What is a god to a nonbeliever?
A Fight to the Death at the Big Bash Arc is the seventh major story arc in Soul Eater. Medusa and her group finally execute their plan to ressuect the kishin, using powerful magics to trap Lord Death and DWMA meisters and weapons, save for Stein, Spirit, and members of C Group (Maka, Soul, Black Star, Tsubaki, Kid, Liz and patty). The meister and weapons fight as they attempt to thwart Medusa's plans to ressurect the Kishin, Asura."A Fight to the Death at the Big Bash Arc" contains examples of:
- Abusive Parent: it is revealed Crona wasn't kidnapped to be Ragnaroks Meister, they are really Medusa's own child. flashbacks shows she forced them into becoming a meister from a very young age, locking them into a completely blackened room for days on end, likely starving them. Is it any wonder how Crona become so crazy. The fact that she plans on Parental Abandonment after the kishin is released is just icing on the cake.
- Authority Equals Ass Kicking: Lord Death proves why he is the headmaster of the DWMA in the first place, not only because he is the founder, but because he has plenty the knowledge and skill to back it up, being a perfect match for asura when he was revived, and likely would have won against him again if he wasn't still bound to death city, which led to Asura's escape.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Medusa ultimately succeeds in reviving the kishin Asura, who then manages to escape because lord death is still tethered to death city and therefore can't go after him
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Asura is totally naked when he first appears, but with no visible genitalia. Justified as he hadn't quite finished putting on his skin at the time. Every other time we see him is with clothes.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block:
- Crona does this in their fight with Maka, even when she uses witch hunter against them.
- Maka does this as well when she allows the black blood to give her the same madness Crona has in order to match their soul wavelengths
- Barrier Maiden:
- Lord Death is limited to the foundations of the DWMA for the purposes of sealing the first Kishin. Asura got out, Death did not.
- has something of Barrier Warrior as well. Uses a shield to try to crush Asura
- Becoming the Mask: Lord Death has to change from his original personality to be more appealing to the students when he first founded the academy many centuries ago, hence why Asura notices his mask looks ridiculous. Even his voice has change, he got used to it all over the years.
- Body Horror: As soon as Asura is free, the first thing he does is make himself some scarfs for clothes since he was Naked on Arrival, out of his own skin!
- Call-Back: The little demon tells soul that "hell is something you carry around inside your flimsy little head". Crona said something similar to Kid back on the Nidhogg, guess they were right after all.
- Cat Fight: In both the anime and the manga, the busty Cat Girl Blair fights with a similarly chesty mouse witch. Despite both knowing powerful magic, onlookers are thrilled to no end to see that they simply wind up cat fighting anyway. Prelude includes them standing chest to chest with each other and going for gropes on said bosoms. Doubles as literal with Blair being an actual cat, only against a mouse instead of another cat.
- Cooldown Hug: Maka fires up her Black Blood to make herself as crazy as Crona, so that she can "synchronize" with him/her; connect psychically, then give him/her physical affection; even while Crona is trying to stab her. Since Maka hardens her Black Blood to deflect the hits, she's fine.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Inverted when Maka fights Crona, as Maka is able to befriend Crona after matching his/her wavelength, ending the fight without either being beaten. So in this case, it was "defeat" by friendship. Even the ending sequence changes to reflect it.
- Elaborate Underground Base: the kishin's prison underneath the school is this
- Everyone Has Standards: A sadistic as Stein can be, even he is enraged by Medusa being so callous to Crona, with the intentions of complete Parental Abandonment after Asura is unleashed upon the world one more.
- Evil Matriarch: Medusa is this to Crona. her Abuse is the stuff of legends
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
- Medusa seems to genuinely not get why Spirit and Stein are so disgusted by the way she speaks about Crona.
- Stein has a relevant line when witch Medusa confesses her love for him:Medusa: I love you, you know. A man after my own heart.
Stein: Don't be stupid. At your core, Medusa, you're just like me. You can't possibly understand a concept like love.
- For Science!: Medusa claims this is why she wants to free the kishin Asura, to see the world progress with madness running rapid everywhere in everyone. This is how she tries to tempt Stein into joining her, he ultimately refuses.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: After Asura escapes, despite Deaths attempts to stop him, he then instructs Sid to help the students who underground to fight, then call for reinforcements from all the other death scythes around the world to form a plan against Asura.
- Guinea Pig Family: Crona is revealed to be this to Medusa as her own child and main research subject for the black blood
- Hallucinations: Eruka, Free, Kid, And Black Star all had these while at the kishin's shrine holding the bag due to Asura's madness being strongest in his presence there.
- Heel–Face Turn: Crona does this after accepting Maka showed them kindness for the first time in their life and accepts her offer of friendship.
- Hologram: Free uses spacial magic from the grand witches eye to use this to trick kid from going any further. He only notices something is off when Black Star fights Free and he tries dodging his attacks, unlike with kids, because the swipes from his blade would through him without resistance. Free did this while riding tadpole jackson, Eruka's Familiar, so they can stall them and keep moving. He also used magic eye cannon to make the image look real too, the fact that most people like to fight immortals from a distance also worked in his favor.
- Humanizing Tears: Down Played, while Crona was never really that harsh or evil (more like a terrifyingly insane Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds), the tears are more of an emotional purge for all the sadness they kept inside for so long and being so overwhelmed by Maka offering them friendship, which they accept. Bit of a cross with Tender Tears and makes Crona all the more lovable for it to the audience.
- I Am Your Opponent: Maka versus Crona. Black☆Star doesn't like it much, but he gives in.
- Irony:
- Stein only won his fight with Medusa in the end beause the kishin was revived, getting her to let her guard down and giving Stein the distraction he needed to deliver the final blow. Stein even comments on this
- Black Star was so focused on stopping Eruka from injecting the black blood into the kishins bag that his sixth sense kicked in, leaving him vulnerable to the madness and began halucinating, causing him to strike at the shrine instead of the syringe. Kid also states how ironic that they lost because Black Star was so focused to win.
- Death comments how ironic it is that a kishin would revive on the anversary of the DWMA, whose main mission is to prevent the birth of more kishins.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Medusa refers to Crona, her own child, as it or "hand-me-downs". While this is done to keep Crona's gender ambiguous, this also shows how little humanity she sees in her own child, viewing them as a thing and not a person.
- Internal Reveal: The main cast are now aware Medusa is really a witch and that the kishin Asura is aleeping under the school which is why lord Death can never leave the city to keep him asleep. the rest of the students find out about Asura as well
- Naked on Arrival: due to being sealed away for centuries, Asura is this, he makes up for it quickly by making some scarfs out of his own skin. he even comments on this himself!
- No-Sell: When awakened, Asura is completely unfazed by Black Star and Kids attempts to kill him
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Seems like everyone in Medusa's group don't really care about what the world would be like with a kishin running around, unlike Medusa who is doing it For Science!;
- The five remaining Mizune sisters don't really care about releasing Asura, they just want revenge on the Acadamey for killing the oldest Mizune sister (it was really Medusa, but Eruka lied to them so they would help)
- Eruka is only helping because she knows medusa will kill her with snakes she planted in her body if she doesn't or fails to
- Free is only trying to repay his debt to Medusa as thanks for freeing him from witch prison
- Crona is only obeying Medusa because she is their mother and will abandon them if they don't become a kishin. (she plans on doing so anyway once Asura is freed)
- "Not So Different" Remark: When Medusa claims to love Stein, he rebuffs her affections as they both cannot understand love.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Maka is a perfect model student and yet she disobeys steins orders to fight Crona instead of Black Star to get revenge. Black Star even comments on this
- Spirit is normally a skirt chasing Bumbling Dad, but his reaction to Medusa's abuse to Crona is the only time we see him get angry. this is especially notable as he originally thought Medusa was very attractive at first to the point of barely being able to control himself around her. This shows he takes being a father VERY seriously
- Crona is usually very submissive and nervous but when Maka claims her soul is stronger than his, he gets noticibly angry and starts fighting more seriously than the last time they and Maka fought in italy.
- Lord death is usually a silly goofball character, but when Asura gets out, the gloves come off quickly, even his voice sounds more dangerous.
- One-Hit Kill: a nonfatal example, Asura beats Black Star with just the tap of his finger and then does the same to Kid mere moments afterwards
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Maka insists on fighting Crona to get revenge for them severely injuring Soul Eater
- Parental Abandonment: One of the main reasons Crona does anything Medusa says, out of fear she will abandon them if they fail to become a kishin, in addition to becoming stronger to lose all their fears. Medusa plans abandoning Crona anyway when Asura is freed, earning her Steins disgust and Spirits anger
- Papa Wolf: Spirit gets furious with Medusa for how abusive she has been towards Crona and planning on abandoning them after Asura is awakened. He clearly takes being a father extremely seriously considering he used to be quite attracted to Medusa up until this point.
- Power of Friendship: After understanding Crona's soul wavelength by letting herself go mad from the black blood, she gives Crona a Cooldown Hug, restoring their sanity and offering friendship, Making Crona do a Heel–Face Turn
- Revenge Before Reason: Maka insists on fighting Crona instead of Black Star to get payback for soul being injured despite the fact that her attacks don't really work on them.
- Say My Name: Maka Screams Crona's name in her fight
- Sanity Slippage: Stein was always a bit unstable before now, but when Asura was unleashed his madness wavelengths were already starting to affect him within minutes of it
- Satanic Archetype: Asura was created by the series Big Good (and Top God) Shinigami-Sama/Lord Death as a means of creating the perfect world (both in creating a warrior to fight the forces of evil as well as a way of purging himself of his own fears). Asura then betrayed him and was punished by being banished into a less destructive form beneath him, but is still able to influence others subconsciously, complete with his own line of worshippers. He also has a motif of threes, not unlike the Devil (who had three sets of wings and three faces) in Dante's Inferno.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: After being revived, Asura then faces Death in an intense fight, but because he already knows Death can't leave the city, he takes advantage of this to escape at last
- Slasher Smile: Maka gives some crazy ones while influenced by the black blood. Even Crona is creeped out by this
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Turns out the kishin asura is sleeping under the school and lord death must never leave death city to keep him asleep in a bag made from his own skin. Medusa and her allies seek to free him which is the main conflict of the story arc
- Sealed Good in a Can:
- Lord Death can never leave death city to keep the kishin Asura sleeping safe and sound underneath the school. Even if the seal was broken and the kishin got away, he still wouldn't be able to leave the city due to tethering his soul to the town to make sealing Asura away possible in the first place.
- The entire academy's staff, students (savor Stein and co thanks to Sid and Nygus), and even lord death are all locked in an independent cube made by free to keep them from stopping them from awakening the kishin Asura. This was not going to last for more than an hour, it doesn't even last for more than forty minutes, as free exaggerated the time a little to show off.
- Special Edition Title: In the episode where the aforementioned Heel–Face Turn occurs, the end credits change from the usual "Maka walking in place alone" to "Maka and Crona walking together" to demonstrate it.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Medusa lampshades this in episode 19:Medusa: Holding a strategy meeting right in front of your enemy? Is that really the best idea?
- Tailor-Made Prison: The Demon God being imprisoned with his own skin.
- Tear Off Your Face: One of the hallucinations Free and Eruka Frog suffer as they get close to the Kisin's prison is that he's chewing their faces off.
- Totem Pole Trench: in Episode 21 of the Soul Eater anime: Blair is fighting the (remaining) 5 Mizune sisters. She smashes four of the sisters with one spell...but the fifth sister behind her starts giggling madly. Activating the hivemind within the sisters (accompanied by speaking in sync and rhythmic finger-snapping), Create a they then proceed to stack themselves in a tower formation. When the last member completes the desired tower, all the Mizune undergo a merger, the five combine to form... a Hot Witch. It Makes Sense in Context... I guess.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Just being in the proximity of a Kishin results in hallucinations and loss of reason.
- Under Boobs: when the five (remaining) Mizune sisters combine together they turn into a woman whose outfit shows some underboob. Though technically this part would be covered were it not that one of the Mizune sisters was killed.
- We Can Rule Together: A variant. Medusa doesn't offer World Domination as is typical with this trope, but rather offers Stein a chance to watch the world progress into madness and fear out of scientific curiosity. He finds it tempting but ultimately declines due to the fear of losing all his sanity in such a world.
- Wham Line:
- "Crona is my own child"
- "There's a kishin sleeping underneath the DWMA"
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Black Blood stops Maka from feeling pain but causes hell on her mental state.
- Wizards Duel: Blair fights off the Mizuna sisters for revenge of killing the fish shop guy (he turns out to be alive though). Though Blair isn't a true witch, Both sides use powerful magic, making this trope relevant
- Worf Effect: Asura quickly proves how dangerous he is when he One-Hit Kill's (non-fatal) both Black Star and Kid, two of the DWMA's strongest students
- You Have Failed Me: Medusa makes no attempt to mask the fact that she intends to completely Abandon Crona, her own child, when it becomes clear they can't become a kishin like she wanted, despite all the souls they devoured and her years of experimentation on them. This disgusts Stein and angers Spirit
- You Shall Not Pass!:
- Medusa is the first road block to the kishin, Making sure no one gets past her to interfere, the main trio gets past her but not Stein as he needs to keep her distracted
- Crona is the second road block, kid got past them right away though, black star gets past as well since maka is getting her rematch with them.
- Free is the third road block, although this is only an illusion to trick them into thinking he was there so he can keep moving with Eruka so he can keep keep her and the black blood safe.
- Lord death gets out of the sealed box just in time to face Asura as he gets out of the underground shrine and does all he can to stop him from leaving the city. Asura, however, Knew Lord Death couldn't ever leave the city and uses this to his advantage to finally escape.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Black☆Star saved the world and stopped Asura's rebirth from happening with a last attack! ...what? It was a hallucination? ...never mind.
