SoMa. T for language. Set after the manga. I do not own Soul Eater or the song 'Bleeding Out' by Imagine Dragons.
Plans Never Work Out
Lisp.
Because I'm bleeding out,
So if the last thing that I do
Is bring you down,
I'll bleed out for you.
- "Bleeding Out", Imagine Dragons.
How the fuck had he gotten into the situation? Soul wondered as he lunged back, propelling himself off of yet another cardboard crate. An hour ago he'd been setting out on his chrome Road King with his meister, Black*Star and Tsubaki in tow, to defeat another pre-Kishin pack. What the hell had changed in the sixty minutes to leave him in this current freakin' position?
His thought train was broken as he dodged yet another attack of poisonous ink. It corroded the objects in the warehouse around him, burning the edge of his white Spartoi jacket - which he'd worn because his black one had been set on fire last week - slightly. Soul hissed and jumped, trying to get some room away from the witch.
That was right. He was fighting a witch. All by himself.
"I can take on this horde all by myself! This will be no problem for someone as strong as I am!" Black*Star crowed, standing outside the warehouse lot with a wide grin. Tsubaki stood wearily beside him, smiling encouragingly – she'd had to use the Enchanted Sword for Black*Star to "bounce" his way after Soul and Maka.
Soul rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You're great, we know. But, more importantly, there should be about twenty-five souls left to consume after today. You want most of them?"
"But we couldn't just take them all from you!" Tsubaki gasped. Black*Star was too busy flipping and yelling to notice the conversation had moved on.
"Leave Soul a few so he doesn't complain about being hungry, if you feel bad," Maka shrugged, "but he doesn't need them. He's just a pig."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
"Hai," Tsubaki nodded gratefully. "So, are we going to infiltrate the warehouse lots together or separately?"
"Well, according to the mission briefing, the twenty-five corrupt souls are scattered across the different buildings, so we can pretty well take our pick and destroy them at random, I guess," the ash-blonde girl said. "We'll take the west factory outlets and you can have the left-side depots and production lines if you like."
Black*Star jumped down beside Tsubaki. "Please. Once I'm done, there'll be nothing left for you and Soul to do."
"Whatever. If you need us, just yell really loudly or break a roof or something. Maka will pick it up with her Soul Perception anyway." Soul transformed himself into his Demon Scythe form, landing easily in Maka's hands. She twisted him around in her fingertips a few times for good measure.
Black*Star nodded, grasping Tsubaki in kusarigama mode, and the two teams split up to take down the pre-Kishin lurking just up ahead.
Soul cussed inwardly. He couldn't approach the witch in this current form. His left arm was bleeding heavily at the shoulder, and a sharp blade was protruding from his veins just below the elbow of the right arm. He'd sliced the witch's opposite arm, and the wound had successfully caused her to begin to leak out as well, but this fight was nowhere near equal. The witch was far more powerful. Death Scythe or not, he was no autonomous weapon. He needed Maka before he could be of any use. That much had been proven many times, a fact that he was not proud to admit.
Speaking of which, where was Tiny-Tits? Despite his own predicament, Soul's gut seized with worry when he thought of his meister facing pre-Kishin alone. She'd regrouped with Black*Star and Tsubaki, that much he knew. He'd seen her entering the building with them, and he'd been following her right before . . . this happened.
"Well, I think that's all of them in this factory. Thank Death – it still reeks like fish," Maka complained, screwing up her nose.
"We'll just leave the souls here for Tsubaki and Black*Star to collect afterwards, yeah? Sure, they're not trying to make a Death Scythe now, but with 'Star as a meister, she'll need all the freebies she can get."
"Okay, sounds good. Where should we go next?"
Soul transformed for a moment, shifting his shoulders as he plucked one of the souls from the air and placed it in his mouth. He chewed it for a few seconds before swallowing, blowing the air out of his mouth with a satisfied sigh. Maka looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "What? I was hungry!"
"I told you that you were a pig . . ." she trailed off with a blank look, her eyes flashing a bright green as her Soul Perception activated. "Black*Star and Tsubaki are taking on four souls at once!"
She immediately ran out of the room, without him, leaving him to grumble for a moment about her impulsive tendencies before he followed her. However, before he could quite reach the production line warehouse door, something clamped around his leg. He looked down, about to call out to his meister, but he was pulled backwards before he could get a word out, disappearing into the blackness of another warehouse before he could even blink.
"For . . . fuck's . . . sake!" he exclaimed as a particularly sharp blow was dealt to his leg. "Why don't you quit, you crazy . . . bitch?"
The witch smiled, shimmying towards him. Her hair was black but with a navy bluish tint to it. It curled out from her face in a style distinctively split into eight extreme sections. They flipped out, spiralling in on themselves like the tentacles of the octopus she was themed after. Her outfit was vague and revealing, coming only to her knees and fanning out in a ripple of light blue. Her dress looked like the ocean in the light, as it reflected on the material to give the effect of waves. She had bright blue eyes as well, and they were currently trained on the Death Scythe in front of her.
"Aw, you're such a pretty boy!" she cooed, stepping closer and closer. "I really don't want to destroy you. Can't I just keep you instead?"
"Damn it, what the hell? You're meant to be fighting me, you idiot! Besides, you're freakin' ugly. Why would I ever let you keep me?"
The witch's eyes narrowed at the word 'ugly.' She was youthful, probably only twenty, and very vain. She was also coquettish, continually attempting flirting with Soul amidst the attempts to kill him. And boy, was it really starting to piss him off. Who did this bitch think she was? "You shouldn't say mean things to beautiful girls, little weapon. It's not very nice, and it makes them angry."
"Well, I didn't say anything mean – to a beautiful girl, that is. You aren't even a girl."
Shit, he thought as she stopped her pacing, her back straightening. That was not the smartest thing I've ever said. Now the freakin' octopus is pissed.
The witch giggled, insanity playing over her face. "How would you know what beauty is? To you, right is wrong. You don't know anything!" She thrust her arm out toward him, her nails extending like tiny, slimy tentacles. "Maybe if I rip off your pretty little head, you'll see just how beautiful I am! I'll show you up close!"
"Pass," Soul hissed as he ducked behind a metal cabinet. He heard a sear as the ink from the tentacles began to eat away at the metal. Maka, he thought silently, allowing his soul to reach out to hers as much as possible in the present condition. Please, if you can hear me, kindly get your fucking ass over here right now before I get killed or molested by this psycho witch. He couldn't feel a reply from her, but he trusted she would understand his general meaning of panic if his wavelength message reached her. If.
Once again the tentacles launched, seeking purchase on flesh. This time, due to his distraction, Soul felt one of them clamp around his wrist. He looked down to see what appeared to be horridly elongated human skin on the probing tentacles, but there was no mistaking the blue-black ink swirling in the witch's veins. He winced, releasing an involuntary cry of pain as the tiny suckers in the tentacle released their teeth, sinking sharply into his arm. The witch giggled, twirling a finger on her non-released arm. The teeth sunk in deeper, injecting poisonous ink as they did so. Soul thrashed, another louder cry tearing out of his chest, as his wrist began to burn. His bladed arm came down atop the tentacle before his veins could be reached, and there was a loud hiss as skin and tendon separated from bone. Inky blood ran down Soul's arm, and he pulled out the tentacle, throwing it to the side with a flinch of pain.
The witch was shrieking. "You broke my nail! My beauty is being compromised by my closeness to you, little scythe boy! I, Octavia, will not lose my gorgeous form to something as dull as your red toothed sickle! It's not right," she cried, flipping back her hair and again giving it that odd bluish sheen. "I wanted to keep you. But now you're threatening my prettiness, so I'm going to kill you instead. Your blood will make my skin nice and youthful-looking, I'm sure!"
"You're seriously high," he grumbled, shaking out his arm. It was slowly numbing, a fact that showed the venom had somehow entered his system. It wasn't enough to worry or plague him – he had Black Blood, after all. Something as light as a failure to inject poison wasn't going to end him. However, it might slow his movements, and in a situation like this, that meant death.
"I am if you want me to be," Octavia said in that same girlishly seductive voice. "I want you to beg me for your life. Get on the ground, on your knees, and beg me."
Soul backed up. He needed to get out of this building and find his meister while he still could. Her anger was a good distraction. "Yeah, I'm gonna have to take a pass on that one too, I think. I don't need to beg for my life. You couldn't take it if you tried!"
"I could take you." Her lids lowered. "Have you beg for mercy a different way."
His stomach literally lurched in repulsion of the idea. This girl – for really, the witch's youth made her that, despite what he had said earlier – was so slimy, so coquettish, that he just wanted to rid her of his sight. Why would he ever go for a girl like her? Sure, her tits were huge, but the shape and form didn't matter. It was the soul that mattered, and her soul was ugly. Octavia could preach of beauty all she wanted, but her soul was puckered, slashed and twisted beyond recognition, dripping with ink and insanity. It was not a soul he wanted. It wasn't Maka's, with her odd Grigori shaping and her honest, hardworking, hard-ass wavelength. This witch could say whatever she wanted, but she wasn't the one his soul was calling for.
Man, that was the girliest shit I have ever thought. 'Soul is calling for'? Seriously? How uncool. I think I've been Maka-Chopped one too many times.
Octavia clearly took his silence as a pondering of her question. She smiled in that smarmy way, her lips turned up at the corners as she shimmied her wave-like dress. That smirk fell off her face though when she saw Soul decidedly stepping away from her. "You're not who I want," he said bluntly.
He saw the jealousy overtake Octavia's face, despite her anger at him. She was so childish as she stamped her foot. "Fine. I'll kill you, then I'll kill the bitch you want. Either that, or I'll keep you alive just long enough to see her blood hit your face!" Happy with herself, the octopus witch jumped from foot to foot.
Just as Soul was about to turn and grasp the handle of the factory door, another nail-tentacle shot out from Octavia's hand and pushed against the latch, preventing it from being opened. He dodged a wide attack from a second one, as the tentacle that should have been used to capture him had been severed by his blade and now dripped in the corner, the picturesque image of gore. Soul ducked an angry blow, hearing the sizzle of the metal door as the ink touched it. Octavia's eyes were shaded, the light blue of the sky becoming stormy like the ocean, and she twirled her fingers. Her hair began to uncurl from its style, the blackish-blue tresses extending with deadly sharp points.
"Skewer barbs!" she exclaimed, and every single point was thrust towards the Death Scythe at the same moment. He managed to avoid three of them, but the other five cut through his flesh in various areas of his arms and legs. Miraculously, his torso had been unpenetrated.
"Missed," he grunted, speaking around the stinging pain. His arm came up to slice at one of the protruding hair-spikes. When he cut it, it turned into burning ink, landing on his foot. He spat out a curse as his sneakers were chewed up.
Pulling at the spikes, he managed to escape just as a
tentacle came rushing towards his face. Octavia laughed in a high pitch, twirling around in a circle of dance as her entire fingers became tentacles, save the thumbs. She now only had seven, as one had been removed, and the same went for the curls in her hairstyle. Kid would be horrified, Soul thought drily.
Before either opponent could launch a next attack, a loud crash was heard at the door. Octavia was still holding it closed, but Soul could hear Black*Star banging on the metal. If Black*Star wanted to enter a room, he'd find a way to.
"Soul! Can you hear your God? We're coming to save your ass, don't worry!" his best friend bellowed as he dealt more blows to the door. Soul relaxed momentarily at the promise of help.
That moment was all it took for Octavia to wrench a spike across his injured shoulder. "Fuck!" he yelled, holding his shoulder in pain. The nerves in the arm felt like they were being zapped, and it dropped without his permission down to his side. At least it was his left arm and not his right.
"Soul!" Maka shrieked from outside, feeling the seize of pain from his wavelength. "Hold on!"
He was very tempted to yell out, 'Well what do you think I'm doing? Having a spot of tea?', but he couldn't risk taking his eyes off of the witch. Octavia was smirking again now, which wasn't a good sign. He assumed it was from the injury he'd just sustained, but then her now-sinister eyes flicked over to the door.
"So that's her, isn't it?" she cooed. "The one who just spoke. She's the one you want." Her eyes narrowed. "I'll make her hurt."
"Don't touch her," Soul replied angrily, shooting forward. Kill me, and that's one thing. Touch Maka . . . bitch, you're gonna die.
He extended his working arm, allowing the entire limb to transform into a sickle blade, before twisting his core. It hurt his dead arm, but the blade did its job. Octavia jerked to the side to avoid being impaled, but the weapon still dug into her hip when she wasn't fast enough. It sank about four centimetres into her pelvis, making her cry out in alarm and pain. He grinned almost manically, enjoying inflicting pain in return to the ailment she'd caused him. However, his victory was short lived when she clenched his shoulders in her thin hands. He roared as she squeezed his cracking bones in the left arm, before her finger-tentacles released their suckers into his skin again. It burned, but that gave him the motivation to thrust her away from his now-writhing body. The poison was getting too potent, making its way closer and closer to his bloodstream.
As both he and the octopus-witch stumbled back, holding their injuries, the door gave an almighty groan. Octavia's tentacle sealing the door was pushed away as the steel was thrust open. Black*Star laughed triumphantly. "I told you I'd get it open! It is the great me, after all."
Maka ignored him, surging forwards towards her weapon. He could see the concern in her eyes, her parted lips – and he wasn't surprised. Whoever designed the Spartoi uniforms was an idiot, because blood showed up extremely easily on white clothes. Soul was covered in it.
Just as his meister was about to reach him, Octavia lifted her arm. She sneered out the words, "Inked-in Confinement!" and suddenly there was a barrier between him and Maka. At first, it began at the floor. A lighter blue ink had shot from the witch's bleeding arm, and when it landed it began to grow and expand. A filmy, watery barrier built rapidly from the spot, caging Maka, Black*Star and Tsubaki into one half of the room and Soul and Octavia into the other.
"No," Maka cried, and tried to move forwards. Hitting the wall, despite its liquid appearance, was like running into brick. She pounded her fists on the wall. "Damn it! Soul!" She turned to Black*Star, who was staring in shock. "Can your Soul Wave get through?"
The ninja assassin shot his wavelength into the wall four times, but to no avail. He ended up shocking himself, landing on his butt and fumbling for the dropped Tsubaki. Octavia chuckled lightly. "How sweet. They're trying to get to you and stop you from being filleted. However, it's no use. I'll destroy you, boy, and I'll take as much pleasure in it as I would have done had you accepted my other offer of pleasure."
"You witch!" Maka roared from the other side of the confinement spell. "This wasn't on the mission debrief! You aren't meant to be here! Release him or I'll . . ."
"You'll what, dear? Yell me to death? Sorry. I don't want to share the scythe. He's all mine now. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll leave a piece of his soul for you to hold onto when I kill you."
"Why are you attacking us as Shibusen members?" Maka demanded, trying to keep the witch's attention away from her injured partner. "We have a truce with the witches – since the moon . . ."
"I waited around, watching these corrupt souls, hoping a meister and weapon would show up to satisfy me. My last lover was slain by Shibusen brats before the defeat of the Kishin. I figured I might slay your lover, just to make things equal," Octavia replied with a scowl. She flicked her hair in Maka's direction before turning back to Soul.
"But he isn't my – Soul isn't . . ." Once again, Maka was interrupted.
"Irrelevant. You may as well be, with the way your souls are reacting to each other. You're partners, in every sense of the word besides physical sexual contact. It's cute, watching you both pine." The witch twirled her fingers again, ignoring Maka's rage and heavy blush. "But not cute enough to keep him alive." Her barbs of hair were released in a mad dash for Soul.
With an agility that surprised even him – but hey, life-threatening experiences do that to a guy – Soul propelled himself from the ground. He couldn't use his Black Blood or his piano without Maka, and there was no way he could force a resonance through the impenetrable confinement wall. He was going to die by the hand of this slut, and there was nothing he could do but prolong his fate.
Soul was upset that Maka was stuck on the other side of the wall, watching him. She'd see everything, and she'd never forgive herself for leaving his side. She'd destroy herself over him. Soul's eyes hardened – that was it, he had to live. For Maka, so she didn't tear her soul to pieces. With this in mind, he made a quick swipe at Octavia's head. It missed, trimming her bangs. Blood slicked both players of this deadly game, and the ink only made things more slippery as Soul unexpectedly shoved the witch to the ground. Her tentacles caught his ankle and he fell too, but he quickly rolled and kicked off the attached appendage. He felt a twinge as his left arm began to work in a mobile way again. A blade slid out perpendicular to his wrist – not full like his other arm, but it was the best he could muster at that present moment due to the pain in his limb. The left blade cut into the already injured hip of Octavia, causing it to gush blood and bluish-black ink once again.
"Soul! Watch out!" Maka screeched, and then the hair-spikes cut at his face and neck. It stung, but due to Octavia's pain, they weren't as strong as they were previously.
"You stupid bastard. Why couldn't you just adore me like I told you to? You would have felt death's clutches much quicker!" the witch snarled, taking a step forward. "Octopia, Pisces. Squida, Pisces." Twin jets of dark blue water burst from her palms, hitting Soul with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs and send him crashing into the room's back wall.
"Damn it," Black*Star cursed, punching the Confinement spell. Maka had her hands and face pressed up to it, watching with held breath as her partner battled for his life. There were tears in her eyes, and a few had spilled down onto the floor underneath her. "We can't just sit here and do nothing!"
"What can we do?" Maka hissed, her watery eyes squeezing closed in frustration. "Even you can't break this barrier, and I don't have Soul to cut through it."
"Can we enter the fight from above? Break down the roof or somethin'?"
"No," Maka murmured with a constricted voice. "The enchantment has a roof, too. It's like they're fighting inside a box, some kind of spatial magic we can't penetrate."
Black*Star punched the wall yet again. "I refuse to just fucking watch!"
"Soul," Maka whispered, watching him pull himself up from the wall. "Don't you dare freaking die."
Soul hauled himself to his feet, rolling out of the way of more tentacle attacks. Octavia's stingers were drooping due to her weakened state, but even still, she had the upper-hand in strength, power and skill. It was amazing that he'd lasted this long against her. He was determined to survive this, despite the odds against him.
"Just die!" the young witch screamed, throwing another jet of water at him with her barbs entangled inside. It narrowly missed, but Soul's avoidance cost him a slip on a patch on ink. Stinging tentacles wrapped themselves around his ankles and hoisted him upside down into the air.
Soul heard Maka scream out to him, but his ears were ringing from his head hitting the ground. She was on her knees, her eyes freely leaking tears, and her hands covering her mouth in horror. He could only imagine what he'd look like in her position, watching her fight without being able to intervene.
"Ah, young love. It's beautiful, isn't it? Almost as beautiful as me," Octavia said, bringing him closer to her with her tentacle extremities. When he was only centimetres from her face, she glanced over at Maka before landing a kiss on the weapon.
Soul turned his face, so the witch only managed to let her lips graze his cheek, but he could smell the ink and feel it dropping down his face. Octavia gave a hiss of displeasure and threw him down to the ground, not releasing her hold on him. His mind was starting to click pieces together. Her sway of madness was so bitter . . . and he thought he knew why.
Octavia raised him again, her dishevelled body trembling with anticipation. "Ready to die, boy? Say goodbye to your girlfriend. She might need the words when she sees your gorgeous head removed from your body."
Soul turned his head to Maka, saw her mouthing the word "No!", and then the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. His heart was hammering as his eyes caught hers, and the care he could see in her eyes was obviously reflected in his. That was it. That was the key. He'd always been the strategist, reading people silently. And now he'd read Octavia, through Maka.
The octopus-witch raised her hand, the tentacles sharpening into talons, the hair coiling in its barbs, ready to strike. "Any last words, baby?"
Soul looked up evenly at her. "That's all you want, isn't it? You want somebody to love you, because it's killing you to be alone."
The grip on his ankle suddenly tightened and Maka gasped. "What did you just say, you bastard?" Octavia hissed, her pupils shrinking to enraged points. Her nails shot into his arm, but he held in the cry. "What did you just fucking say?"
"I said, you want somebody. You can't stand to see anybody else having someone to share their life with, so you're killing me to try and make yourself forget that you're all alone."
"Shut up, you idiot little shit! I don't need anybody! I'm beautiful!"
"Yes," he said in a cold voice, making her falter. "But what's the point in composing a beautiful score if you have nobody to play it to? Why paint an artwork that will never be admired, no matter the skill of the creator? Why express your feelings through a dance nobody will share with you?"
Octavia cut him off with a screech. She thrust him into the ground once, twice, a third time. "Shut up! Shut up! You don't know what you're saying! I can't hear you! La, la, la! LALALALALA!"
"You're scared of never being loved –"
"LALALALALA!"
" – And your fear is what will destroy you in the end," Soul finished, speaking around the blood filling his mouth.
"Her soul," Maka gasped, sinking down to the ground of the other side of the barrier. "He's . . . he's cracking her soul apart."
And indeed he was. He knew how to do this - he'd seen Maka do it before. When Giriko had been swelling with bloodlust, she'd broken him to pieces. Now all he had to do was keep calm, use his 'cool' and stay composed enough to use the same trick again. If Soul had the same Perception Maka had, he'd be able to see the huge fissure that appeared in Octavia's soul. Two tentacles fell off and a great crack was heard throughout the whole room. A part of the witch's face had shattered inwards, and ink dripped from the radiating lines. The pit of what was once an eye dripped black ooze onto Soul's face. She hissed with a mad grin.
"You may be right, but I can still kill you! If I kill you, I won't be the only one alone! You'll be alone too!" She began to babble, her hair-spikes pointing in a deadly fashion, ready to strike. "She'll be alone, just like I was! She'll know how it feels to have your heart ripped out! She'll know what it's like to love!" Another crack appeared, running down Octavia's arm. As she clutched Soul's neck, one tentacle finger broke off. It left a bloody, trickling stump, splashing the venomous burning substance onto Soul's flesh. He keened, his body jerking and trying of its own accord to escape from the pain.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Octavia laughed wildly. "I'LL JUST KILL YOU! BYE, BYE, SOUL EATER~!"
With one swift motion, all of her spikes embedded themselves in his chest, just underneath the collarbone. Maka and he screamed in a resonating sound, and blood began to pour down Soul's white shirtfront. With a thrust from Octavia, the barbs shot out the other side of him, ripping his jacket off of his back as his cry died out to a rough gurgling sound. His eyes filmed over, and he made a choking noise as the witch ripped the barbs back out.
Maka was on the ground, her hands on her own chest, screaming. Black*Star was attacking the Confinement barrier with all of his power, roaring with Tsubaki's shrieks as an echo. Soul couldn't hear it. Octavia sank to her knees, grinning madly, poking his writhing form. "You're dead, scythe. Watch her feel it, just like I did. Too bad, you were so hot."
" . . . She'll . . . be okay."
Octavia's grin slipped and Maka's head wrenched up at the same second, her sobs stuttering to a stop. "What do you mean?" the witch hissed.
"She . . . will be okay." He could barely talk, and blood bubbled up from his lungs. He felt like a butterfly pinned to a board. This was worse than the slice of Crona – this was the impalement Maka had suffered from Asura on the moon. However, this time Soul couldn't use the Blood to save his own body. All he could use were his words, which he'd never been very good with. But he had to try, for her, because he kindasortamaybe fucking loved her. And that was why . . . "Maka will . . . survive without . . . me. Because she . . . cares about me, so she . . . will go on."
"What? NO!" Octavia roared. "That's not how it works! She'll die of heartache, just you wait! You don't know what you're talking about!"
"Yes, I . . . do. Love . . dies." His words were beginning to weaken as his lips went numb. There was blood everywhere, but still he had to continue while he could, for her. "Love . . . lets go. Maka . . . will be okay."
"Shut up! I didn't let go, but I loved more than you ever could!"
"No," he said weakly. "You never loved." Crack, crack. The remainder of Octavia's fingers broke off in a pool of ink and blood. "You don't know . . . how." Crack, crack. "You thought you did." Crack, crack. "But in . . . the end, it . . . was only yourself. You . . . wanted to be loved . . . but you couldn't . . . return it." CRACK.
Acidic blood dripped down onto him. It felt warm. Octavia's face loomed over him with a wide grin. Both of her eye sockets were now just pits of darkness, and her pale skin had shattered like the glass of a mirror. Her arms were littered with cracks and fissures, and ink poured freely from her body. Her chest was leaking, burst open like a gasket, and her left leg had fallen away from her body. She reached out a stumped, fingerless hand to Soul.
"Her soul's shattered," Maka said in a low voice, her breathing hitched and her eyes wide. She was frozen to the ground, staring unblinkingly at Soul with her hands over her heart. "He did it."
"I hope you find out," Octavia whispered, "what it's like to be alone, boy. It's like madness. Lovely, lovely, MADNESS – Augh!"
In one massive crack, her body shattered to pieces, turning to ink and falling to the ground with a drip, drip, drip. Her soul did not remain – nothing did but the ink and the water, meshing together on the ground in a truly beautiful swirl.
Soul's eyes fell closed just as the Confinement fell, and the last thing he heard was Maka gasping his name before his blood mixed with the swirls, creating a pattern of dark red against black. Just like his soul.
He woke up eight days later, in a hospital bed with no shirt and bandages covering him from neck to waist. He couldn't move at first, feeling a wave of pain that caused his teeth to grind together and his soul itself to bend in agony. However, he calmed his aching body and forced his eyes open, taking in the harsh white light of the Dispensary.
The first thing he noticed was Maka, slumped over in the chair beside his bed. She was not facing him, instead looking out the window, but he could see the bags underneath her eyes.
"M . . . Ma . . . ka?" he swallowed around the words, a painful lump in his throat.
Maka spun breathlessly, thinking she'd heard things. But when her eyes laid upon Soul's crimson ones, his open ones, she sagged slightly in her chair, her hands instantly reaching across the bed to grasp his own. "You're finally awake," she said in a raw and raspy voice.
"How . . . l . . .long?"
"It's been eight days. You missed your birthday."
"Eight?" Shit. "Kid will . . . be thrilled." He started to talk easier, his tongue loosening.
"We didn't know if you were going to wake up," Maka admitted, her voice rough with emotion. "Of course, I did, but Stein said there was a sixty-forty chance."
"You know I love . . . to prove people wrong," he chuckled. Suddenly, he raised himself up, stock still, causing Maka to gasp and push him back down before he could hurt himself. "Octavia, is she . . . did I . . .?"
"Yes," she answered, and there was no mistaking the pride shining in her eyes. She boldly stroked his hair with her gloved hand, causing his eyes to shut slightly. "You did it."
"Cool."
They sat like that for almost an hour, Maka informing him on what he'd missed over the week and day span. Finally, Maka said, "I need to let Stein know you're awake – he needs to check you over."
Soul groaned. "Can't you just stay here and pat . . . my head for a little . . . while longer?"
Maka smiled down at him, swatting his arm lightly and playfully. "No, idiot. Besides, we have plenty of time to do that later."
"We do?"
"Yep," she grinned down at him, and he remembered Octavia's words. She'll know what it's like to love. He remembered what he'd said, her face as he'd been torn open, and a grin split his lips. Well, that was an interesting development. Maka's smiled softened as she got up, heading for the doorway. "We have all the time in the world."
I'll bleed out for you.
For you.