "Is that really the best idea? You don't know if she can live up to your standards, Kid."

I kept walking forwards towards Father's room without looking back. "She said on her resume that she has always had a liking for balance," I explained. "She was the only girl who clearly stated her love for balance. Therefore, I can't ignore her. Besides, if things don't work out, I'll just post more flyers for new girls. It can work."

We eventually came upon the main doors to Father's room. I knocked on them, and when I got the signal it was okay, I entered and allowed my friends to follow. I smiled brightly.

There she was. Oh, she was perfect. She was clean, neat, simple, and perfectly symmetrical. Yes, yes, I had picked the right...

Oh, Shinigami, no. No, this was NOT happening to me. Oh, my God, WHY was this happening?! Her clothes were perfect, her face was perfect, everything about her was perfect! So why...WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS?!

Her hair was in a side ponytail.

TO BE CONTINUED