It really should have been over.
It had been six months, since Kid became the new Shinigami, Asura was trapped on the moon, and Kim became ambassador of witches and enforcer of the peace treaty between them and the DWMA.
It should have been over. Then why did she still feel the pang of fear and regret every night while lying in bed?
Maka gave up on trying to sleep or drown out Soul's snores from the other room, and let her thoughts overtake her. She had come a long, long way from being the rule stickler from around a year ago, but wasn't exactly sure she improved. Now, she was a rule-breaker; the thought horrified her. But what else could she be after all the events took place? In fact, the only rule she had followed in a long time was leaving Crona on the moon.
She regretted that everyday. No one would be able to quell her feelings of worthlessness after she sped back to earth with BlackStar and Kid (who was now fully symmetrical), being fully aware that she left her latest friend with one of the deadliest demons ever in a pool of black blood. Her feelings of grief only intensified when she got to know that the Shinigami had died, leaving Kid to take over his role. Kid, for his part didn't look all that grieving at the moment, but honestly, Maka hadn't seen him in weeks.
The last time she saw him, Kid had changed. He still talked to her (which was more incredible than it sounded, considering he had to manage the world), but seemed more distant and troubled than before, only really talking to Stein, Marie and her dad who were all sworn to secrecy. Liz and Patty didn't seem to know what was going on either, Liz seeming more worried than before, and Patty giggling less and less every time Maka saw them. She supposed it was due to the additional responsibilities of them being Death Scythes (weren't they now by default?), but the funny thing was that Maka hadn't seen them with Kid for a long time.
BlackStar had really changed as well, which Maka guessed was about not being able to defeat Asura. He had become quieter, more contemplative and seemed to devote majority of his time and energy to training vigorously, or being with Angela the baby witch. Tsubaki had told her that Mifune's death and the DWMA's decision to take in Angela without telling her the truth had really bothered him. Maka hadn't tried to comfort him- their personalities were incompatible and clashed too much. The last time she tried to connect with him, he shunned her away, declaring that he had things to do. Like Kid, she hadn't seen him for a long time. Tsubaki for her part remained more or less the same, although she had been disappearing for long stretches of time with BlackStar, or sat in class alone, often tuning out the world, or having conversations with Soul that seemed to often escalate into muted but intense arguments. Soul always refused to tell Maka about what their fights were about, but she suspected that it was because of BlackStar's odd behavior more than anything else.
Soul, like the others, had changed too. Unlike Maka, he saw Kid more regularly, as he was technically now Kid's Death Scythe, but always said that Kid was closed of. Maka knew he was probably lying- Soul was supposed to keep Kid's information confidential, which kind of stung. She and Soul were supposed to be partners, but now it seemed like they were drifting apart more than ever.
Maka sighed and dragged her arm over her eyes. She just wanted all of this to be over.
She didn't know when she fell asleep, but woke up to Soul knocking sharply on her door, a hand over his eyes in an attempt of being a gentleman. It wasn't necessary- Maka was decent.
"You're late," he told her, looking at the floor even after she told him that he could look. "I made breakfast."
"Today is Blaire's day," Maka said, fixing her hair into her ponytails. "Where is she?"
"She went home with some guy last night," Soul said, making Maka cringe. "And besides, she makes fish all the time. Thought you'd appreciate something different."
"That's sweet, Soul," she said moving past him to the door. She felt the familiar twinge of sadness though. They weren't as close as before, especially not after that. Then she noticed the smoke billowing out of the kitchen.
"Holy Shinigami, Soul! What did you do?"
"Well, you see…"
Neither of them ended up in the DWMA until five minutes before the second class started.
.
.
"Hi Tsubaki," Maka muttered, slipping into Sid-sensei's class.
"Hello, Maka, Soul," she gave Soul an icy glance (or as icy as someone as nice as her could make it), who returned it with a curt nod. Clearly they hadn't resolved their argument that probably escalated during their weapons only class- Maka never actually saw them arguing, only relying on Liz's reports to even know what was going on.
"Did we miss anything?" Maka asked, trying to push away the awkwardness.
"Nothing much," Tsubaki said, staring out of the window. "Sid-sensei has been distracted for some time now."
Sure enough, their zombie teacher was idly explaining something about advanced soul compatibility of the board, impervious to the students ignoring him. Tsubaki simply resumed staring out of the window intently as if her life depended on it. Maka tapped Soul's shoulder and gave him her what's with her glance. Soul took one look at the girl and shook his head in his don't even bother fashion.
Well, Maka wouldn't be satisfied with that. She poked him even harder until he flinched (the perks of being the fit meister) and glared at him more intensely, not caring if she seemed needy or annoying, until he glared back. That was a new one. Soul was all don't-care looks and defeated glances, but he rarely ever tried to combat her glares. It actually stung a little.
"Ok," Maka left it off, leaving Soul to join Tsubaki in staring out of the window.
"He didn't come back home last night, didn't he?" asked Soul.
Tsubaki moistened her lips and blinked multiple times rapidly before whispering "no."
.
.
Soul didn't show up to the next lesson- practical training for meisters and weapons. Although, in all fairness, she and Soul didn't really need to. He'd perfected his weapon transformation, and as long as she kept up her constant workouts, they'd be fine. However, Maka was beginning to think that their soul compatibility might be an issue from now on- they hadn't been talking and they hadn't attempted a soul resonance for ages now. And she wasn't going to try now- she was still mad at him and they were still awkward after that.
However, she had to explain to Nygus-sensei exactly why Soul, BlackStar and Tsubaki were missing. And to make matters worse, she had to sit out of class for that day, just when she was looking to blow off some steam. Now she had to wallow in her own thoughts instead- again, until a body plopped down next to her. It was Nygus-sensei.
"Maka, are you all right?" she asked, removing the bandages from her mouth as she spoke. Honestly, Maka really didn't think that wearing nothing but bandages was necessary- Sid-sensei didn't even really dress like a stereotypical zombie anymore. And besides, didn't Nygus-sensei get… cold?
"I'm fine, sensei," she said, cringing when she realized that that was the most unconvincing statement ever.
Nygus-sensei quirked her eyebrows, but didn't make an attempt to deny or accept what Maka said.
"It's been a long time since I saw you Spartoi members hang out together," the woman mused quietly.
"We don't need to anymore," Maka replied. "After Asura was defeated and we allied with the witches, there hasn't been a problem we need to fix."
"Not professionally, no," the teacher said. "But you are all friends, right?"
Maka actually had to rethink that one. Yes, she was close to Soul (of course) and they often hung out with BlackStar, Tsubaki, Death the Kid, Liz and Patty, and they had enough soul compatibility to perform a group resonance (albeit somewhat shakily due to Maka's and BlackStar's contrasting yet infuriatingly similar personalities), but other than that, they weren't really connected on a mental level except for her and Soul, and even that felt doubtful now. Their rag-tag group had come together, since they had all failed to collect souls and hence had to interact with each other more often. As for the other members of the Spartoi, only Maka and Ox got along pretty well, and that was more competition than anything. According to Patty, Kim used to have a small crush on BlackStar (who was also friends with Kilik), and that was all the personal connection they had.
"Sort of," Maka finally said. Nygus-sensei didn't ask any more questions.
Honestly speaking, Maka wasn't too upset with not having more 'mental resonance' with anyone. It was just that the incidents in the Book of Eibon sort of messed her up, and it wasn't the fact that Soul was prettier than her in her girl form. The visions she got of all her flaws coming up to her… was, with no other words to put it, awful. Her being worthless and not good with combat (Patty, a weapon, was better than her for Shinigami's sake), but the part when she realized just how incompatible she and Soul were really impacted everything. And judging from his odd behavior after the reconnected, something had happened to him too.
A coppery taste filled her mouth- she bit her lip too hard. Blood. She hadn't tasted it ever since the battle on the moon.
Blood. Black blood. Crona.
That messed her up as well. The thought of her newest pink haired friend smiling gently as he drowned in his own blood haunted her every night, and she wished every day that they'd all fought harder to stop Crona.
It was a mystery if Crona was even still alive. Kid wasn't doing anything to be sure of the fact to Maka's, knowledge which right now wasn't reliable.
"Holy Shinigami- Maka are you ok?" Harvard's eyes widened. Maka saw her reflection in his glasses. Blood was dribbling down her mouth and on her chin, due to her gnawing at her mouth too much. Without thinking, she bit down again. It reminded her of Crona, slowly sinking into a black pool.
"You have to stop now before you get hurt," Harvard crouched down in front of her. "We don't even have a nurse if something goes wrong."
She was about to scoff- since when was a cut lip ever that serious- when Kim and Jakie burst into the room, making a beeline for Nygus-sensei.
"Where the hell is he?" Kim spat out, startling Maka. Nygus-sensei didn't look offended or angry at being talked to in such a way; she only seemed tired.
"Sid went to the grounds to mediate a fight," Mygus-sensei replied. "He's busy- tell that to Kid."
"I can't, sensei," Kim hissed. "Kid's not going to be here for long. We need to fill Sid-sensei in."
Wait. Kid was in academy right now? And what was so urgent that Sid-sensei needed to be pulled out for? Wasn't everything over?
Maka quickly stood up, stepping over Harvard who scoffed indignantly. "Kim!" she cried out, making the pink haired girl turn around. "What is going on?" She sounded more desperate than she wanted to, but hoped that would work out in her favor.
Unfortunately, Kim only glared at her and stormed out the door. Jakie hung back, giving Maka a sympathetic look.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you, Maka," she said quietly. "It's classified information."
And with that, she hurried out of the room to catch up with her meister. Maka just sat down defeated.
.
.
Soul kicked over a stone, barely watching BlackStar fight some other irrelevant student. Inside, he was seething with guilt of randomly leaving Maka alone in a meisters and weapons class, without leaving her an explanation. That was a jerk move on his part. Now she and Tsubaki would have to explain to Nygus-sensei of their absence. If Tsubaki had even bothered to show up.
Now, he'd dulled over his feelings by stating himself to cool to worry about things like this. He was a master of doing that, ever since he realized that his brother Wes was better than him and everybody knew that. He shook off the feeling of inferiority by acting like he was above it all- like he had better plans. His mother actually believed him, and as soon as he displayed his innate weapon ability, he was shipped off to the DWMA where he met Maka and BlackStar a month later.
Sid-sensei was mediating the fight, as BlackStar beat the tar out of the random student. Probably the only thing stopping Sid-sensei from intervening was the fact that Tsubaki wasn't there to cause further damage. This was all stopped short after Kim and Jakie stormed in and whispered something hastily in Sid-sensei's ear.
"BlackStar, you're going to have to stop the fight," he said. "He's already unconscious and I have to go now."
"What?" BlackStar cried out. "Come on, Sid! He's still moving!" the boy gave a tired groan. "And besides, this is unfair. You can't to that, Kim! This is all your fault!"
Kim turned pinker than her hair from rage and yelled back at him. "I can if I'm on Shinigami business!"
"I DON'T CARE!"
"THAT'S TOO BAD!"
Shinigami business? But Kid had told Soul that it was all over ages ago, after they'd both killed some random Kishin a month ago in India. Soul had thought it was a bi odd- Asura was defeated so there ideally shouldn't have been any left, but Kid insisted that it was normal, and not to tell Maka. Now Soul knew how naïve he was. Slaying a Kishin that wasn't supposed to exist, without Liz and Patty and Kid instructing that Maka (of all people, Maka) shouldn't know about it. And now Kid was having some meeting with Sid-sensei and who knows how many other people?
Something happened to Crona. Asura was either coming back to life (ha ha) after killing Crona, or the blood trap was slipping. Soul doubted it was the latter after only six months. Crona was stronger than that.
Maka needed to know about this. She was Crona's closest friend and his partner, so she had every right to know. Although we haven't been talking much lately. Ever since that incident.
"Hey BlackStar," Soul said, watching his teal-haired friend slump morosely against the building wall, seemingly finished with the student. "Wanna follow Sid and figure of what's going on?"
"You go," he said, jumping off the side of the building. "I don't care," he called out from below.
Soul sighed and took BlackStar's place on the wall, the other student having dragged himself up and declaring that he was going to the nurse. Soul didn't bother telling him that they didn't have a new nurse yet. Medusa had been a darn good nurse (despite them later realizing she was a witch), and who ever was in charge was finding it difficult to replace her. If anyone was in charge. Did Kid even employ anyone after the battle on the moon?
"Hey," Maka said, walking up to him and sitting down beside him. "I was looking for you."
"How'd you find me?" he asked.
"I ran into BlackStar on my way. He said you were here."
"Oh."
"Yeah," they just sat awkwardly for a little while.
"Why did you ditch class?" she asked, just as he said, "I need to tell you something."
"Never mind that," she said. "What happened?"
Soul took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult.
.
.
"So Crona's either injured, dead or running out of energy?" Maka said, taking the news surprisingly normally. Soul was afraid she'd drag him to the moon to get their friend back.
"Yes," Soul said. "Or at least that's what I think. I don't know, maybe we're reading into this too much."
"No, I don't think you are," Maka sighed. "It makes sense. Why else would Kid want Sid-sensei now?"
She knew about that. "Puberty problems?"
Maka glared at him. "Kidding," he muttered, not wanting a Maka Chop. Seriously, he didn't know why she didn't try that on Asura. It would have defeated him- it was that lethal.
"But hey, are you ok?" he realized immediately that it was stupid question. Maka was really close to Crona, and hearing something like this would have destroyed her.
"I'm fine," she said firmly. "Want to go to Kid's place and get some answers?"
"Sure," he smirked. Even after everything, they were totally on the same page.
Using Maka's soul perception ability (to track down Kid in case he wasn't in the Shinigami's office), the two walked on.
"Oh yeah, Maka why are you covered in blood?"
Oh crap," she swiped her hands over her mouth again. "Just bit it too hard,"
Soul scoffed, causing Maka to hit him, which (he wouldn't admit out loud) actually hurt. Those were the benefits of being the meister- she had to be tough to swing him around.
"He's in the office," she whispered, holding out an arm to stop Soul from walking in any further.
"Nice," he said, "Should we eavesdrop?"
"No!" Maka hissed. We're going in."
"Wait- what- Maka no!" she said, but to no avail. Maka kicked the door open.
"This is so uncool," he groaned, but followed her none the less.
Kid was sitting at a table, along with Liz, Patty, Stein, Marie, Spirit, Sid, Nygus, Kim and Jakie. They all looked at Maka disbelievingly.
'Can I help you, Maka?" Kid finally asked.
"Yes you can," she said firmly, seemingly embarrassed by her spur of the moment decision. "You can start by telling me what happened to Crona."
"Nothing happened to Crona," Marie said soothingly, but no one listened to her.
"Soul! What did you tell her?" Kid hissed, looking extremely stressed.
"She had the right to know!" Soul said indignantly. "It's not cool to leave your partner in the dark."
"You're a Death Scythe!" Kid shot back. "You were sworn to confidentiality!"
"I don't care," Soul said. "My meister takes top priority." He thought he saw Maka scoff at that, but decided not to dwell on it at the moment.
"That's very admirable, Soul," Nygus said. "But you do have duties to fill as a Death Scythe. Whatever Shinigami tells you is no be kept a secret."
"Kid didn't tell me anything," Soul said, confused.
"Hang on. We are not on the same page here," Stein said. "Everyone shut up before you reveal more than you should."
"There's more?" Maka asked skeptically.
"Nice one, Stein," Spirit said frowming at the silver haired meister.
"Kid, what have you not been telling them?" asked Jakie. "Do Kim and I know about this?"
Confusion erupted between all members in the room, while Kid steadily grew redder and redder.
"ENOUGH!" Patty yelled. Everyone froze.
"Thank you Paty," said Kid. "Now Maka I can't tell you everything, but I can assure you, nothing happened to Crona."
"Not good enough, Kid," Maka snarled, taking a book out of her bag, ready to rip Kid a new one. Kid gulped. He'd never been on the receiving end of the Maka Chop, but from Soul's and Spirit's reports, it HURT.
"Back it up, guys," said Liz suddenly. "Maka, Soul, what do you know?"
"Random Kishins appearing out of no where, secret missions to destroy them and an order to not tell Maka anything."
"Secret missions?" Liz frowned. "What the hell, Kid? You took Soul instead of us?"
Kid held his head in his hands. "Please, please, stop talking everyone. Somebody go call BlackStar and Tsubaki. Get Ox, Harvard and Kilik too. I'll explain what's happening and I'll answer your questions, but I'll do it when all the members of Spartoi are present. Does that work, Maka?"
"I guess," she said. "Ox, Harvard and Kilik are in the meister-weapon combat class which someone failed to show up to" (Soul groaned) "and I have to idea where BlackStar and Tsubaki are."
"Noted," Kid said. "Sid-sensei, do you mind fetching BlackStar and Tsubaki for us?"
"They aren't together," Soul interjected. The zombie got up and groaned.
"This is not my day," he creaked off.
"Just have a seat," Kid said, not bothering to look at the two. "Help yourself to anything, but please wait for the others to show up before you start asking questions."
It was then that Soul realized how terrible Kid looked. His normally neat hair was mussed up, and there were dark circles under his eyes, which looked dull on his paler-than-usual face. His new Shinigami robes, which he took pride in were rumpled and he made no attempt to restore them back to their original symmetrical state. Whatever was happening wasn't good for Kid at all.
The doors swung open, and Ox, Harvard, Kilik and his weapons walked in, all looking curious. Soul saw Kilik's Spartoi gloves peeking out off his pocked- he thought this was all over. Right behind them was an exasperated looking Tsubaki and BlackStar, who was holding Angela.
"Angela can't be here during this meeting," Spirit said. BlackStar glared at him, but whispered in the little witches' ear, and she ran off to her room. That was odd. BlackStar usually never listened to people.
"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here," Kid said after Fire and Thunder stopped fighting each other for the last chair (they both just sat on Kilik's lap). "What I'm about to tell you could potentially endanger your lives for the foreseeable future. Anyone who doesn't want to take the risk can walk out now."
As expected, no one walked out.
"Ever since Asura has been trapped on the moon and the witches have been allied with the DWMA, all our enemies should have been defeated. This should have been all over."
Maka nodded silently. Soul knew she was thinking the same thing- he often heard her muttering that in her sleep at night.
"It turns out that the fall of Asura has spurred a new legion on Kishins to target our school. They haven't taken the 'death' of their master, or the 'betrayal' of the witches kindly. In fact, we found Erica dead three months ago."
There was a collective gasp from the students and Nygus. Soul vaguely remembered a shot frog-like woman with white hair. Coming to think of it, he hadn't seen her around in a long time.
"The Mizune sisters," Tsubaki's voice wavered. "Where are they?"
"In protective custody," Liz said.
"In prison," Kid said shortly.
"What the hell, Kid! They weren't supposed to know that!" Liz said angrily.
"They have the right to know that much," Kid said. "Mizune turned wild at the sight of Erica's body. She has been declared a danger, and is now in one of our holding cells."
"How about Free?" asked Ox. Free and Erica had been close- they'd even begun dating shortly after Kid had been made new Shinigami.
"He's missing," Kid said. "We've got Azuza, Clay and Akane leading the search parties to look for him."
"Is someone targeting the witches?" Sid asked.
"Honestly, we don't know," Marie said. "After Erica, no one we knew has mysteriously died."
"I've got the witch leaders reporting to me about any unusual incidences," Kim said. "So far, nothing really."
"Angela could be in danger though," Harvard said, eyeing BlackStar, who froze. "After all, she's an easy target."
"Angela," BlackStar hissed. "Is not in any danger. She's under my protection."
Harvard scoffed. "So you took Mifune's job now?"
BlackStar tensed. "Shut up, Harvard."
"Maybe we should tell her what really happened to Mifune. She has every right to know."
"Don't you dare!" BlackStar bounded to his feet, chair toppling over behind him. "The last thing we need right now is her running away from us!"
"Calm down!" Sid stood up and roared. Everyone fell silent. "No one is telling Angela anything until we've got this mess sorted out."
"That's not all of it," Kid had his head in his hands now. "We've got bigger problems that none of you know about."
"None of us?" Stein frowned. "Kid, you are supposed to tell Marie and I everything."
"I didn't know if it was a real threat," Kid said. "Around a month ago, Soul and I defeated a Kishin in India."
All eyes turned on Soul, who slumped into his seat. "Kid, it was a random Kishin who was rebelling against Asura's death," Soul tried to reason. "It wasn't any difficult to fight, and its soul sure as hell didn't taste any different."
Kid sighed (something he'd been doing a lot that day), and pulled two scrolls of paper from his sleeve. "Just look at this map."
One was a map of the world, with tiny cross marks on some places. Soul recognized the location in India and a few other places where he and Kid had gone to defeat a Kishin.
"Yeah, Bangkok, Hawaii and the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Kid, we were there some time ago," Liz said sharply.
"He went with you alone?" Patty asked confused. "Actually, that's not surprising. We went here, and here, and here…"
Spirit frowned. "Kid, some of these are places I went to with you as well. What's going on? These are just random places with no connection. "
Kid ignored him. "Now look at this map."
It was the exact same thing. "This is a map of the places the moon has shone for the same duration as well."
Everyone was silent, until Maka spoke up, voicing Kid's thoughts as well. "Kid, the moon shines on literally every place in the world at every time."
"That isn't the case anymore," he said firmly. "Ever since Asura's been drowning in Black Blood, the entire surface of the moon has been covered, except for the eye, which shines on only specific places every night."
Jackie sucked in her breath. "These Kishins have been located at the exact same place as where the moon's eye light was!"
"You mean-"
"Something in the moon has been triggering dead Kishins to resurrect," Kid said.
"Dead?" asked Nygus.
"Yes. After a couple, I realized that I've seen some of them before. After looking into the DWMA's records, every single Kishin I've defeated has previously been killed by someone in the DWMA."
"We're not safe anymore," Maka trembled. "All we've done in the past will come back to haunt us."
.
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How did you like it?
This is my first Soul Eater fanfic, based on the manga. I thought it ended at the perfect time for new headcannons and/or possible new adventures, so this is my idea of what will happen after the battle on the moon. I don't yet know if romance will be a large part of my story yet.
Review and tell me what you think! Unless you haven't signed in, I'll be replying to them all.
-SpiderLover :D