A/N: I don't generally do these kinds of things, but as a heads up. This could be constituted as disturbing and triggery for some people. There is character death. It is...not happy. Fair is fair.
It doesn't feel like a dream. For one thing, everything hurts. All of it. Her body, heart, soul ache with a fierceness that's staggering. From across the room, her mother stares at her, unblinking. She can see what her father sees, she thinks. There's a similarity between them in coloring, though in her opinion, she really doesn't resemble her that much. For one thing, Maka doubts she will ever have her mother's devastating figure.
She blames Spirit's side of the family. She's never met any of them, but she's seen a few pictures, and she thinks she has her paternal grandmother's scrawny looks. Just one more thing to blame on the red-headed jerkwad.
Her mother cocks her head to the side and gives her a small smile. That look is childhood lessons about weapons and sewing, learning to bake, to swing a scythe. Her heart breaks a little more, but she clenches her fists a little tighter.
"Why?" she hears herself, as if from a great distance. It doesn't even sound like her voice anymore, but her mother's lips haven't moved, so it must be her. Across the room her mother shrugs, still giving her that small smile. It isn't mocking or hurtful. It actually looks a lot like pity.
"You never understood," she replies finally. Maka blinks. In her hands, Soul is quiet, still. He feels strange and leaden, but she can't let him go.
Her mother circles, and Maka feels her body tense with familiar anticipation, ingrained into every fiber of her being. She hears the whistling swing before she can see it, raises Soul instinctively. The sound is muted because this can't really be happening. Her mother's expression hasn't changed, like she didn't just try to lop off one of her only child's limbs. "Help me understand," she grits out, eyes burning.
Her mother swings again and again, movements a familiar dance. Maka remembers watching her mother and father practice together when she was younger, the way that she would smile then, twisting and turning gracefully.
"How do you tell someone that they aren't wanted?" she asks it casually, and Maka blocks, heart crawling up her throat.
"Wh-what?" She dimly hears another whistling swing and moves, but not fast enough. Her legs feel like jelly. Soul is quiet, eerily still in her hands. She can feel her mother's weapon slide through her shirt like butter, drawing a long thin line of blood across her abdomen.
"You were an accident, a mistake."
"But-"
"But what? I was barely 17. Your father was 18. Did you really think that we would have chosen to have a child?" She leaps forward, and Maka recognizes the move as one she's used herself, countless times. She dodges again, using Soul like a pole vault, and her mother's scythe slices into the air where her ankle had been. "Do you really think that we would have chosen you?
Maka wants to wake up, the words slam around inside her skull, and in her heart of hearts, she knows that this is the truth of the matter.
"What would you have me be?" she asks, and manages to not choke on the words. Her mother pauses and gives her that sad smile again.
"Better."
Maka flings herself back, ignores the hollow thudding in her chest, and brings Soul up to block once more. She manages, just barely, feels the jarring in her arms, and skids back a few feet. Her mother's power is incredible, an insurmountable obstacle.
"Please stop-"
"Your father prayed you would be a weapon, did you know? I think he wanted that more than he wanted me." She swings her scythe one-handed, slicing at her, then spins it up and around and catches it in a stable two handed grip. Maka knows that stance, knows what it means, and doesn't know what she's going to do. "You took him from me," she says it like it's a revelation, and Maka sees the first spark of real emotion flit across her mother's face.
Papa loves Maka and Mama most.
"I didn't do anything," Maka says. "Papa's just a good for nothing. He left us both." She notices things, little movements that are buried deep within her psyche. Maka braces herself before she even realizes that the other woman's stance is shifting as her eyes narrow. And then she's launching herself at her daughter, and Maka raises Soul to block.
It's the wrong angle. She can feel it the moment before their weapons clash, and instinctively, Maka shifts to compensate, her leg sliding back as she twists Soul and catches the shaft of her mother's weapon. The older meister doesn't trip up though, just follows through, detaching her scythe expertly.
"No. He didn't leave. I left." Another strike, another block. "I should have left the moment I birthed you and let that worthless piece of shit raise you." There is a fire that burns in her mother's eyes now, melting away her previous apathy.
Her blows are harder now, and Maka constantly shifts and turns just to keep ahead of her. It's becoming increasingly hard to avoid the razor edged weapon, and Maka can feel shallow lines open on her skin periodically.
"I never should have stayed," she hissed. "But you pulled me down, made me feel guilty, responsible."
Her vitriol is palpable, and as she speaks, it feels as though something is crushing Maka's chest. She breathes a little harder with every word.
"You held me back. I could have been the best if it weren't for you."
Maka cries out, her arm bleeding sluggishly. "You are the best!"
"I am weak. Weak because of you. You made me this way, took everything that I had worked so hard for away from me. You made me Spirit's wife." She arcs through the air, and her weapon splits the ground when it hits. "We never would have gotten married except for you."
"That...that was your choice! You didn't have to do anything you didn't want!" But Maka knows her father, knows the looks that he must have given her, the way he can be so considerate and charming.
"You ruined my life," and with that, she hurtles towards Maka, eyes bright. She wonders if this is what the kishin eggs see right before they die-the sharp glistening edge of the scythe, righteous fury burning in her green eyes.
She wants to block, but her body moves of its own accord, something deep within her snapping. Maka twists, Soul lashing quickly past her mother's weapon. The older woman dodges back, but not before Maka sees the faint trickle of blood drip down her wrist. Her eyes widen, her heart stuttering in her chest.
"Oh, god-"
Her mother's eyes are cold as she holds up her bleeding arm. "All of this, and you're still a failure. Can't even land a proper hit. If that Evans boy hadn't come along, you would still be partnerless, useless."
She can hear her teeth grinding in her head. She wants to yell, to scream, to deny it, but her tongue is broken.
"Look at you, take him away, and you are nothing. Pathetic. You have always been a waste of my time. I see that hasn't changed." Her next few swipes are lazy, proving her point as Maka stumbles out of the way. Soul remains unresponsive, and she wishes he would say something, anything.
"You know that you're the reason I left, right?" Blocking the one-handed backswing from her mother makes her elbows and wrists scream, but she holds on.
"Mama, please stop, please-" she's not crying, not really. She's too hollow, too empty even though the words tear at her.
"I couldn't stand it anymore. Couldn't stand to look at my failure every single day." She sweeps the scythe, and the handle catches Maka mid escape, crashing her to the ground. "I'm going to fix it, though." she raises the scythe, and her face settles into that strange little half smile.
There is no time, there will be no last minute rescues, no escape. There is no blocking this time as she desperately tries to breathe, swinging Soul.
She meets resistance, then feels the hot spatter of blood on her face even as her eyes try to process what she's done. Her mother slumps forward, scythe clattering to the group. Her voice shatters in her throat.
"Mom!"
"Never should have been born," she gasps, then turns to stare at the ceiling. It doesn't look bad, but there's blood, too much blood, and Maka has killed enough things to know when a strike is fatal.
She sits there, silence heavy and thick with the copper stench, and wonders how it will end.
When she wakes, it's dark, and her heart is dead in her chest. She lays still for a moment, automatically searching for Soul. It takes her a minute, but she remembers what she'll find. He's gone, gone for months now, six feet under and tugging at her fractured psyche.
It's the 10th night in a row that she's slain her mother and she wishes it would stop because it makes her feel connected, and she wishes it wouldn't stop because it makes her feel connected. She heaves herself to her feet with the help of her empty metal scythe and tries not to think about the cold dead metal and the leaden weight in her belly and whose eyes it might have.