Why have Soul and Maka got 0 souls in chapter 001a?


In the intro chapter 000-1 of Soul Eater, it's stated that Maka has fed 99
human souls to Soul (the character), that's why they have gone after Blair (a
seems-to-be witch) to collect the final soul for Soul (the character).

In chapter 1 on page 20, they were forced to take extra lessons with
Black☆Star because both of them didn't collect a single soul. Additionally,
you can see Blair from the intro in the first few pages.

So my question is, why are Soul and Maka punished for not collecting a soul,
when in the intro it's stated that they have collected all their 99 souls
already?




There are quite certain conditions that need to be met in order for a weapon
to become the Death Scythe. As looper mentioned in [his
answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/600/1587), they need to collect
exactly 99 souls + one witch soul. However, "human souls" is not a quite
correct definition for those 99 souls. They are, of course, never encouraged
to take innocent humans' souls, but rather 99 souls " _that are on Shinigami-
sama's list_ " (in manga), or 99 souls that are " _on the way to becoming the
Kishin_ " (in anime). So basically, those have to be "bad" souls.

After that, just one soul of a witch is needed to complete the transformation.
Usually the witch's soul is collected last, but if it's collected before the
99 other souls, it's kept within Shibusen until the 99 souls are gathered, and
then gets taken out and consumed.

Now, if _any_ other soul _other than a witch's soul_ is eaten last, then
**all** the souls that were eaten before it are **lost** , and the quests
starts over again. In this case it doesn't matter at all that Blair

> was a cat, or anything else. The only thing that matters is that she was
> _not a witch_.

That's why the 99 souls are reset.

Source: [Death Scythe
(Weapon)](http://souleater.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Scythe_%28Weapon%29)




There are quite certain conditions that need to be met in order for a weapon
to become the Death Scythe. As looper mentioned in [his
answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/600/1587), they need to collect
exactly 99 souls + one witch soul. However, "human souls" is not a quite
correct definition for those 99 souls. They are, of course, never encouraged
to take innocent humans' souls, but rather 99 souls " _that are on Shinigami-
sama's list_ " (in manga), or 99 souls that are " _on the way to becoming the
Kishin_ " (in anime). So basically, those have to be "bad" souls.

After that, just one soul of a witch is needed to complete the transformation.
Usually the witch's soul is collected last, but if it's collected before the
99 other souls, it's kept within Shibusen until the 99 souls are gathered, and
then gets taken out and consumed.

Now, if _any_ other soul _other than a witch's soul_ is eaten last, then
**all** the souls that were eaten before it are **lost** , and the quests
starts over again. In this case it doesn't matter at all that Blair

> was a cat, or anything else. The only thing that matters is that she was
> _not a witch_.

That's why the 99 souls are reset.

Source: [Death Scythe
(Weapon)](http://souleater.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Scythe_%28Weapon%29)

