Volume 4 of Soul Eater: The Perfect Edition, consists of the second half of the fifth volume and all of the sixth in the original release, and is focused entirely on the students at the DWMA trying to stop Medusa and her lackeys from releasing the Kishin.
Spoiler alert: They fail. The Kishin gets loose, takes out Black Star and Death the Kid in one hit each, then eludes Lord Death by getting beyond the bounds of the city that Lord Death's soul is tied to. that said, the way that the Kishin is portrayed is pretty cool. It apparently exudes madness so strongly that people start hallucinating once they get close, even while it's still sealed up.
Yeah, that right there? That witch-lady is hallucinating that experience but have your face tore off in weird, hand-shaped strands would be a trip for sure.
However, most of the material in here revolves around two fights. In one, Dr. Stein and Maka's dad try to take down Medusa, the powerful witch behind all this. It's a back-and-forth fight with Stein's strengths running to close combat, but Medusa having abilities that make getting close dangerous. There's also the fact Stein's got more than a little bit of a dark side in him, and so Medusa's offer to join her might be more appealing than he lets on.
The remaining attention is on Maka and Soul's rematch with Crona, the Demon Sword. The last time around, Soul got badly injured protecting Maka, which caused some tension between the two of them. Despite Maka changing her approach to stop trying to cut her opponent and try bludgeoning instead, they aren't making much more progress. Crona shrugs off their best hits.
So Soul accepts the offer of the weird little demon representing the black blood he's infected with, confident he can get the power without the madness. But, because he and Maka are in "soul resonance" she's involved as well. Which is fine, because she thinks if she's crazy like Crona, she can reach them.
Which makes for a bizarre fight, Maka cackling and staggering about like a drunken boxer, getting stabbed with a sword in the middle of her forehead and just shrugging it off. It's a sharp change from how she's fought up to that point, where she's usually charging straight ahead, all business.
End result, this somehow gets her able to connect and slip inside Crona's soul. Which is a big desert where he confines himself to a tiny circle and won't answers questions his shadow asks. The shadow is his fear, or self-doubt? I'm honestly not sure. It seems to give up and, as it puts it, go on ahead. I'm not sure where it went. Like this was a spiritual death, some part of himself Crona couldn't accept or embrace because he's too afraid to be open with anyone, even himself, and so it's gone?
Anyway Maka barges in, obliterates the line, and makes a friend. So that's one thing that went right. If Medusa was actually dead, it'd be two things, but unfortunately there's at least one snake left.
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