Application/Important OOC Info
Name: HotAndCold
Personal LJ: hotandcoldrp
Contact info: AIM: DecepticonAF; e-mail: decepticonaf@aol.com
Character Name: Tsubaki Nakatsukasa
Character Series: Soul Eater
Age: Upper teenage range (16-19)
Background: So, 800 years back, the witch Arachne killed another witch and used the transformative power of the witch's soul to create the first Demon Weapon. Tsubaki's family is descendants of that Weapon. The Nakatsukasa family has a rather unique trait among Weapons: the firstborn of the family can transform into more than one type of weapon. However, for some reason, this trait was not passed on to Tsubaki's older brother, Masamune, but instead to Tsubaki herself. While the siblings were close in their childhood, this would eventually cause feelings of bitterness in Masamune, causing him to attempt to become a Kishin. But more on that when we get to it.
Tsubaki enrolled in Shibusen, and, on her first day there, she witnessed Black☆Star showing off at the front of the school. While there was originally a large crowd gathered when Black☆Star started his speech, Tsubaki was the only one to stick around through the entire display, applauding at the end. They then became partners. Unfortunately, while Black☆Star had a lot of raw power and while Tsubaki's natural level of accommodation made it easy for them to work together, Black☆Star's egotism and showboating prevented them from harvesting any of the 99 evil human souls or the 1 Witch soul necessary for Tsubaki to become a Death Scythe. At this point in time, Tsubaki can transform into the following weapons: kusarigama, smoke bomb, a giant shuriken, a small ninja blade, and a doppelganger of Black☆Star himself.
Black☆Star and Tsubaki attempted an assassination on Mafia Don Al Capone, but it was ruined by Black☆Star's showboating. They reported to Shinigami, who told them about Strong Souls, a soul whose worth is equal to 99 human souls, and that the bodyguard Mifune, who possessed a Strong Soul, was in the same area as the student pair, guarding the Witch Angela. Black☆Star came to the obvious conclusion that all he had to do to transform Tsubaki into a Death Scythe was to defeat Mifune and Angela and harvest their souls. The pair then rushed off to find Mifune and Angela before Shinigami had a chance to explain the slight flaw in their plan: namely, that Angela was a mere child.
After a short break for random fanservice, they arrived at Angela's place, finding that Mifune had already slaughtered Al Capone and his men, who had been attempting to abduct Angela. Mifune and Black☆Star promptly get into a fight. During the fight, Mifune makes it very clear that he doesn't like harming children (something Black☆Star takes offense to, equating kid with little), even going so far as to use the blunt side of his sword against Black☆Star. This, of course, only served to make Black☆Star even angrier. He promptly got serious and actually managed to defeat Mifune, using Tsubaki's Dummy Star mode and his own soul wavelength. Before he and Tsubaki could harvest his soul, however, Angela arrived, calling them bullies. Stunned, Black☆Star and Tsubaki departed.
Black☆Star and Tsubaki were then called to the principal's office, so to speak, along with Maka Albarn and Soul Eater Evans. There, Shinigami told them that they would have to take extra lessons, as the four of them had collected a grand total of ~*zero*~ souls. They were given the assignment of taking down the zombie of their ex-teacher, Sid Barrett. They headed to Hook Cemetery, where they loitered around for a bit until Sid finally launched an attack. Sid fought with his own gravestone, but was eventually captured by Black☆Star using the chain of Tsubaki's kusarigama mode as a trap. They then questioned Sid to find out who turned him into a zombie. Black☆Star flashing Tsubaki's panties got results: it was Dr. Stein.
The group then went to Dr. Stein's laboratory and confronted the mad scientist. Dr. Stein revealed that he had the ability to see souls, to the point where he could even tell a person's personality by looking at their soul. He observed that Black☆Star had a very self-absorbed soul, and commented that there wasn't really a soul to match Black☆Star's, until he noticed Tsubaki and commented that she had a very accepting and cooperative soul, and that she matched her own soul wavelength to his. The battle commenced, with Dr. Stein mostly focusing on attacking Maka. Tsubaki stayed out of the fight, her chain still wrapped around Sid, until Stein seemingly killed Black☆Star, at which point Sid promised not to run away in order to allow Tsubaki to be by Black☆Star's side. However, it was eventually revealed that the entire thing had been a set-up and that Black☆Star was alive and well. Dr. Stein became the group's homeroom teacher after that.
The day after that Black☆Star and Soul Eater picked a fight with Death the Kid, Shinigami's son and Shibusen's newest student, because Kid was being talked about more than Black☆Star was, something that Black☆Star would never tolerate. Tsubaki expressed concern over the idea of Black☆Star and Soul becoming partners, but these concerns turned out to be unfounded when it turned out that the two couldn't even tolerate each other's soul wavelengths, much less match them. Kid defeated them soundly and easily. Kid and Black☆Star would later bond over a quest for the legendary Weapon Excalibur while Tsubaki completed Black☆Star's assignment of cleaning up the Shibusen's library.
The next mission that Black☆Star and Tsubaki went on was a mission to stop Tsubaki's older brother, Masamune, from becoming a Kishin. They journeyed to Shin Village in East Asia, where the villagers took quite badly to the star tattoo on Black☆Star's shoulder, which identified him as a member of the Clan of the Star. The villagers chased the pair out of town, and later, Black☆Star explained why: The Clan of the Star was a family of famous assassins who would do anything for money. They amassed a number of enemies until 13 years ago, when the Shibusen exterminated the entire Clan, save Black☆Star, whom the Shibusen took in, as he was just a newborn infant at the time.
Black☆Star and Tsubaki soon returned to Shin Village when Masamune used his Soul Possession ability on a village boy. While Weapons and Meisters usually synchronize their soul wavelengths to work together, the Soul Possession ability allowed the Weapon to completely dominate a soul, eventually sucking it dry. Masamune was even capable of controlling the shadow of the person under Soul Possession, as Black☆Star discovered in the ensuing fight. The fight started out badly for Black☆Star, as the rain made it difficult for him to effectively maneuver in, but he eventually did manage to use his soul wavelength on Masamune, severing the Soul Possession's connection. This allowed Tsubaki to seize the demon blade, her soul entering into it, where she confronted her brother's soul in a fight, a sort of tug-of-war with their souls.
Tsubaki's performance in this tug-of-war was initially poor. She fought using only her kusarigama mode and was apparently soundly and quickly defeated. On the outside, Black☆Star watched Tsubaki's immobile body, comparing her performance here to his performance that first day at the Shibusen. He completely ignored the blows he received from villagers until one tried attacking Tsubaki, which he stopped immediately. Tsubaki then fought back against her brother, using her full strength and defeated him, apparently disappearing into the sword for a moment. She soon returned though, and insisted that she was fine when Black☆Star asked her, but broke down in tears when he offered her a hug. They then retreated from the village and returned to Shibusen and their awaiting friends.
It then turned out that Tsubaki had acquired the ability to transform into the demon blade, however Black☆Star did not yet possess the soul energy necessary to sustain this mode for any appreciable amount of time. Dr. Stein later gave Black☆Star a jug full of soul absorption water. If Black☆Star could soak his entire hand or arm in the water, then he would be capable of handling Tsubaki's demon blade mode.
The pair then traveled to London along with Maka and Soul, where they encountered the immortal werewolf, Free. Black☆Star and Tsubaki were the first to attack Free, activating Tsubaki's demon blade mode and displaying Tsubaki's shadow control for the first time, however, their attack never actually hit Free, as Black☆Star's soul energy ran out before impact. When it turned out that Soul and Maka couldn't synch their soul wavelengths due to some earlier training of theirs, Tsubaki offered to let Maka use her as a weapon, something that, interestingly enough, worked, temporarily, if not as a long-term solution. When Maka tried using Soul again and they continued to argue, Tsubaki lectured them for not listening to each other like partners should. Tsubaki wasn't involved in the fight again until the very end, when Free tried to pull Maka off the bridge and Black☆Star used Tsubaki's shuriken mode to cut his hand off and release Maka.
The next challenge that Tsubaki and Black☆Star faced was a truly grueling one: a written test at Shibusen. Tsubaki attempted to help Black☆Star study, but his study scheme seemed to consist more or less entirely of punishing himself with exercise for every problem he couldn't do and was completely lacking in actually doing the study problems. The day before the test, he told Tsubaki that he was studying, and she made him some onigiri as a reward, but when she brought it to him, she discovered that he'd snuck out. She didn't seem him again until class the next day, where Sid hung him up on the wall as an example of what happened to people who tried to cheat, as Black☆Star had snuck into Stein's laboratory and attempted to steal the test. While this was an automatic zero for Black☆Star, Tsubaki ended up doing fairly well on the test, getting a final score of 81.
Tsubaki and Black☆Star were in attendance at the 100 year commemorative banquet of Shibusen's founding at Christmas Eve, where the witch Medusa enacted her plan to free the 1st Kishin, Asura, who was entombed under the school. While Free sealed the banquet room in his 1-hour Independent Cube spell, Sid used his soul resonance technique to allow a small group to escape being trapped in it: Tsubaki, Black☆Star, Maka, Soul, Kid and Liz and Patti, his weapons, and Stein. Deathscythe also managed to escape capture somehow, meeting with the group beneath Shibusen. Medusa approached the group first, and Stein instructed the students to simply get past her as quickly as possible and leave actually fighting her to him. Black☆Star and Tsubaki used Tsubaki's demon blade mode to pass, releasing it immediately afterwards. Next, they encountered Chrona, and while Stein's instructions indicated that Black☆Star and Tsubaki were supposed to fight Chrona, Maka insisted on doing it herself, and Black☆Star, seeing Maka's determination, accommodated her wishes and continued on ahead.
After that, Tsubaki and Black☆Star next encountered Free again, along with Kid, who soon deduced that they were fighting against an illusion instead of the real Free when their attacks turned out to have no effects. After that, they continued on to the innermost sanctum where the real Free and the witch Eruka Frog were preparing to inject Asura with the black blood to revive him. While Kid handled Free, Black☆Star attacked Eruka. Black☆Star sliced the vial containing the black blood in half. Or so he thought. It turned out to be an illusion and he had actually attacked the statue that had been watching over Asura. Black☆Star expressed a desire to attack the revived Asura, ordering Tsubaki to change into her demon blade mode. She refused, as he was already too exhausted and if they tried it now, she would end up devouring his soul, so he left her behind, attempting to attack directly with his soul wavelength. Asura defeated him with a single strike and eventually escaped.
Later, Maka would end up paralyzed after a fight with the witch Arachne. Black☆Star and Soul spied on Sid and Nygus, Sid's Weapon partner, and overheard their plan to attack Arachnophobia, Arachne's organization. Black☆Star decided to follow them and attack Arachnophobia as well. Black☆Star and Tsubaki launched a full frontal attack on the Arachnophobia building, providing a convenient, albeit unexpected distraction for Sid and Nygus to sneak in the back. Black☆Star and Tsubaki were confronted by the bodyguard Mifune once again, as Angela had, for some reason, joined Arachnophobia. Mifune won the fight easily, and then had a brief conversation with Tsubaki, who explained why they were attacking Arachnophobia and also commented that Mifune would make a good teacher. Black☆Star soon regained consciousness, though, and made a move to continue the fight. However, Tsubaki stood between him and Mifune. The fight was soon interrupted by Sid's involvement, as he and Nygus detonated the charges they planted in their infiltration. As he departed, Mifune gave Black☆Star some parting words, telling him to try and understand the additional presence of the demon blade/"Nakatsukasa Purpose" in Tsubaki and commenting that Tsubaki was a good sword.
The Nakatsukasa Purpose took the form of a giant tattooed stag. Black☆Star briefly confronted it before being brought into a lesson about aligning soul wavelengths with Maka and Kid. This lesson was originally a spectacular failure, eventually devolving into a fight between Black☆Star and Maka. Tsubaki was sent on damage control, pointing out that it's OK for friends to disagree sometimes. They then returned to the lesson, which succeeded this time.
This would come in handy on their next mission, the battle for Brew. This took place in northern Alaska, in a factory that had exploded 800 years ago, leaving behind a strong magnetic field that would turn anyone who stayed inside the field for longer than 20 minutes into an afterimage. Black☆Star and Tsubaki were among the group of students assigned to guard at the outside of the field while Stein and the Death Scythe Marie Mjolnir journeyed into the field to find Brew. When a few minutes had passed with Maka losing sight of Stein's and Marie's souls, and when Arachnophobia agents attacked the students, the group split up: Black☆Star, Kid, and Maka entered the magnetic field while the other students in attendance fought off the Arachnophobia agents. Inside the magnetic field, the group discovered that the inside of the field was frozen in time, repeating the same events over and over and over. They managed to find Stein and Marie, telling them to go ahead and leave the field and let them handle finding the Brew, since the students still had another 10 minutes left, while the teachers were almost entirely out of time. They encountered Mosquito, who had apparently acquired the Brew. Realizing that he'd been in the field for almost 20 minutes already, he transformed into his form from 100 years ago, gaining another 10 minutes, making him even with the students. The battle went poorly, until Soul started playing the piano in his soul, increasing the power of the aligned soul wavelengths, allowing them to achieve a victory. However, this victory was bittersweet, as Soul pointed out that Mosquito had said that he was capable of transforming ever farther back and therefore gaining even more time, while the students had only 1 minute left before they turned into afterimages. And so the students retreated.
After this fight, Black☆Star was informed that he could no longer use Tsubaki's demon blade mode, as forcing control over it was wearing his soul out, and continued use would kill him. After Black☆Star managed to get his ass royally handed to him by Kid in a duel, Tsubaki invited him to travel with her to her family's home in Japan. He immediately hit it off with both of her parents. During their stay, Shinigami called Tsubaki, informing her of the upcoming attack on Baba Yaga's castle, Arachnophobia's HQ. She told him that they would do their best to master the demon blade mode in time to be able to help in the attack, but that she couldn't make any promises. Black☆Star confronted the Nakatsukasa Purpose yet again inside Tsubaki's demon blade mode. The Purpose took control of Tsubaki's "body" and used it to show him the souls the demon blade had consumed and all their regrets, along with, essentially, what it felt like to become a Kishin. Black☆Star then decided that he wouldn't become a Kishin and would instead use Tsubaki to grant all the wishes of the consumed souls, thus mastering the Nakatsukasa Purpose. This also netted Tsubaki some handy-dandy new forms: a large blade on a long chain, a kunai, an improved doppelganger of Black☆Star, and possibly more that haven't been shown yet.
The pair promptly set out for Baba Yaga's castle in order to aid their friends, where they were confronted yet again by Mifune.
Personality: Tsubaki is, in a word, accommodating. She is very accepting of Black☆Star's antics and, well, Black☆Star's Black☆Star-ness in general. This is not to say that she is somehow unaware of how obnoxious he really is; quite to the contrary, she has directly stated it. However, she also said that that's exactly what she likes about him. She admires Black☆Star's exuberance and outgoing personality.
Tsubaki, in contrast, is shy and reserved. She is usually content to allow Black☆Star or others decide where they're going and what they'll do there, to the point where she expresses guilt over getting Black☆Star involved in the fight against Masamune. She is not, however, a spineless doormat, as she will on occasion lecture Black☆Star for his poor behavior, or others among their group of friends when they're being great big fatheads, cf. Maka and Soul in the first fight against Free. Tsubaki is kind and gentle and not easily riled, though often exasperated. As long as the exasperating behavior isn't harmful, though, she'll make no attempts to change the exasperator, instead accepting them as they are and doing her best to accommodate their eccentric behavior.
Tsubaki is friendly and fond of others. She is polite. She's a good cook. She likes things neat and tidy and enjoys cleaning. She is reasonably intelligent, scoring 27th in her class on the Shibusen's written exam with 81/100 points. She is trusting and believes in the good in people. She is not, however, naïve, and she'll fight against the Bad Guys with as much resolve as anyone. She has a strong soul. It seems that she also has an unusually flexible soul wavelength for someone in her age group, as while the adults of the series show a great deal of interchangeability between Weapons and Meisters, the students (excepting dual-wielders) all appear to be in rigid pairs (as shown by Black☆Star's inability to wield Soul), except for the one time that Maka wielded Tsubaki when she couldn't match wavelengths with Soul.
I feel morally obligated to mention the flower metaphor here. Tsubaki is the Japanese name for the Camellia, a flower known for lacking a scent and for its sudden and unsettling end. This is brought up repeatedly in the fight against Masamune, the correlation being that Tsubaki never speaks up for herself. Tsubaki, however, protests that the Camellia does have a scent and ergo that she does have a backbone, fighting back against him and therefore making the "sudden and unsettling end" part of the comparison inaccurate. When she finally defeats him, he notes that the Camellia's scent is lovely, meaning that Tsubaki has more self-confidence and independence than it may seem.
Item Lost: The ability to turn into the demon blade.
Memory Recovered:
2% spent on what amounts to "Weapons collect souls" and on being a Weapon. (Christmas/Various Winter Holidays)
2% spent, 4% unspent
Inventory:
-Her regular clothes
-One onsen uniform
-A scarf and coat
-Some hair ties and clips
-Some mace (why, Kid, why?)
Money: $3817 (Up to date as of 1/13/09)
Job: Onsen Prep Cook (Salary: $75/day x 7 days/week = $525/week [every Saturday])
Housing Assignment: Ari Apartments room #409 (w/ Arietta)
Personal LJ: hotandcoldrp
Contact info: AIM: DecepticonAF; e-mail: decepticonaf@aol.com
Character Name: Tsubaki Nakatsukasa
Character Series: Soul Eater
Age: Upper teenage range (16-19)
Background: So, 800 years back, the witch Arachne killed another witch and used the transformative power of the witch's soul to create the first Demon Weapon. Tsubaki's family is descendants of that Weapon. The Nakatsukasa family has a rather unique trait among Weapons: the firstborn of the family can transform into more than one type of weapon. However, for some reason, this trait was not passed on to Tsubaki's older brother, Masamune, but instead to Tsubaki herself. While the siblings were close in their childhood, this would eventually cause feelings of bitterness in Masamune, causing him to attempt to become a Kishin. But more on that when we get to it.
Tsubaki enrolled in Shibusen, and, on her first day there, she witnessed Black☆Star showing off at the front of the school. While there was originally a large crowd gathered when Black☆Star started his speech, Tsubaki was the only one to stick around through the entire display, applauding at the end. They then became partners. Unfortunately, while Black☆Star had a lot of raw power and while Tsubaki's natural level of accommodation made it easy for them to work together, Black☆Star's egotism and showboating prevented them from harvesting any of the 99 evil human souls or the 1 Witch soul necessary for Tsubaki to become a Death Scythe. At this point in time, Tsubaki can transform into the following weapons: kusarigama, smoke bomb, a giant shuriken, a small ninja blade, and a doppelganger of Black☆Star himself.
Black☆Star and Tsubaki attempted an assassination on Mafia Don Al Capone, but it was ruined by Black☆Star's showboating. They reported to Shinigami, who told them about Strong Souls, a soul whose worth is equal to 99 human souls, and that the bodyguard Mifune, who possessed a Strong Soul, was in the same area as the student pair, guarding the Witch Angela. Black☆Star came to the obvious conclusion that all he had to do to transform Tsubaki into a Death Scythe was to defeat Mifune and Angela and harvest their souls. The pair then rushed off to find Mifune and Angela before Shinigami had a chance to explain the slight flaw in their plan: namely, that Angela was a mere child.
After a short break for random fanservice, they arrived at Angela's place, finding that Mifune had already slaughtered Al Capone and his men, who had been attempting to abduct Angela. Mifune and Black☆Star promptly get into a fight. During the fight, Mifune makes it very clear that he doesn't like harming children (something Black☆Star takes offense to, equating kid with little), even going so far as to use the blunt side of his sword against Black☆Star. This, of course, only served to make Black☆Star even angrier. He promptly got serious and actually managed to defeat Mifune, using Tsubaki's Dummy Star mode and his own soul wavelength. Before he and Tsubaki could harvest his soul, however, Angela arrived, calling them bullies. Stunned, Black☆Star and Tsubaki departed.
Black☆Star and Tsubaki were then called to the principal's office, so to speak, along with Maka Albarn and Soul Eater Evans. There, Shinigami told them that they would have to take extra lessons, as the four of them had collected a grand total of ~*zero*~ souls. They were given the assignment of taking down the zombie of their ex-teacher, Sid Barrett. They headed to Hook Cemetery, where they loitered around for a bit until Sid finally launched an attack. Sid fought with his own gravestone, but was eventually captured by Black☆Star using the chain of Tsubaki's kusarigama mode as a trap. They then questioned Sid to find out who turned him into a zombie. Black☆Star flashing Tsubaki's panties got results: it was Dr. Stein.
The group then went to Dr. Stein's laboratory and confronted the mad scientist. Dr. Stein revealed that he had the ability to see souls, to the point where he could even tell a person's personality by looking at their soul. He observed that Black☆Star had a very self-absorbed soul, and commented that there wasn't really a soul to match Black☆Star's, until he noticed Tsubaki and commented that she had a very accepting and cooperative soul, and that she matched her own soul wavelength to his. The battle commenced, with Dr. Stein mostly focusing on attacking Maka. Tsubaki stayed out of the fight, her chain still wrapped around Sid, until Stein seemingly killed Black☆Star, at which point Sid promised not to run away in order to allow Tsubaki to be by Black☆Star's side. However, it was eventually revealed that the entire thing had been a set-up and that Black☆Star was alive and well. Dr. Stein became the group's homeroom teacher after that.
The day after that Black☆Star and Soul Eater picked a fight with Death the Kid, Shinigami's son and Shibusen's newest student, because Kid was being talked about more than Black☆Star was, something that Black☆Star would never tolerate. Tsubaki expressed concern over the idea of Black☆Star and Soul becoming partners, but these concerns turned out to be unfounded when it turned out that the two couldn't even tolerate each other's soul wavelengths, much less match them. Kid defeated them soundly and easily. Kid and Black☆Star would later bond over a quest for the legendary Weapon Excalibur while Tsubaki completed Black☆Star's assignment of cleaning up the Shibusen's library.
The next mission that Black☆Star and Tsubaki went on was a mission to stop Tsubaki's older brother, Masamune, from becoming a Kishin. They journeyed to Shin Village in East Asia, where the villagers took quite badly to the star tattoo on Black☆Star's shoulder, which identified him as a member of the Clan of the Star. The villagers chased the pair out of town, and later, Black☆Star explained why: The Clan of the Star was a family of famous assassins who would do anything for money. They amassed a number of enemies until 13 years ago, when the Shibusen exterminated the entire Clan, save Black☆Star, whom the Shibusen took in, as he was just a newborn infant at the time.
Black☆Star and Tsubaki soon returned to Shin Village when Masamune used his Soul Possession ability on a village boy. While Weapons and Meisters usually synchronize their soul wavelengths to work together, the Soul Possession ability allowed the Weapon to completely dominate a soul, eventually sucking it dry. Masamune was even capable of controlling the shadow of the person under Soul Possession, as Black☆Star discovered in the ensuing fight. The fight started out badly for Black☆Star, as the rain made it difficult for him to effectively maneuver in, but he eventually did manage to use his soul wavelength on Masamune, severing the Soul Possession's connection. This allowed Tsubaki to seize the demon blade, her soul entering into it, where she confronted her brother's soul in a fight, a sort of tug-of-war with their souls.
Tsubaki's performance in this tug-of-war was initially poor. She fought using only her kusarigama mode and was apparently soundly and quickly defeated. On the outside, Black☆Star watched Tsubaki's immobile body, comparing her performance here to his performance that first day at the Shibusen. He completely ignored the blows he received from villagers until one tried attacking Tsubaki, which he stopped immediately. Tsubaki then fought back against her brother, using her full strength and defeated him, apparently disappearing into the sword for a moment. She soon returned though, and insisted that she was fine when Black☆Star asked her, but broke down in tears when he offered her a hug. They then retreated from the village and returned to Shibusen and their awaiting friends.
It then turned out that Tsubaki had acquired the ability to transform into the demon blade, however Black☆Star did not yet possess the soul energy necessary to sustain this mode for any appreciable amount of time. Dr. Stein later gave Black☆Star a jug full of soul absorption water. If Black☆Star could soak his entire hand or arm in the water, then he would be capable of handling Tsubaki's demon blade mode.
The pair then traveled to London along with Maka and Soul, where they encountered the immortal werewolf, Free. Black☆Star and Tsubaki were the first to attack Free, activating Tsubaki's demon blade mode and displaying Tsubaki's shadow control for the first time, however, their attack never actually hit Free, as Black☆Star's soul energy ran out before impact. When it turned out that Soul and Maka couldn't synch their soul wavelengths due to some earlier training of theirs, Tsubaki offered to let Maka use her as a weapon, something that, interestingly enough, worked, temporarily, if not as a long-term solution. When Maka tried using Soul again and they continued to argue, Tsubaki lectured them for not listening to each other like partners should. Tsubaki wasn't involved in the fight again until the very end, when Free tried to pull Maka off the bridge and Black☆Star used Tsubaki's shuriken mode to cut his hand off and release Maka.
The next challenge that Tsubaki and Black☆Star faced was a truly grueling one: a written test at Shibusen. Tsubaki attempted to help Black☆Star study, but his study scheme seemed to consist more or less entirely of punishing himself with exercise for every problem he couldn't do and was completely lacking in actually doing the study problems. The day before the test, he told Tsubaki that he was studying, and she made him some onigiri as a reward, but when she brought it to him, she discovered that he'd snuck out. She didn't seem him again until class the next day, where Sid hung him up on the wall as an example of what happened to people who tried to cheat, as Black☆Star had snuck into Stein's laboratory and attempted to steal the test. While this was an automatic zero for Black☆Star, Tsubaki ended up doing fairly well on the test, getting a final score of 81.
Tsubaki and Black☆Star were in attendance at the 100 year commemorative banquet of Shibusen's founding at Christmas Eve, where the witch Medusa enacted her plan to free the 1st Kishin, Asura, who was entombed under the school. While Free sealed the banquet room in his 1-hour Independent Cube spell, Sid used his soul resonance technique to allow a small group to escape being trapped in it: Tsubaki, Black☆Star, Maka, Soul, Kid and Liz and Patti, his weapons, and Stein. Deathscythe also managed to escape capture somehow, meeting with the group beneath Shibusen. Medusa approached the group first, and Stein instructed the students to simply get past her as quickly as possible and leave actually fighting her to him. Black☆Star and Tsubaki used Tsubaki's demon blade mode to pass, releasing it immediately afterwards. Next, they encountered Chrona, and while Stein's instructions indicated that Black☆Star and Tsubaki were supposed to fight Chrona, Maka insisted on doing it herself, and Black☆Star, seeing Maka's determination, accommodated her wishes and continued on ahead.
After that, Tsubaki and Black☆Star next encountered Free again, along with Kid, who soon deduced that they were fighting against an illusion instead of the real Free when their attacks turned out to have no effects. After that, they continued on to the innermost sanctum where the real Free and the witch Eruka Frog were preparing to inject Asura with the black blood to revive him. While Kid handled Free, Black☆Star attacked Eruka. Black☆Star sliced the vial containing the black blood in half. Or so he thought. It turned out to be an illusion and he had actually attacked the statue that had been watching over Asura. Black☆Star expressed a desire to attack the revived Asura, ordering Tsubaki to change into her demon blade mode. She refused, as he was already too exhausted and if they tried it now, she would end up devouring his soul, so he left her behind, attempting to attack directly with his soul wavelength. Asura defeated him with a single strike and eventually escaped.
Later, Maka would end up paralyzed after a fight with the witch Arachne. Black☆Star and Soul spied on Sid and Nygus, Sid's Weapon partner, and overheard their plan to attack Arachnophobia, Arachne's organization. Black☆Star decided to follow them and attack Arachnophobia as well. Black☆Star and Tsubaki launched a full frontal attack on the Arachnophobia building, providing a convenient, albeit unexpected distraction for Sid and Nygus to sneak in the back. Black☆Star and Tsubaki were confronted by the bodyguard Mifune once again, as Angela had, for some reason, joined Arachnophobia. Mifune won the fight easily, and then had a brief conversation with Tsubaki, who explained why they were attacking Arachnophobia and also commented that Mifune would make a good teacher. Black☆Star soon regained consciousness, though, and made a move to continue the fight. However, Tsubaki stood between him and Mifune. The fight was soon interrupted by Sid's involvement, as he and Nygus detonated the charges they planted in their infiltration. As he departed, Mifune gave Black☆Star some parting words, telling him to try and understand the additional presence of the demon blade/"Nakatsukasa Purpose" in Tsubaki and commenting that Tsubaki was a good sword.
The Nakatsukasa Purpose took the form of a giant tattooed stag. Black☆Star briefly confronted it before being brought into a lesson about aligning soul wavelengths with Maka and Kid. This lesson was originally a spectacular failure, eventually devolving into a fight between Black☆Star and Maka. Tsubaki was sent on damage control, pointing out that it's OK for friends to disagree sometimes. They then returned to the lesson, which succeeded this time.
This would come in handy on their next mission, the battle for Brew. This took place in northern Alaska, in a factory that had exploded 800 years ago, leaving behind a strong magnetic field that would turn anyone who stayed inside the field for longer than 20 minutes into an afterimage. Black☆Star and Tsubaki were among the group of students assigned to guard at the outside of the field while Stein and the Death Scythe Marie Mjolnir journeyed into the field to find Brew. When a few minutes had passed with Maka losing sight of Stein's and Marie's souls, and when Arachnophobia agents attacked the students, the group split up: Black☆Star, Kid, and Maka entered the magnetic field while the other students in attendance fought off the Arachnophobia agents. Inside the magnetic field, the group discovered that the inside of the field was frozen in time, repeating the same events over and over and over. They managed to find Stein and Marie, telling them to go ahead and leave the field and let them handle finding the Brew, since the students still had another 10 minutes left, while the teachers were almost entirely out of time. They encountered Mosquito, who had apparently acquired the Brew. Realizing that he'd been in the field for almost 20 minutes already, he transformed into his form from 100 years ago, gaining another 10 minutes, making him even with the students. The battle went poorly, until Soul started playing the piano in his soul, increasing the power of the aligned soul wavelengths, allowing them to achieve a victory. However, this victory was bittersweet, as Soul pointed out that Mosquito had said that he was capable of transforming ever farther back and therefore gaining even more time, while the students had only 1 minute left before they turned into afterimages. And so the students retreated.
After this fight, Black☆Star was informed that he could no longer use Tsubaki's demon blade mode, as forcing control over it was wearing his soul out, and continued use would kill him. After Black☆Star managed to get his ass royally handed to him by Kid in a duel, Tsubaki invited him to travel with her to her family's home in Japan. He immediately hit it off with both of her parents. During their stay, Shinigami called Tsubaki, informing her of the upcoming attack on Baba Yaga's castle, Arachnophobia's HQ. She told him that they would do their best to master the demon blade mode in time to be able to help in the attack, but that she couldn't make any promises. Black☆Star confronted the Nakatsukasa Purpose yet again inside Tsubaki's demon blade mode. The Purpose took control of Tsubaki's "body" and used it to show him the souls the demon blade had consumed and all their regrets, along with, essentially, what it felt like to become a Kishin. Black☆Star then decided that he wouldn't become a Kishin and would instead use Tsubaki to grant all the wishes of the consumed souls, thus mastering the Nakatsukasa Purpose. This also netted Tsubaki some handy-dandy new forms: a large blade on a long chain, a kunai, an improved doppelganger of Black☆Star, and possibly more that haven't been shown yet.
The pair promptly set out for Baba Yaga's castle in order to aid their friends, where they were confronted yet again by Mifune.
Personality: Tsubaki is, in a word, accommodating. She is very accepting of Black☆Star's antics and, well, Black☆Star's Black☆Star-ness in general. This is not to say that she is somehow unaware of how obnoxious he really is; quite to the contrary, she has directly stated it. However, she also said that that's exactly what she likes about him. She admires Black☆Star's exuberance and outgoing personality.
Tsubaki, in contrast, is shy and reserved. She is usually content to allow Black☆Star or others decide where they're going and what they'll do there, to the point where she expresses guilt over getting Black☆Star involved in the fight against Masamune. She is not, however, a spineless doormat, as she will on occasion lecture Black☆Star for his poor behavior, or others among their group of friends when they're being great big fatheads, cf. Maka and Soul in the first fight against Free. Tsubaki is kind and gentle and not easily riled, though often exasperated. As long as the exasperating behavior isn't harmful, though, she'll make no attempts to change the exasperator, instead accepting them as they are and doing her best to accommodate their eccentric behavior.
Tsubaki is friendly and fond of others. She is polite. She's a good cook. She likes things neat and tidy and enjoys cleaning. She is reasonably intelligent, scoring 27th in her class on the Shibusen's written exam with 81/100 points. She is trusting and believes in the good in people. She is not, however, naïve, and she'll fight against the Bad Guys with as much resolve as anyone. She has a strong soul. It seems that she also has an unusually flexible soul wavelength for someone in her age group, as while the adults of the series show a great deal of interchangeability between Weapons and Meisters, the students (excepting dual-wielders) all appear to be in rigid pairs (as shown by Black☆Star's inability to wield Soul), except for the one time that Maka wielded Tsubaki when she couldn't match wavelengths with Soul.
I feel morally obligated to mention the flower metaphor here. Tsubaki is the Japanese name for the Camellia, a flower known for lacking a scent and for its sudden and unsettling end. This is brought up repeatedly in the fight against Masamune, the correlation being that Tsubaki never speaks up for herself. Tsubaki, however, protests that the Camellia does have a scent and ergo that she does have a backbone, fighting back against him and therefore making the "sudden and unsettling end" part of the comparison inaccurate. When she finally defeats him, he notes that the Camellia's scent is lovely, meaning that Tsubaki has more self-confidence and independence than it may seem.
Item Lost: The ability to turn into the demon blade.
Memory Recovered:
2% spent on what amounts to "Weapons collect souls" and on being a Weapon. (Christmas/Various Winter Holidays)
2% spent, 4% unspent
Inventory:
-Her regular clothes
-One onsen uniform
-A scarf and coat
-Some hair ties and clips
-Some mace (why, Kid, why?)
Money: $3817 (Up to date as of 1/13/09)
Job: Onsen Prep Cook (Salary: $75/day x 7 days/week = $525/week [every Saturday])
Housing Assignment: Ari Apartments room #409 (w/ Arietta)