Chapter One

Crona stumbled slightly as he walked through the halls of the DWMA, hurrying towards his next class. He flinched at every passing person, the ever-present madness of the black blood in his veins urging him to throw his fears away and slaughter all of the other students. Crona shook his head, trying semi-successfully to shove the insanity to the back of his mind. He winced and paused as Ragnaroc burst from his back, the pop of pain as his skin split not near as bad now as when Ragnaroc had been full sized. "Hey, idiot! If you're already late for class, why not ditch the boring lesson for today and go to the candy store? My supply is running low."

"I can't! If I get too many failing grades, then I'll be expelled. I don't think I can deal with being alone again!" Crona yelped as Ragnaroc socked him in the head.

"Stupid moron! If you're not going to cut class, then what the heck are you doing just standing around? Get your scrawny ass moving, Crona!" Ragnaroc huffed impatiently, then pulled himself back into Crona's blood. Crona started shuffling along again, not looking forward to Dr. Stein's lesson. He always had them dissecting or watching a dissection of some poor creature, and that reminded Crona uncomfortably of… well, he couldn't quite remember what. Crona had had a large blank spot in his memories for as long as he could remember, up until he killed the black baby dragon when he was about six or seven.

Crona finally got to the classroom, slinking into his spot while hoping that Dr. Stein hadn't noticed that he was late. "You're late." Crona sank in his seat as all of the other students turned to look at him, his shyness hitting him like a hard slap on the cheek.

"I'm sorry…" His mumbled words were probably barely able to be heard by the scary teacher, but Dr. Stein readjusted his glasses and nodded.

"Try not to be tardy again, alright?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, back to today's lesson! Each of you will come down here and select one of these rats, a pair of gloves, a mask, and a scalpel. Let's go now, hurry hurry…" Dr. Stein gestured towards a small tank full of dead rats, a pile of the other objects that he had named stacked beside the glass container. Crona fell into line behind Maka, who he was fortunate enough to sit next to. He wasn't sure how well he would have been able to get through being around so many other people and Dr. Stein's lectures without her comforting presence beside him. He put on the gloves and mask when it was his turn, gingerly picking up one of the dead rats and a scalpel before returning to his seat. Crona finally noticed the shiny metal trays that had been set in front of each student's seat, following suit as everyone else set their rats down on their tray. There were a few grossed out complaints, but those were quickly silenced as Dr. Stein's calculating eyes settled on them, looking like he was thinking about how they would serve as his next dissection projects. "Once you've all settled down, we'll begin."

The classroom slowly quieted as boys and girls took their seats, most of the boys prodding their rats while some of the girls had scooted their corpses as far away from them as possible. Crona felt like curling up and hiding, but he consciously forced himself to stay put. Still, he could see his hand shaking where it rested against the table. A hand reached over to hold it steady, Maka's kind smile calming Crona somewhat. He gave her a small smile in return as she squeezed his hand gently before releasing it and turning back to Dr. Stein. "Alright, follow along with me as I make this first incision. Slice a Y down it's throat, like so…"

Crona gulped, looking with great trepidation at his rat as he reluctantly picked up his scalpel. He had unfortunately gone through enough of Stein's dissection lessons to know the proper way to hold a scalpel, though it felt wrong to his hand. He was used to wielding the larger Ragnaroc with both hands, this small blade oddly familiar and yet… not, at the same time. Crona's hand was trembling again as the scalpel hovered over the deceased rodent. Finally pulling together enough courage, he pressed the sharp point against the dead rat's throat, the edge smoothly biting through the fur and flesh. Crona gasped and flinched as it seemed to move, wriggling in pain, phantom squeaks shattering through his mind; a memory of a time long past.

"Kill it, then remove its organs." Lady Medusa's cold voice was directed at young Crona, the little boy having been watching the white rat with awed fascination. He had seen gray and black rats before, nasty creatures that skittered across the floor of his new room. Crona could only see that they were there when the door was open, the pitch black shadows hiding their dark forms easily. When the door was closed, he could only hear their tiny feet pattering across the stone, sometimes drawing close enough to him to make him flinch. Every now and then, several would gather together and attack him, scratching and biting the toddler Crona. He couldn't do much about it, seeing as how there wasn't anything in his room to stand on or attack them back with, so he had collected a mass of small scratches and bite marks on his legs and arms over the past week.

But this rat seemed so different from his tormentors, its pink eyes not filled with a lust for his blood, only friendly curiosity. It had actually come and sniffed at him, Crona stiffening in wariness as it had pattered over. He had closed his eyes in a wince, waiting for the shock of teeth or claws to sink into his skin, but instead of the expected pain, he ended up flinching at the shock of a nose snuffling at his bare ankle. Crona cracked one eye open to see it looking up at him, then turning around and shuffling off, losing interest in the mound of boy behind it.

"I don't want to." Crona frowned, realizing that came out wrong, so he started to explain. "I don't want to hurt it-"

"Don't you want to make up for what you did?" Lady Medusa's voice was silky now as she cut him off, slit gold eyes studying him.

"Y-yes, but I don't understand how killing it will help-"

Lady Medusa interrupted him again. "Kill the rat now, or you will never be able to atone for your crime." She turned away, her sudden disinterest as plain as the snake tattoos that wrapped around her arms. "I personally don't really care, but I would have thought that you cared more about him than this. After all, I need that rodent's organs to fix him."

Crona whimpered, beginning to shake as his guilt and sorrow racked his small frame. "Th-this will help him?"

Lady Medusa turned around, a wide smile stretched creepily across her face. He felt a shiver run up his spine at the sight, but quickly forgot that as she nodded. "I promise you that if you do this…and a few other small tasks, he will feel better than ever."

Crona stood straighter, determination flooding him. "What… What do I have to do?"

She pulled a small scalpel out of one of her pockets, handing it to him. "Kill it however you can, but don't destroy any of its organs or we'll have to do this again." His hand was trembling as he accepted the blade, hating what he was about to do. Crona approached the rat, his determination draining away with every step he took towards it, until finally he dropped to his knees, the scalpel hitting the marble floor beside him.

"I can't."

Lady Medusa scoffed in disgust, Crona watching in fear as a snake slithered past him. "Fine. If you won't give it a quick, easy death, then I'll have to kill it." The snake struck, rat screeching in agony as the snake's jaws latched onto one of its hind legs. "My lovely companion over there just injected that rodent with a particularly nasty kind of venom. It will die, after a few agony-filled hours, and then you can remove its organs. However, since you wouldn't give it a swift death, I think that it's only fitting that you watch its slow demise." She strode out of the room, door slamming shut behind her, the snake curling up contentedly on the other side of the room.
The rat writhed on the floor, shrill squeals bursting from its small mouth. Crona covered his ears and shut his eyes, sitting with his back against the wall as he tried to escape the creature's howls of distress.

After about ten minutes, the sounds stopped, Crona hesitating before peeking towards the rat. The rodent's figure was thrashing and squirming around on the cold marble, eyes rolling around and around in its sockets. He whimpered and shut his eyes again, shutting out the image. Guilt jabbed his mind, the thought that the rat's pain was his fault making his stomach turn. Crona flinched as a shriek thrust its way out of the rodent's foaming mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" he whispered, wishing that he had just killed it when Lady Medusa had told him to. Crona picked the scalpel up as he got to his feet, slowly walking towards the suffering rat. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" He raised the blade, light flashing off of the razor edge. "Sorry, so, so sorry, I never wanted to hurt you…" The scalpel plunged down, burying itself in the rat's skull. It shuddered once, then relaxed, body going limp. Crona pulled the blade out with a shaking hand, flinching as blood spattered his hand. A tear ran down his cheek as he dropped the scalpel, catching sight of the creature's misery filled pink eyes, so different from the cheerful curiosity from only moments ago. The tear dripped onto the floor next to his hand, leaving a tiny clear drop beside the crimson droplets surrounding it.

The door creaked open, Medusa padding in silently with her bare feet. "Well done, Crona. Now remove the organs that I need." When he made no move to obey her, she frowned slightly, her gold eyes flashing dangerously. "You should remember what happened the last time you didn't follow my instructions, after all, it was only a few minutes ago."

Crona flinched and mutely reached for the discarded scalpel again, his pale fingers wrapping around the thin metal handle. He shuddered as he rolled the rat over onto its back. "Make a light Y cut under its chin. Don't let the blade slip in too far, or it might rupture the rodent's organs."

Crona, trying unsuccessfully to stop the tears that just kept rolling down his cheeks, obeyed. Blood welled up from the slice, the blade coming up red. "Now, keeping the incision light, continue down its belly and make another Y." He did so, gulping down his nausea. "Pull the flaps apart so that you can see inside."

Crona numbly slipped his fingers through the slit, the flesh inside warm and sticky against his skin. He gagged as he pushed the flaps of loose skin and fur apart, revealing bloody organs and bones. "Crack the ribcage." He noted distantly how easily the fragile bone snapped between his fingers, shards making white jags in the lumps of red. "Slice those veins, then gently pull out the liver and kidneys." Crona did as he was told, following the horrific instructions to the letter. "Now the heart." As he lifted the fragile organ out of the corpse, Crona was struck by how easy it was for him to destroy something as weak as the curious rat.

"Excellent. Bring them." He stood shakily, his small legs trembling as Medusa stalked down the hall. Crona followed her, glancing back one last time to see the snake swallow the rat's remains whole, leaving nothing but a crimson smeared white marble floor and a dripping scarlet scalpel. As his feet carried him down the dark passage, Crona realized that he was a horrible person. Nobody could do what he'd just done and not be evil. Crona flinched at the thought, his gaze happening to fall upon his red stained hands and the small organs gently cradled there.

"I-I don't think that I know how to deal with this…" he admitted to himself, his voice hollow in the huge hall.

Crona gasped and dropped the scalpel onto the tray, trying to scramble back but only managing to trip over one of the legs of his chair, falling hard to the floor. He curled up into a tight ball, back to the desk behind him as his entire body shook with fear. "-ona. Crona! Look at me, are you okay?" Maka's voice was worried, a gentle hand coming to rest on his shoulder. "Crona?"

"I c-can't deal with myself…" Crona whispered faintly in between soft sobs. He hated his life up until this point, knowing that he was an awful being who shouldn't be alive after the cruelty he had unleashed. Crona's new friends insisted that it was Lady Medusa's fault, but he knew that he was a monster. The more memories of his childhood that Crona remembered, the more certain he was of the fact that he was scum through and through. What little kids did the evil things that he had done? Even the most viciously brutal criminals waited until they were adults before becoming villains. Crona couldn't understand why all these heroic people wanted him to be their friend; he'd tried to kill them all at one point or another. He huddled into a tighter ball. The only good thing that he'd ever done was to save Maka from his mo- Lady Medusa, and that had almost been for completely selfish reasons. He had hoped that he would die there and save his new-found friends the trouble of being around him and his monstrous personality but they had saved and fixed him, being the heroes that they were, the only remnant of the battle being the healing scar on his chest.

"Professor Stein? Can Crona and I be excused?"

"… I suppose so."

Crona sensed Maka kneeling next to him, the warm hand returning to his shoulder. "Come on, let's go to your room." He nodded mutely, getting to his feet and silently following the blonde as she strode confidently through the rows of staring students. Crona could feel the disgust that they had towards his weakness, their gazes hostile as he walked past. He deserved all of it and more, but it still hurt.

They got to his room, which had been recently converted from a cell. It hadn't really changed much, the biggest difference being that his door stayed open rather than being locked shut all the time. It was comfortable to him, the room being just big enough that his mild claustrophobia didn't kick in, and not big enough that it felt empty. A thin rug covered the stone floor, a small lamp set on his desk lighting up the space with a warm glow, and his bed sat against one wall.

Crona didn't need much space because he didn't have many things that he had to store, the objects that he owned being limited to; three outfits; the black robe he was wearing, one of the only things that Medusa had ever given him, the white shirt and pants that Dr. Stein had given him when he enrolled in school, and a perfectly symmetrical dark grey suit that Kid had given him, several educational books from Maka, his school books, and a little chest under his bed that held; a small sketch pad that Miss Marie had found somewhere along with a packet of colored pencils, a silver chain necklace with a serpent charm, and several photos of Crona and his friends. Oh, and Ragnaroc's stash of candy, the grumpy Weapon's one weakness. Ragnaroc was addicted to sugar, the small high he got apparently similar to when he ate human souls.

"What happened, Crona?" Maka asked, sitting beside him on his bed. He refused to look at her, knowing that seeing him crying always upset her. Crona willed the tears to stop, not wanting to hurt his companion, but every time he remembered the blade sinking into the rat's head they started back up again. "Crona?"
Crona almost sank into the floor as Ragnaroc made an appearance, the black blood flowing up to form his non-muscular figure. "Wuss!" Ragnaroc sneered, popping Crona in the head. "You're just pathetic, you know that? Getting scared of a memory with your mommy in it. How stupid can you be, dumbass?" The words were accompanied by blows, Ragnaroc's white hands cuffing his ears.

"MAKA...CHOP!"

WHACK!

Ragnaroc whimpered, holding his own head where a large indent had appeared. "What the hell is wrong with you, flat girl? You can't just go around beating the shit out of people with books!"

"Wanna bet?"

Ragnaroc jerked one hand at her, probably making a rude gesture, but with his round hands it was hard to tell. He slipped back into Crona with a muttered, "Bitch."

"S-sorry about that…" Crona offered, feeling even worse than before.

"Don't worry about him, that wasn't your fault." A white gloved hand slipped under his chin, guiding his head up from where he was staring at the floor. Maka's green eyes were serious, concern mixing with half-concealed anger. He flinched, wondering how much of that anger was turned towards him. "Was what he said true? Did another of your memories with Medusa come back?"

Crona's gaze fell from hers, staring at the corner of his room rather than into those emerald eyes that were steadily filling with rage. "Y-Yes."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He shook his head violently, almost falling off the bed.

She nodded thoughtfully, then moved to sit in the room's chair. "Why don't you sketch it out? The next class isn't for another half hour."

Crona really didn't want to, but he could tell that Maka was going to have him deal with his memory one way or another, and he preferred to draw than talk; sketches being able to be ripped up while conversations had no such comforting quality. Crona sighed and reached under his bed, sliding out the small chest and pulling out the sketch pad. Almost half the pages were missing now, Crona having been drawing out his returning memories more and more lately. There were only a handful of his drawings that Maka had never seen, Crona having stashed them under his mattress. For some reason Maka always wanted to keep his disturbing sketches rather than letting him destroy them after they were finished. He didn't really care if she took them just as long as he never had to see them again, but he hated showing her how brutally vicious he was at his core.

It only took him twenty minutes to draw out the figures, the last ten minutes being spent on coloring and shading. Crona finally tucked the small stub of his red pencil away, wearily realizing that his picture was done.

"Finished?"

"Y-yeah."

Maka stood, walking over. "Do you mind if I see it?"

He hesitated, then sighed and handed the thin pad over. She gasped slightly as she saw it, face paling momentarily. Crona looked down at the floor again, thinking about Maka's emotions. The one he saw the most when she was with him was cheerful kindness, something he didn't deserve, as was the second which was seeping into her eyes now; pity. The third most common emotion was anger, something Crona knew that only he and Soul brought out in the even-tempered girl. His fists clenched momentarily, his own anger flaring briefly at her pity. Crona wasn't the one who deserved her pity, all of his victims were! Then the anger drained away, replaced by a dull ache as she gave him a strong hug. "Crona, I'm so sorry."

Surprise flooded the thin boy. "Wh-what? Why? I'm the one who did…that."

"I'm so sorry that you grew up with that horrible woman for a mother. Crona, this-" holding the picture up, "this wasn't your fault." He stared blankly at the page, the horrible images that he had drawn turning his stomach.

The dark room, lit only by a dull overhead light. The scalpel lying beside the sliced up rat, blood staining the clean white floor a nasty red. His crimson splattered hands, holding the organs of the deceased rodent. The back of Lady Medusa, her hooded figure plain as she strode off. Finally, Crona had added a sketch of the live rat above everything else, trying hard to capture that inquisitive sociability that had caught his attention and sympathy so long ago.

Maka folded the paper up. "Do you mind if I keep this?"

"I-if you want."

She slipped the drawing into her jacket pocket, then turned her focus back on Crona. "Answer me this, did you want to hurt that rat?"

Crona shuddered, not understanding what that had to do with anything. "No."

"Then why did you do it?"

"B-because I had to help fix someone I had hurt, and Lady Medusa said that they needed its organs."

Curiosity flickered on her face. "Who did you hurt?"

Crona opened his mouth to answer, but realized that he couldn't remember. All he knew was that whoever he had hurt was very important to him. "I d-don't remember."

Maka nodded, still hugging him with one arm. "That's okay. Did you enjoy killing it?"

Crona's heart hurt as he heard the question, realizing that Maka really thought that he might have liked that. "No! Of course not!"

"So what you're telling me is that Medusa told you to kill the rat, but you didn't want to and you didn't enjoy it."

Crona nodded, then jerked slightly as he realized what she had just said. He peeked up at Maka, only to see her smiling at him. "You'd never thought of it like that, had you?"

"N-no…"

"Here's another point. Do you think that Professor Stein is good?"

Crona thought about it moment before nodding again. The doctor was creepy and a little crazy, but overall he was a very good man. "Well, he had a lot of rats killed for today's lesson. He may not have killed them himself-" Maka frowned. "actually, he probably did kill them himself. But anyway, do you still think that he's not bad?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you being so hard on yourself over following Medusa's orders?"

Ragnaroc quickly oozed back out, the speed with which he came out making Crona gasp in pain. "Because he's an idiot!"

Maka hefted a sturdy book, the threat inherent in her body language. Ragnaroc flinched and shut up. "Are you feeling better?"

Crona nodded, surprised that he wasn't lying. "Yes. Thank you, Maka."

Maka hugged him tightly again before standing and offering him her gloved hand. "Come on, or we're going to be late for Miss Marie's lesson!"