Chapter 1: Sanity and Speaking

Hey, Evans!

"Don't use my last name, jerk."

Shut up, now listen. You can feel the black blood flowing within you. You want to become stronger. You NEED to be stronger.

"I don't want to be. For Maka's sanity, I'd like to stay as I am."

You know the door will always be open...

That's when he woke up in a cold sweat. That demon on his doorstep, it will never cease to knock. He sighed, he couldn't help it. Lately, he had been seeing the demon more than ever. And honestly? He couldn't care less. He looked at the clock. It read five in the morning. He groaned and laid back down. After fifteen minutes, he couldn't sleep anymore. Sadly, even Maka didn't get up this early. He decided to take an early shower. That would kill time before Maka would get up. He walked out of the bathroom and got dressed in his usual attire. His shirt lightly brushing the scars on his chest. Sure, they were quite old news by now. But sometimes it did feel a little uncomfortable. He wasn't self conscious, he just didn't like how Maka felt about them. After all, he did almost die.

That's when he heard Maka's alarm to go off. He decided to surprise her today. He started cooking some eggs. He didn't know how to cook much, but he did know how to cook eggs. Even a simpleton could do it, after all! Maka was dressed in her own usual attire when she came out fifteen minutes later. "What's this?" she asked as shed tilted her head curiously.

"Breakfast." Soul said simply.

"Okay, what do you want?"

"Why do you think that every time I'm nice that I am asking for something?"

"That's what most guys seem to do."

"Well, I am not most guys, tiny tits!"

"Maka chop!" she said as she hit him over the head with a book. Soul regretted saying that, but he didn't mind. He got this all the time, he was sure his skull was steel by now! He grinned cheesily as he took the eggs from the pan and gave himself some before greedily eating what he had on his plate. He regretted not making some bacon to go with the eggs, but they had very few strips left. He sighed and thought over the dream with that stupid red demon in it. Always with the pin stripes. He sighed and put his plate in the sink when he was done.

"Soul, is something going on?" Maka asked. Soul shook his head. And just as Maka was about to ask again, the door flew open...

"Maka! Daddy wanted to visit his perfect daughter!" said the red haired death scythe with a wide grin.

"Really? Or did you run out of girls to flirt with?"

"Maka is so mean to her daddy!"

Soul watched this with a small smile. He grabbed his stuff. "Maka, the others are probably waiting for us. Let's go." he told her as he stood up. He noticed Maka hadn't even finished breakfast, but with a distraction like THAT, who wouldn't be?

Maka nodded and they started walking out the door. As she as closing the door, from inside called a sad voice saying "Daddy loves you, Maka..."

OoOoOoOo

Once they got to a certain point, the others were waiting. "You're late!" called Patti. Maka smiled and walked over. Soul trailed behind her. Black Star grinned. "Don't worry, we just got here ourselves!" he said as he gave her a thumbs up. He walked over to Soul. "What's with you?" he asked the spaced out weapon as he gave him a huge pat on the back. This made him fall over and (obviously) bring him out of his spaced out state. Tsubaki shook her head. "Black Star, please be a little gentle."

His reply: "I don't know the meaning of that word!"

He got up and dusted himself off. He looked around and put his arm around Black Star's neck and brought him close. "Look, I want to tell Maka something, and I don't know how to do it." Soul whispered.

"What do you want to tell her?" Asked the oh so loud Black Star.

"Can't you whisper?"

"How do you do that?" Black Star asked. Soul smacked his head with his other hand. He let Black Star go, and walked away shaking his head. "What did I do?" asked the clueless technician.

Kidd walked over to Maka and smiled. "I'm having a small get-together tonight. Black Star and Tsubaki already accepted, but more people being there would help." he told her. Then he leaned in and whispered "Also, more help controlling Black Star." Black Star just looked at them, upon the very hearing of his name.

"What? Didn't you say my name?"

"Uh... no."

"No, I totally heard it!"

Maka smiled and said "We were talking about how great you were. Kidd really respects you, after all."

Kidd gave her a blank look. Sure, he did respect him, but not openly. Black Star grinned.

"Of course you were! I am better than any god."

Soul was kicking dirt when he felt someone tap his shoulder. It was Liz. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's nothing."

"No, there's something wrong."

"Can you keep a secret?" Liz nodded.

"There's a girl I like, and I don't know how to approach her... you know, that way."

And of course, Black Star was standing right there. He had a big grin on his face.

"Who is it?!"

"Shut up, Black Star." Soul said with a groan.