Here's my teeny tiny offering for Resonance Bang 2016! Moment of honesty: it was not beta'd. It was carefully revised, but no one else has seen it yet. Don't do that, kids, would not recommend. I just didn't want to inflict my incredible procrastination on an innocent beta reader this year. Thank you for clicking in and reading!
Content/Trigger Warnings: abduction/kidnapping, unreality, illusions, insect imagery (especially wasps), canon-typical violence, villain death, lots and lots of swearing.
She told him to come to this weird old house in the middle of nowhere.
Well...it's definitely got a different vibe from his parents' place. The Evans estate is kept shiny and new (if a bit, uh, "classic" for Soul's taste); this is old and a bit creepy.
Her grandparents' summer home? It doesn't really match what he knows of them from the few times he's met them. The Albarns are nowhere near as flamboyant as their Death Scythe son, but they're also not as morbid as their granddaughter and this old house.
Soul sighs, eyeballing the front door. The sidewalk behind the front hedges is a much more comfortable place for him to be than on the front doorstep, because he's not ready to risk talking to anyone yet.
Something isn't right.
What if Maka is coming out here to have a fight with him? To tell him to find a new apartment when he gets back to Death City? When he'd decided to come out here, it had seemed like such a solid, sensible plan. It was an investment in the future. But maybe it had been a shitty idea, and maybe he shouldn't have taken Stein's words so much to heart.
Stein had suggested that Soul's only real way of improving his ability as a musical weapon would be to learn more about music. Maka started in on a protective tirade that Soul appreciated more than he would let on, and Stein had become serious, assuring them both that Soul was an excellent musician and this new learning should be about expanding his repertoire, not about fixing crappy performances. The key, the professor said, would be to discover new perspectives and ways of connecting types of music. Through that, Soul could learn whole new techniques on the battlefield while he also strengthened his existing ones and became more versatile.
He did have a point. Soul pretty much stuck to playing his own kind of music, and while it got them far, he had reached a level where he wasn't growing and couldn't implement anything new. It had made sense, for the future of Soul's career as The Last Death Scythe, for the future of the partnership he wanted to sustain - for Maka, in certain ways - to come back to the East coast to reconcile with some of the lessons he had abandoned when he left home.
There was also the question of meeting up with many more mentors from other places, famous musicians around the world. That had been depressing in a way Soul didn't want to think about, so he had only agreed to come back to New York for now.
Maka had supported the idea. In fact, she'd been a little too enthusiastic. Soul had the feeling that her enthusiasm was not genuine, for one reason or another, but he couldn't ask her about it. It would be too weird.
For that reason, it had been awfully sad to leave, despite Maka's cheerful demeanor.
He's only going to be out here for a year or two. Though he'll visit Death City all the time, it still isn't the same as living there. It's funny how he felt like an outsider when he moved to the bizarre city, and now, it feels like home. It is home.
He's gone through a lot of thinking about Maka in the past few weeks, having been left alone on the plane with his anxiety. And being away from her has brought Soul to the realization that the little crush he's been harboring is neither "little" nor a mere crush nor something that he wants to shake off.
He could see choosing to be her partner forever, and not just in battle. Should he have said something before leaving?
It never seemed like the right time. Even now doesn't seem like the right time. Couldn't that destroy them? Couldn't it be a big mistake?
On the other hand, though, what if she meets someone while he's away, or what if she decides to go somewhere else and their apartment is no longer theirs when he returns to Death City?
Sometimes he still doubts he'd good enough for her, even though he knows by now it's a fool's errand to worry about that kind of thing. Part of coming out here is establishing himself better, but wrapped up in that deal is also proof, he thinks, that he's good enough . That he's not dependent.
One day into his stay at Juilliard - an extraordinary opportunity set up by Kid and the conservatory's administration, enthusiastic about having a famous Death Scythe learn with them - Maka had called, and things had taken a turn for the terribly awkward.
Maka's feelings about Soul's trip to the East Coast were far more mixed, it turns out, than she had let on before he left. They were even more tumultuous than Soul had suspected.
Thinking back on it, Soul clenches his fists. They have mediocre communication skills, and that's scary. Despite Soul's halting explanation of his own doubts and loneliness here, Maka had leapt to the conclusion that he was never going to want to come back to Death City, and he had gotten angry at her for not talking honestly about this ahead of time.
She'd made the admittedly valid point that "You never talk about anything, Soul, you're a closed book!"
That had prompted some kind of waspish comment about her reading habits, and they had hung up on each other.
The next day sucked. Soul couldn't sleep, so he woke up late for class, which he felt bad about because this whole thing was a free opportunity based on the idea that he would be a good music student; in his funky mood, he'd spilled his coffee, been stung by a bee, forgot his breakfast sandwich, and bustled into class fifteen minutes late only to realize that he was incapable of focusing on any of the music lessons. That night, he had bought a plane ticket back to Death City to go see her right away and resolve this nonsense. His flight would be the next day.
The next morning, before leaving, he had a voice message urging him out here.
"Hey, Soul," Maka says, and Soul nearly jumps out of his skin as she flounces around the hedges. "Are you gonna hang around out here like a creep?"
He frowns. Of all the things she's called him, that's never been one. She doesn't seem angry, though. Hmm...she's wearing a dress he's never seen before, which is odd, because they've been living together for six years. It's red plaid, in the same print as her usual skirt.
"No," he says. "I just got here. I- ah, I was thinking." He crushes the urge to indulge in his nervous tell, a cheek scratch.
"Well, whatever." Maka shrugs and offers him a cheeky smile. "Why don't you come inside to think? My grandparents don't get here until tomorrow."
On the way up the tan gravel driveway, Soul scans the property more thoroughly. It's definitely old, and he has to wonder why he's never heard of it before. Sure, neither he nor Maka has launched into any kind of exhaustive discussion about their family lives. That's private and awkward to dump on someone, especially your partner, who can generally figure out the gist of things from what comes through resonance. But details slip out, and as they've gotten closer, they've also gotten comfortable with the little things they've learned about each other's families. A summer home was never, as far as he can remember, a part of hers.
"Why exactly did you ask me here?" he wonders aloud. After such a fraught argument, her message on his answering machine had been simple: Come to my grandparents' summer home. It's about two hours upstate from you. Hope to see you around noon tomorrow. Here's the address…
When he'd called back to ask what was going on, Maka was evasive and worryingly calm, merely assured him that everything would be fine as long as he showed up.
"I figured we could use some time to talk about everything in person." Her answer is not any less evasive. She's closed off, not open to connect even when he tentatively reaches for her with his soul. "Here we are," she sing-songs on her way through the door. It's strange - none of the windows in the house seem to be letting any light in, though they didn't appear shaded from the outside.
"Go on upstairs." Maka gestures to a wide, long staircase near to the right of the door. "The living room is up at the top. I'll grab us some snacks and tea."
"Um...okay." He hesitates, looking up the long, foreboding flight of stairs. He chooses to climb them, figuring an argument will only make things worse. At the top is a large living room - not, he suspects, the only one in the house - that splits off into several other rooms. The furniture here looks old, but comfortable, a little more in line with his impression of Maka's grandparents in the first place. There are multiple couches and chairs, all oriented toward a huge TV, which already flickers with some mindless comedy channel. Soul chooses the longest couch, sprawls out, and tries to drown out his bounding pulse with the television's laugh track.
Maka is a bundle of nerves when she wakes from a fitful night's sleep.
She's guilty about arguing with him, truly. It was a bad time for it. She misses him so much more than she had believed she would, and it made her come out with things that she ordinarily keeps to herself.
Her fear that he will never come back is supposed to be...well, not gone, but maybe less pointed? The way it is, though, she's angry at him for going anywhere and she's angry with herself for not saying anything, not clarifying her feelings, not putting this issue to rest, not being genuine when he was here, at home with her.
She slumps out of her room in an uncharacteristic crappy mood. Blair shoots her an anxious look from where she lies curled in the sun, and Maka smiles and shrugs, which seems to appease the cat. Frightened though Maka is about what her partnership's future might hold, today will be a day for focusing on her own future.
She gets an early start on her way to the DWMA without having to coordinate with anyone else (it doesn't feel good or refreshing; at least it's easy). Her walk is relaxed and she has time to chat with a few passersby uptown.
Upon arriving at school, Maka heads to the same familiar classroom she's been in since she was twelve - but this time, she sits behind the desk, waiting for Professor Stein. This chair is a lot more comfortable, she notes.
Some students are already here, and a few more trickle in early. They're all small, young, and new; Maka gives them a reassuring smile and thinks back to her own first day. Were she and Soul that little and that insecure? Well, Soul definitely was…
Her reverie is interrupted by a sudden stream of students barely in time for class, and Professor Stein-
He's not wheeling in backwards, the way he always does. Instead, he's striding toward her with an urgent downward pull to his lips.
"Maka, I think you should go to the Death Room," he says. "Let me take the class alone for now - you can have your first day tomorrow."
Her blood runs cold. "What's the matter?" she asks, heart leaden.
"We're not sure. I think you had better take a look for yourself."
Maka strides across the classroom, conscious in the back of her mind of all the students staring curiously. As soon as she gets to the hallway, she breaks into a run and dashes for the Death Room. What is it? Something to do with Soul? With Crona's moon? Her father? Her mother? There are so many people who could be in danger, and Maka's anger with herself mounts every time she thinks about ways she could possibly have helped whoever it was were she not angsting about petty relationship issues.
Upon her arrival, Kid is studying something in the mirror with Liz and Patti on each side of him, and all three turn around in surprise at her urgent footsteps.
"What is it?" Maka demands. "I need to know."
"Maka! That was fast," Patti observes. Not what she's looking for.
"Soul's missing." Liz won't look directly at her.
"Elizabeth!" Kid hisses.
"We were gonna tell her...might as well rip the bandaid off."
"What," Maka says, more a statement of disbelief than a question.
Kid's sigh is genuine and worried, but his lack of urgency pisses her off. "As you and Soul both knew, we do have sources keeping an eye on him. And he did not go to class today, nor is he at home, and he is not answering the phone."
Maka furrows her brow. "Could he be…" Running away? Slacking off? Hiding? Dead?
"Hiding?" Sure, that's one thing she's worried about. "I, ah," and here, Kid fidgeted in a manner completely unfitting for the God of Death, "I don't think so. There were mirrors in every room. I was able to check - all the mirrors were in place, and still, Soul was not at home."
Maka nodded grimly. It had been difficult to convince Soul to allow more than one mirror for Kid to check in on, though at long last he agreed that it would be a decent plan to ensure safety and get Maka to shut up, probably.
"Maybe he went somewhere else?" she asks.
"It seems Soul bought a plane ticket on our credit card," Kid confesses. Maka sits on the ground.
She isn't sure how to process this.
"He hasn't used it. Soul didn't take that flight. Which is even more worrisome, because it shows that something unusual is going on."
"Where was it to?" she asks, completely dazed.
"It was here," Patti answers for Kid, missing some of her usual spunk. "He was gonna come back here."
Maka feels as though she's been slapped. No - like she's been crushed, slammed into the ground.
"I'm sorry, Maka," Liz says. Her voice is tender, as though she were talking about her sister, and Maka hates being the subject of it.
"So what does it mean?" Maka asks. "I don't...understand. He's just missing? We don't have any other news at all?"
"What we're most concerned about is an assassination attempt," Kid answers, adjusting the glasses he's taken to wearing. "Looking back over our files, it appears that about ten years ago, there were reports of witch activity in that part of the state, some woman with powers related to wasps, which sounds exactly like a witch to me. But there have been no other reports since, especially not recently, and the treaty has been in effect for a while now."
"I remember those stories," Maka says, voice hollow. She's so used to hearing stories about witches who disappear that she hadn't even thought of it when Soul went to New York.
When at last Maka joins him, Soul has dozed off, anxiety overcome with exhaustion.
"Wake up, lazy," she says, and he groans. The windows are still completely dark.
It must have been hours.
"What the hell were you making down there?" Soul asks. "A full-on Thanksgiving dinner?"
Maka sits next to him, face a calm mask. Actually, she does not have any food or tea, and she studies him with uncharacteristic quiet.
"Maka?" he asks, concerned.
Her hand shoots to his throat, gagging him. Shock jolts through his veins.
"Guess who I'm not really." She purrs when she talks, and her voice isn't right. Soul jerks forward, ready to shove her away. Something - fabric ties, it seems, holds his limbs in place.
"What is going on?" he grits out. "Maka?"
He's answered by a thin, toothy grin that is definitely not Maka.
He'd been coming back.
They'd had a fight, and then he'd wanted to come back. And somewhere in all this, he'd gotten lost, probably because he was trying to come back (to see her after she reamed him out on the phone), and now none of the people she trusts the most know where he is.
"Kid," Maka says, heart pounding, breaths coming too quickly to fill her lungs. "I need us to do something right now."
"Maka," Kid answers, eyes pleading in a way that she hasn't seen in recent times - things have been going too well for the panic of battle to set in to her friend's face for a while. "Please. Give me two hours to organize. We need to work this out with the witches, or we could start a war-"
"Do you even know for sure it was the witch who did this?" she asks.
"We have no idea," Kid says. "It is one of the only genuinely dangerous situations he could be in. We also, you know, could use the witches' cooperation to help us find him, if one of their own is involved."
"So you think there's a chance this wasp witch could have been hibernating for a decade?"
"Yes," Kid says. "It's possible. It's happened before. Remember? Don't let your fear confuse you. We have no way to know for sure until we investigate."
"Then let's go!"
"We need to wait! We need all the help we can get to keep this going smoothly and without casualties! We need to keep it a secret so if - so she doesn't hurt him if that is what's going on! And if we start a conflict, it could escalate badly and the other witches-"
"Then fine! If they don't understand how important this is, maybe they're not worth being our allies after all." Maka balls her fists and seethes, gritting her teeth as if to tear the throat of some imaginary foe.
"It's unlikely that an hour or two would make a real difference. We also can't have a few people wandering into a possible trap alone. I've already contacted Black Star in Japan, but he won't be able to get to New York right away."
Maka snarls. There is an awkward sound from the other side of the room, and Maka and her boss both turn to see Mabaa standing there with her fox witch assistant.
"Ahem," coughs the fox witch.
"Nyamu," says Mabaa in the pleasant tone one would use to say "good morning."
Humbled by the presence of the elder witch, Maka unclenches her fists, striding toward the door to the Death Room with a respectful bow.
"I understand why you need to go through your own steps, and I know you don't believe Soul is in danger yet," Maka says. "But I can't - I can't stay. I can't wait for even five minutes while he's out there."
"Human," the fox witch says. "We will work with you. Please do not do anything rash."
"I can't let you go alone," Kid adds.
Maka nods. "Okay," she says. "Okay, fine. Can you move quickly, please? I have to use the bathroom. Don't wait for me to get back. Please begin negotiations right away."
The door has barely even closed behind her before Maka has bounded off for the apartment of Kim Diehl and Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupre. She pounds furiously on the door.
"Ugh," Kim says, answering at last in her underwear, which Maka ignores. "What the hell, Maka?"
"Soul's missing and I need to go to New York right now," Maka says. "Can you send me there?"
"Um…not really my specialty…" Kim hesitates. "You said Soul's missing ?"
"Yeah. No one knows where he is, but he bought a plane ticket back here. He never took the flight. I need you to find a way to get me to the airport near him - to JFK - very fast. Like right now."
Kim furrows her brow, perhaps the most genuine worry that Maka has ever seen on the witch's face. "Why haven't I heard about this? Am I not a diplomat anymore?"
This was no time to remind Kim that she usually slept through diplomatic meetings and Kid had stopped considering her a first responder. Even so, as if on cue, Jackie yelled from the other room, "Kim! Kid's in the mirror for you!"
"I know a spell," Kim says, voice low. "Get your cat to help me, if she's ever been to that airport. And Jackie can help me, because we've both been there. The problem is, with three people, it's only gonna be strong enough to send you. No one else. You're gonna be alone."
"I don't care," Maka says. "Someone needs to go right away."
Kim smiles. "I've always liked that about you, Maka. First let me go tell Kid I'll be there soon, get him out of the way."
It's an agonizing half an hour while Kim puts Kid off for a few minutes and collects everything she needs. Maka's fury at her friends fades. Kid had looked so worn out and ragged; he must be struggling between preserving his loyalties to his friends and being the new leader of the sane world, between wanting to run off and help find Soul and not wanting to leave the DWMA unattended for all the creatures that might be willing to pounce once he's gone. Maka knows the rest of the DWMA will be hot on her heels, ready to find the two of them as soon as humanly possible. As soon as they're done, Kim will run off and fill everyone in on exactly where Maka went; for all her mischief, Kim worries about her friends, too.
At long last, Kim, Jackie, and Blair are arranged in a triangle around Maka in the living room of her and Soul's apartment, except now there's some kind of overpowering incense everywhere and a large, intimidating rune drawn very illegally on the carpet beneath her. They could be seriously fined for practicing strong magic without oversight, but Maka couldn't care less.
"Maka, I don't think telling you to be careful is going to mean anything, but...I don't want you to get hurt," Blair says from where she sits.
"I'll be fine," Maka answers. "Thank you." She feels a swell of affection for her more-or-less forced feline roommate.
Jackie and Kim have already linked hands, and they invite Blair to do the same, until their triangle becomes a small circle around Maka.
They chant. Silly though it is, it's an intimidating sound, their voices all low and breathy with the witch words Kim has taught them on the fly. There's a bubbling sensation in Maka's chest, and Maka dismisses it as nerves before she notices the blue light floating around her, starting to come between her and the others.
Jackie's is the last face Maka sees before everything fades to white. "Good luck, Maka," she murmurs with the end of her chant.
A public ladies' room is a bizarre place to end up. Kim must have some memory of this place to be sending Maka here. Aside from giving her the sensation that she's been jolted from the deepest sleep of her life, the transportation must have gone fine, and Maka steps out into what she can confirm from her own travels is JFK International Airport. She activates her soul perception.
He's not in the airport. He's not near the airport. He's nowhere near the airport. Maka hails a taxi and asks the driver to go to Juilliard, scanning every soul in sight between the airport and the school.
He's not there, and she's starting to doubt her plan.
"There's one more place I want to go," Maka says, desperate. The driver sighs.
"Hey, lady, are you sure you're okay?" he asks. "Your fare's gonna be crazy...not that I'm complaining, but I just think you should know."
"It's not a problem," Maka answers, voice a little more brisk than she would have normally intended. "I'm - it's a bit of an emergency, and I'm trying to remember the exact neighborhood." She goes over what she'd heard about the wasp witch. She hadn't paid an exceptional amount of attention, though she had heard someone describe the name of the neighborhood where the activity had been spotted years ago. It had probably been Professor Stein.
Oh, no.
"Shit," Maka says out loud before clapping her hand over her mouth. The taxi driver looks back with his eyebrows raised.
"What's the matter?"
"I'm - I'm supposed to be closer to upstate New York," Maka says.
"That's a long way from here."
"I realize that! Is there any way you can drive me?"
"I mean, sure, but it's gonna-"
"Money doesn't matter," Maka blurts. "It's fine."
The driver gives her a big grin and shrugs. "Okay, it's your decision! Let's go, then."
Her eyes are changing, her face is changing, and it almost makes him sick. Every cell in his body screams this is your meister, don't transform, don't transform -
"Maka, don't make me cut myself out," he says, straining against the fabric-turned-cuffs. It's futile. Whoever this is has sprouted a pair of bug wings and began to hover off the ground.
Her words truly sink in at this point - she is not Maka. Soul finally allows blades to sprout, slashing his bindings open to no avail; the mysterious attacker is too far away already for him to fight.
For the first time, he gets a good look at what might be her true form: an oddly-proportioned woman, average in stature and weight at the shoulders and hips but impossibly thin around the waist, as if her spine is the only thing there. She has wiry, upstanding hair like so many antennae, and what appears to be an elaborate sheer cloak is actually a pair of insect wings. Her dress is a metallic, poisonous green.
"Wasp witch," Soul growls, mostly to himself.
"Very clever," she mocks. "I think it's only right for the Last Death Scythe to know the name of the witch who will tear his soul out, hmm?"
"Not really," Soul says. "Listen, lady, I don't know if you've been living under a rock or what but there's been a treaty and we're not-"
"I don't give one shit about treaties," the witch says. "My place in this world is to sap, to prey, to shrivel you humans up. No oversaturated theory of friendship is going to take that away. My name, incidentally, is Glypta ."
"Okay, Glypta." Soul spits the name. "Do you want to fucking die? Because if you hurt me-"
"Ahah. What are you going to do, kill me with the power of music?" she sneers. "I dare you to-"
Her voice is cut off by a single angry chord from Soul's scythe keyboard. He can see the waves displace something in the air - it flickers, though Glypta herself is too agile to be hit by them now.
"I'm going to sap the life out of you," she pants. "Little by little. And when I'm done, I'm going to tear out your soul and show the world. The humans' precious symbol, their treaty with the witches, will be nothing. The Death Weapon Meister Academy's rage will move them against my kind once again, and the witches will remember that they were put here to destroy."
"Why do you talk so much?!" Soul asks to keep her threats from buzzing around in his brain, blades sprouting all over his body. If he dashes and dodges around properly, maybe she will get close enough to slash - or he will get close enough to the stairs to escape.
"Because when the soul-seers and Lord Death observe your dead soul, it will be much more effectively disturbing if you died in despair."
It's at this moment that a voice - a familiar, beautiful voice - rings out from the top of the stairway.
"Soul! What's happening here?!" the real Maka demands. "Are you okay?"
"Not yet, but I will be!" Soul says, grinning as he runs toward her.
Glypta has latched onto a chandelier on the ceiling, perched around it like a bug stalking its prey. "Ahah! A visitor," she says gleefully. The witch leans to and fro, giving the chandelier an ominous sway above.
"Here goes everything! Soul, resonate with me!"
He is only too happy to comply, crackling into her hand in scythe form, and as he does, two beautiful swallowtail wings, warm and orange-glowing like her soul, emerge from Maka's back. He doesn't have 'lungs' right now. For a moment, they take his breath away anyway.
"Hah. Let's get her," she says, rising without effort from the ground toward the chandelier.
"Maka," Soul breathes, with the distinct sensation of his heart swooping into his throat even as his blade swells into the massive crescent of Witch Hunter.
Glypta draws back, her own insect wings holding her up off the chandelier, and summons a creepy blob of shadows in front of her. "Get ready to die," she hisses.
"This is what you get for hurting Soul, you SHIT ," Maka screeches, and slams Soul's blade through the shadows.
Passing through them is not explosive. He does not sense the usual resistance offered by enemy bodies; in fact, it's uncomfortable. Really, really uncomfortable.
And he's dropping to the floor. There's a clatter as he hits.
He's on his feet in a second, faster than he's ever transformed in his life, but Glypta already has his partner in the air by the wings. Maka screams and thrashes.
"What the fuck?!" Soul snarls, piano scythe jutting from his arm. He slams the keys in an angry cacophony, and they make ripples - ripples through space, literally, as the walls of the room warp and split. They reveal a cave beyond.
The witch shrieks and grits her teeth, jerking Maka's wings in opposite directions. Despite Glypta being blasted backward, both wings come off, and Maka falls to the ground across the room with a thud.
Soul screams her name. He dashes, heart weighing a trillion pounds in his chest, to where her body lies.
"No no no no no please , what the fuck , Maka," Soul mutters. He kneels to inspect her her; her body is undamaged, but she doesn't breathe.
"Having a piece of your soul ripped that way will kill you," Glypta announces with pride from where she floats above, wings buzzing like chainsaws from hell. Soul, arm still the piano blade, whirls around and blasts her again.
His own music terrifies him. He's used to madness - that's always been the source, after all. Now there's something furious, something bloodthirsty, in this that he's never heard before. He thinks if he can hit Glypta with it, it will probably rip her apart where she hovers.
It doesn't hit her. He doesn't even see her anymore - she's poofed away somewhere. He does, however, hear her voice:
"You can't beat me, Last Death Scythe. You're a tricky one, but it's only a matter of time before I run your soul ragged."
"Fuck you," Soul shouts, still standing over Maka. He slams the piano keys again, choosing to note the ripples in reality around the room. They affect Maka, too; he can see right through her to the cave floor below.
The relief causes a big, inappropriate grin to cross his face for a second, before he remembers that he's still in danger.
"You're a big lie," he snarls at the witch.
"Ahahah. And I'm in your head with you. You'll never get out of here, and when I finally extract your rotten soul, I'll show it to the whole world."
"You're a bit late on that," Soul says. "All your friends are on our side now, whether you like it or not. You're stuck in the past." He's tired of explaining, and yet, something in him (the loyal DWMA follower) is powerfully obligated. If he makes it out of here alive, he's going to need to be able to say he did everything he could, and so will the DWMA.
"The old Lord Death had one thing right, which is that there's not room in the world for all of us," Glypta says. "Your so-called 'progress' isn't forever."
Soul hits the keys again, moving as he does. Playing and walking at the same time, he's ashamed to admit, is easier said than done. The soundwaves of his music reveal what's truly in front of him: a twisted, winding cave, dimly lit by torches. He dashes to the wall that is both the cave and the illusory room, avoiding another blast from the witch.
"You'll never get out," she says. "You won't kill me! Even if you did and had no one to hunt you, you'd be lost in here. Your feeble mind was so easy to convince…"
"Oh, shut up." Soul plays a chord that he personally likes to think is a perfect musical impression of the phrase shut up and dashes around the corner. Out here, he sees what she's talking about - there is still the illusion of a mansion around him, and the place he's in is still definitely a cave, but the stairway he originally came up is no longer there. Instead, there are simply a lot of hallways.
"I'm going to-" Glypta starts as she, too, hovers around the corner. Soul stops and glances back at her sudden pause.
She's staring, not quite at him - more straight through him - with a wicked grin.
"Well, you have quite a dedicated little friend," she says. And with that, she's gone - her wings carry her down one of the many halls far more quickly than Soul can run and play the keyboard. He starts in the same direction, heart pounding. When she referred to his 'friend,' was she talking about Maka? Or perhaps someone else who had come to get him? Either way, whoever she had keyed in on is certainly in danger.
As he searches, Soul finds himself missing Maka with an ache like a hole in his heart. He's been missing her ever since he got on the plane, and this is a special circumstance that highlights it. With her here, this witch would be nothing. They would be out of the cave and arguing over whether to get ice cream or pizza.
Hang on. If Maka - the real Maka - is around, she can see his soul for sure...maybe he can feel her soul, too, if he reaches hard enough? Maybe, even if it's not her, he could reach out for whoever else is there?
In the dark of night, in a suburban neighborhood a little further south than she had believed, she finds him at last.
"Here!" she gasps to the taxi driver. Startled, he slams on the brakes, pulling over.
"Your fare is - uh…"
"It's fine," she says, handing him the Academy's credit card. "Put it all on there. Twenty percent tip."
The man's eyes light up. "Okay. Anything I can do for you beyond this, miss?"
Maka waves him off. "No...no, I don't think so. Thank you!"
This is a neighborhood Soul wouldn't go near without good reason. There's his glow, troubled but still bright, in a space that looks like it's deep inside a creepy old house. His soul is also, thankfully, still inside his body. Maka's soul perception, though it's not perfect for detecting illusions, gives her a hunch that the house is not real. She shoves her hand at the door.
" OUCH ." Okay, trying to reach through it tells her that it's definitely not real, but the illusory spell is powerful. It's affecting all of her senses enough to convince her that she just slammed her hand into the wood. It seems she's going to have to actually deal with this as a physical object rather than traipse through it.
She tries to quell the part of her that's thrilled to find a skilled witch opponent. She partially succeeds. When she finds Soul, they're going to overcome a great challenge. Maka reaches for the door knocker, and jerks her hand back at an irate buzzing and another sharp pain.
"Wasps at night?" she hisses, shaking her hand off in annoyance. Once again she reaches for the door knocker to no pain this time, slamming it repeatedly.
Minutes pass. There is no response. Maka slams the door knocker again, to no avail. When she turns the doorknob, however, it swings open with a tortured creak.
The interior of the house is dreary, and Maka suspects it's a result of the witch's magic. She takes a few steps in before the door slams shut behind her. She jumps, more a reflex than true surprise. It now seems to be locked from the outside, and the only way forward is further in; her heart pounds, knowing that she is diving head-first into a trap with no guarantee that Soul is going to be physically able to help her.
Maka starts up the stairs. Soul's soul appears too far away for him to be within this space, so the magic must also be giving her a distorted image of how large the house is. He does seem to be located on a different level, though.
At the top of the stairs, there's a slow buzzing sound, and something begins to materialize out of the room to the left. Maka doesn't wait, skipping past the large living room and running down the hall toward her partner. Predictably, the hall seems to stretch in front of her.
The buzzing sound gets louder, catches up. It's nipping at her heels, and she feels thousands of tiny vibrations; she looks down and screams.
There is a cloud of insects surrounding her. Wasps - they're wasps! - leaving her mostly untouched, save for the occasional painful sting. Maka runs, her efforts futile, as there are so many it's hard to see through them.
She growls with fury and terror at once, but suddenly the bugs have cleared away, and she is in another place.
It must be the basement, or whatever the wasp witch things a basement is. It's all concrete, with no illusion of a furnace or washing machines or any of the usual items in basements, and there's nothing down here except the shackles that hold her to the wall.
There's a bug-like woman looking at her.
"Finally, you show your face," Maka spits. "Where the hell is Soul?"
"He'll be here soon, I'd imagine," the presumable-witch says, studying her nails (a forced portrayal of boredom if Maka's ever seen one).
Maka struggles against the metal of the shackles to no avail. She finally settles and changes her focus, reaching out with her Soul Perception once again.
There he is. She concentrates. She focuses, with all her might, on wishing him the utmost caution, and hopes that he knows he needs to move faster than speed of sound into her waiting hands.
It's touch and go at first. Soul has to rely on vague instincts rather than the strong, tangible bond between partners that he's used to, now that they're separated by this much space and these many walls - then again, if thousands of miles can't keep their wills apart, surely he can feel his way to her with song now that they're here?
His efforts are rewarded as he gains more and more surety in his path. To Soul, the cave and the house are one and the same, with the illusory walls matching the structure of the cave. Occasionally, he experiments with what he can move around. When his music is not playing, the interior of the house interacts with his body the same way that real physical things do, but when he plays his songs, he's able to both see through the illusion and touch beyond it, too. His music physically changes it.
Maka is definitely this way. This is the connection he knows, threaded together by his song. She can't be farther than the space of a few rooms. Now he can feel her distress, and he starts to run. The hall brings him past several doors and a staircase, and the staircase is where he wants to go.
She's getting closer - closer - she's real, she's gotta be real; his soul would recognize hers anywhere, and he's ashamed for not paying more attention the first time.
Soul reaches out for Maka with his very being, music and all. She reaches back, and at the same moment he dashes around the corner and transforms as he hurls himself into her waiting hands, his world changes.
A barrage of dangerous magic comes his way; undoubtedly, the witch had been lying in wait. She's not, however, a very good shot, at least not at scythes flying across the room, and with his forward momentum, Soul's scythe body propels through the air a hair's breadth ahead of her cruel spells.
With a swelling crescendo of his soul's song, wings of light burst from Maka's back, not the wings of a butterfly but the wings of a bird or- oh, Death, he's never going to hear the end of this - an angel . They illuminate the cave they're suddenly in, the entire interior of the mansion vanishing in a flash with the emergence of Maka's wings. With a sweeping flourish, she uses Soul's blade to slice through her chains.
"Maka, this is...this is the same thing that happened before," he gasps. Confusion pulses through her side of their connection. "Well, the witch - gave me visions...you had wings, they were butterfly wings…"
"Maybe that's what's letting me do this now," Maka says. "It's something we're managing together, after all."
There is no time to celebrate. Glypta - Soul has somehow conveyed the witch's name - is currently recovering from the shockwave of these two gorgeous wings popping out of Maka's back. She hovers into the air, slinging balls of dark energy at the partners as they dash and dodge together.
"Theatrics are for children!" she yells. "It was stupid to come running in here without a plan."
"Got past you, didn't it?" Soul crows, to another magical blast.
"Knock it off!" Maka yells.
"Your legacy will be snuffed out before it even gets started," Glypta hisses. "And you." She glares directly into Maka's eyes. "You're nothing but his...former partner. An insignificant pest."
"Current partner," Soul corrects, because if this terrible hag is going to drag his ass underground in the middle of nowhere and try to hold him hostage while he dies, he's going to sass her to the moon before they kill her.
"Death Scythes are partnered to Lord Death," she says.
Is she seriously arguing with them about how Death Scythes work? "You have no idea what you're talking about," Soul says, and feels warmth radiating from Maka's side of the connection.
"I think that's enough talking," Maka says with a decisive flap of her wings. Pride surges through Soul at her confidence. "Glypta, you've broken the Witch Treaty and you threaten us with death for no good reason. By the standards of the Treaty, we are to take your soul."
"The Treaty is nonsense! It goes against the very nature of witches." Glypta hurls magic and Maka dodges with little effort.
"You know, I'm not sure I've heard another witch say anything like that, so maybe you're the one who's talking nonsense," Maka observes. Except maybe Medusa , she adds silently to Soul, but they both know Medusa was...something else.
The witch starts to say something, and she is satisfyingly cut off by Maka's furious swing. She drifts backwards in the air. Maka isn't stopping, and the music of their soul resonance swells to a fever pitch and tempo. Magic bounces from Soul's blade; what would undoubtedly sear his human body beyond repair feels like a summer rain while he's being wielded by Maka. The real Maka.
"No one," Maka shouts through clenched teeth, "messes," and she slashes at Glypta's cloak, "with my," and the witch hovers back in a futile move, "partner!"
Maka's killing strike is brutal and definitive; the ease with which she slices through their enemy would be anticlimactic were it not so satisfying. Glypta doesn't even get a word in - she just growls, as if intending to speak again, but she doesn't get the chance before being sliced in half.
Soul is exhausted, and he can feel it in Maka, too. She alights on the ground and he morphs out of weapon form, landing a few feet away. He turns toward her even as she runs to him, and they collide in a desperate embrace.
"Soul," Maka laughs, though her eyes are wet, and she grabs his hand. She's shaking. He's shaking. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he expects them to clack together when they touch, they're so much like a couple of rattling skeletons. The witch's soul floats, forgotten, casting an eerie green glow.
"This better be real," he murmurs, pushing her back a little for a close look at her face.
"What?" Maka asks, and when he gapes, not sure how to explain, her eyes widen. "Oh. Oh, no." She pushes into his arms again, snuggling toward his chest. "I promise it's real. I can see your soul, after all."
Soul heaves a sigh and lets his eyelids slide shut, listening. There it is.
"Ah hah. I can hear yours," he says. "I mean, this is different. Even though I knew it was you as soon as I felt you here...this whole day has been such a mindfuck, I don't totally trust myself. It seems like everything could be the witch."
"No!" Maka shouts. It's not. It's not the witch. It's real. I'm real. You're real."
He hugs her so hard he picks her up. "Okay, I'm going to try to believe you. We'll see what happens, I guess."
"Ummm...here!" She grabs his hand and pulls him over to the cave wall, near the floating soul. "Your music lets both of us see through the magic, remember?" She stands squarely in front of him, crossing her arms. "So look. Play it now!"
He hesitates, then transforms his arm and plays a soft melody that has always made him think of Maka. There are no ripples - the soul, his own body, Maka - they all remain, steady in their places. Soul turns his arm back to its fully-human form and slumps against the wall.
"Sorry. Everything's been so weird. I need to sit down," he murmurs.
"Me, too," Maka says. "Then let's sit. Let's rest for a while."
They do rest, hands clasped firmly together, leaning on each other and reveling in the body heat. He can't know what Maka is thinking of, but he's preoccupied with knowing she's safe, she's here, and though she seems shaken, she's otherwise okay. That's all he needs right now.
Maka does not know how long they spend resting together. Neither speaks, and neither falls into a deep sleep. They relax the resonance to something low that doesn't require maintenance and focus on the reality of the physical world for a while.
The soul's green glow flickers as though they have a twisted fireplace in front of them. Soul's inward breaths lift her head up on his shoulder, and his outward breaths shift her down. She watches the low-lit cave bob up and down in her field of vision, listens as his breaths grow less ragged.
She is tempted to rearrange so she can fall asleep for real when Soul says, "I think we'd better get out of here, don't you?" in a hushed voice.
"Yeah, I guess so. I'm so tired…"
"Let's not bother getting back to my apartment or anything," Soul says, yawning as he stands gingerly. "There was a motel and also a bed and breakfast around here and those are probably safer than sleeping in a cave."
"There's nothing around that I'm perceiving," Maka tries as she, too, stands.
Soul smirks and nudges her with his shoulder. "I know you're tired, too, but we already managed not to die, so let's make sure it stays that way."
They hold hands on the way out and Maka holds the witch's soul to light the way. The only problem is this tunnel is actually very complicated, with a new underground cavern every time they think they've discovered the exit.
"Man, she disguised the shit out of this place," Soul says. "How could the other people possibly not know what's going on here?"
"Her illusions were good," Maka admits. "Anyone who doesn't have Soul Perception - which no one in the neighborhood does, I'm sure - wouldn't suspect a thing. After all, they wouldn't get the same weird feelings about the exterior that I did, and they wouldn't be able to see a witch's soul inside if she ever uncloaked it. I'll bet those wasps that have been hanging around here have something to do with it, too. We'll have to check when we get back to the DWMA whether there have been any unusual disappearances or events here that we overlooked…"
"Kid won't like that," Soul says. "Not the investigation. The idea that we missed something."
"Well, it wouldn't have been him, since he's only been Lord Death for a few years."
They walk on in silence. Maka thinks she's seen this part of the cave before.
"How did you even know I was out here?" Soul asks. "I haven't said anything to you or anyone from the DWMA today - or maybe yesterday by now."
"They're keeping track of you, remember?" Maka grins, knowing that he'll revisit all the convincing she tried to do before. "Your professors report when you skip class without warning. Plus, Kid has other people watching that even I don't know."
"Man," Soul sighs. "I'm so glad you guys found out in time. Another half hour and I could have been toast. Still, you've gotta admit, it's kind of creepy being watched all the time…"
Maka squeezes his hand. "I know you don't like it. We were just thinking about how you could be a target, and none of us want that to happen." She pauses and reconsiders. "None of us wanted this to happen."
"So how come you came alone?"
"I couldn't sit around wait for help," Maka answers, sheepish. "Black Star was going to take time to get here, and Kid was afraid of barging in and starting a witch war, so I just said I had to go to the bathroom and ran off."
"That's the Maka I know," Soul murmurs. It gives her goosebumps. "Don't get yourself killed over me, idiot."
"Calm down, everything's fine," she says through the swelling in her heart.
"If we get out of here at all."
"That's true," she has to concede. She reactivates her Soul Perception for a few moments to check on whether anyone's near - and instead of potential enemies, she spots four familiar souls.
"Hey! It's Stein and Marie, and they have Liz and Patti too." Maka smiles from ear to ear.
"Uh...what?" Soul asks.
"I can see all their souls," she clarifies. "They must have come really soon after me! I wonder how they - oh, Stein has Soul Perception, too!
"Where are they?"
"Let's keep walking toward them. They're in that direction," Maka answers, giddy with relief.
Upon reaching their professors and classmates, Maka hugs all of them soundly while Soul hovers right next to them and gazes on their relief, remembering what it was like when Stein had returned to the DWMA after disappearing. Then, they all turn to Soul and hug him, too, much to his obvious embarrassment.
"Soul doesn't get to sit out just 'cause he's too embarrassed to be nice," Patti crows. Soul rolls his eyes.
"You know, Kid doesn't need a working heart to survive. Nonetheless, Maka, he almost had a coronary when he found out you'd run off," Stein says.
"Then again, what the hell was he expecting?" Soul asks. Maka watches with a curious flush, admittedly eager to savor everyone's reactions to her antics.
Marie turns a bright one-eyed gaze to Soul. "Yeah, that's true. I told him I'd send his apologies for not coming yet - he's torn up, but feels that it would be a huge mistake to leave the DWMA without careful planning."
"Kid knew where we were?" Soul asks, blinking.
Marie shakes her head. "No. He said he knew you and Maka would be okay, and that we would find you anyway."
That night, Soul sleeps in bed with her. It's chaste. They've shared a bed before, and that time, they made everything awkward. This time, they're so happy to be together and safe that there is only warmth and relief.
By his own will (but also with the excuses of Marie's advice and Maka's urging), Soul calls his professors to explain that he will be out for the next week, and gives them a tame version of his story.
"I promise this isn't always how it's gonna be," he jokes. "Now that it's out of the way, I'm ready to be serious."
They fly Soul back to Death City the next day, where Kid and Mabaa greet them with no small amount of anxiety.
"It's okay, calm down," he laughs. "I know you can't up and leave. This is our lives all the time now, right? We're friends, but we both have responsibilities."
Kid nods, relief in his golden eyes. They go over everything Glypta talked about in detail, as much as Soul can remember.
"The Grand Mabaa says she met the wasp witch once," the fox assistant explained. "She says Glypta had always been a nihilist, and thought that it would give her the most reward to tear down the meanings that other people build for themselves. She's weaker than she'll admit. I guess she thought she could make an impact by kidnapping and hurting you."
Soul grimaces. "Yikes. I hope we didn't-"
"Do not worry yourself, Death Scythe," the fox witch interrupts. "As a provision of the treaty, you are protected when you act in self-defense. There will be an investigation, but right now, it is quite clear to us that the DWMA has done nothing wrong in this encounter. You have Lord Death's respect for procedures and your...partner, who brought back Glypta's soul untouched, to thank for my certainty."
It's when they arrive at home that Maka tugs his sleeve to make him sit on the couch. "We should have a real talk about our argument on the phone," she says, biting her lip. "There's a lot to clear up..."
Soul nods. "Um. Okay."
She studies him for a few moments. "You start."
He takes a deep breath and decides to come out with the full explanation at once, even the parts she might have heard on the phone, because neither was at their best then. "I thought - still think - this is something I really need to do. It's for me - so I can learn more and grow as a musician. It's important to get out of your own head sometimes because then you learn a lot coming back, you know? But I need to do it for us, too. Because I want to be the best Death Scythe the world has ever known, and right now, that hasn't happened. If we keep working together like we have been, I'm the one holding us back."
"Okay, first of all, you're not holding us back! You've never held us back. Second of all, I know. I thought you needed to do this all along - it's why I encouraged you before. Idiot," she adds.
"You called me and we got into a huge fight about it. You said you weren't telling me everything you thought, and then you were scared. So I want you to please tell me now…"
"I'm terrified," Maka blurts. "It's not that I don't want you to have fun, but music is so important to you and I don't understand it. What if you find a good job and never want to come back here?"
Soul can't help smiling a little. "Now who's the idiot? You think I'm gonna leave my hard-earned Death Scythe post for anything in the world?"
"Well, it's not only about that. It's about...me."
Oh. Oh, now is the time to have that important conversation he's been putting off because he's bad with feelings.
How is this supposed to be done?
"Maka," he says, and his voice doesn't come out as strong as he would prefer. "I'm not excited about keeping my job because I'm so keen to resonate with Kid or some other meister, you know?"
A smile finally breaks her anxious expression. "Thanks, but the whole point of a Death Scythe is to work with Lord Death, like you've been doing."
"Who are you, Glypta? Kid and I do technical stuff together. For the important stuff, he has Liz and Patti."
"Fine. What if I don't want to keep being a meister, then?"
Shit. What if she doesn't want to keep being a meister? Soul stutters, not sure how to respond - not sure what she wants him to say, because honestly, he's pretty flexible if he can stay in her life.
"Then uh," he fidgets. "I mean, I can come back and work with Kid or whoever and maybe...just keep the apartment? Or get another place? You can do what you want and I can do what I want but we can keep doing it together?"
Maka straightens up and tucks her hands behind her back, the sure sign of a meister with confidence regained. "Are you sure? You really want to keep living with me that much?"
"Maka," Soul practically whines. "You're important to me. I want to master my own music...that doesn't mean I want to leave your side, though."
She answers with a kiss to his cheek. Swept up in the magic of now or never, Soul takes both her hands. "You could come to New York with me," he says. "If you want."
Maka beams, and he's pretty sure he can feel her wings flutter against his soul even though they're not resonating. "I don't think I can do that," she says, and somehow, he thinks, he already knew that would be the answer. "I have so much to do here, and if we're both going to grow while you're at Juilliard, there's no place like Death City for me. But it means...everything that you would ask."
Soul feels his guard slip away, like warm water is washing over his skin. "Yeah. You're right," he says, and draws her close to put his forehead against hers.
"I have something serious to tell you," Maka says.
"I love you," Soul murmurs.
She turns her face up and catches his lips between hers, kissing him with a ferocity that matches each of her swings in battle.
"I love you, too," she says, and plunges in for another kiss. "Do you want to skip the party tonight?"
"Maka Albarn wants to skip a party?" Soul cocks an eyebrow and gives her his cheesiest smarm-grin, the one he reserves only for teasing Maka.
"Oh, so now you want to go-"
"Let's not make that assumption."
Maka scoots close to him, resting her head on his shoulder while Soul pulls her close. "I don't want to go anywhere tonight," she confesses. "I want to curl up here with you and read. Where's the TV remote?"
That night, he drowns himself in her kisses.
The confession that brought everything out into the open has also made him vulnerable to sitting in the park, mooning over his lover across the country. This is exactly the reason why he's always buried his emotions: they cause a lot of trouble.
Knowing how it will be when they meet again, though...that makes it worthwhile. Soul looks at the black moon and turns over the problem of reaching Crona again in his head, wishing he could come up with a helpful plan and knowing that if there's a possibility, he probably won't be the one to come up with it.
He'll see Maka in a few weeks. And then again a few weeks after that. It's not that big a deal because he works for an organization that can give him pretty much anything he wants; still, for two people who lived together every day for years, the separation is an adjustment. When he gets back, he's sure he'll be part of all kinds of crazy plans. Maybe he'll go elsewhere to learn even more about music; maybe he won't. This time, maybe Maka will come with him.
Maybe they can travel the world, at once learning music and fighting madness.
He thinks, hopes, she would enjoy that kind of life. Soul grins at the moon.
The day Soul moves back to Death City, he flies in with a modest ring. She's not a jewelry person, but he did once overhear a conversation between Maka and Tsubaki about how Maka enjoyed the idea of a certain kind of engagement ring. He'd pretended to be terribly grossed out. He'd also remembered every detail of it all these years, so the joke's on him.
It's not his most planned move ever, and he's not going to put it into action right away. They'll have to see how the next few months go. Aside from the fact that he's obscenely nervous, being apart can give a distorted sense of how a relationship will be. He wants to know they can settle into a comfortable life. They love each other, though, and they've lived together before, and even if it was going to be like all their worst days as teenagers he'd choose being bound to her forever over and over again.
He also thinks it would mean something to Maka for him, the cagey, emotionally-constipated weapon, to be the one to pop the question.
When Soul's plane lands, Maka, Patti, and Black Star have jumped past the gate against all the rules. Maka runs to give him a kiss and drag him forward into Death City by the tie, Black Star grabs the carry-on bag and crows about how easy it is to carry with one finger, and Patti chants something about Soul and Maka sitting in a tree. Kid, Liz, and Tsubaki are beaming from beyond the gate where the airline ideally wants them to be, in the same relative spot where Wes and Gran and his parents had waved goodbye in New York, and Soul knows every different kind of love at once.