Pre-notes & warnings:

So, writer's block is a bitch. This one shot helped me get out of my creativity funk. Takes place post-series so WARNING for SPOILERS if you haven't finished watching it yet. Crona-introspective. A little spiritual, drawing on Priest!Justin moments ^_^ It doesn't get preachy to any particular religion though, so don't worry. RATED purely for swearing and potentially disturbing violent memories and concepts. Crona's memory is not a pretty place I think. Its not slash, sorry. Wanted to do something with some weight to it. I don't own Soul Eater or Pat Benatar's Hell is for Children song, but it's such a deep song, it inspired this fic.

Sorry I haven't worked on my primary fic in a while hopefully this will fix some of the problems I was having with it. It can also be considered an addition to "living in the shadows of the messes that you made" but I decided it didn't fall into the time line I am making enough to actually make it into that fic.

Enjoy! and review if you feel up to it. I never know how to feel about these little one-shots I write.

Hell is for Children.

"You stupid, skinny little weasel, we're lost again aren't we?"

"Weasel's a new one, I don't think you've ever called me that before."

"Never mind that dipshit, where in the name of fuck are we?"

"I don't know at all...I don't know what we are going to do if we don't find our way back to the main hallways...we are definitely in a new section of the academy..."

The conversation went back and forth. One loud, grating voice answered by one meek, soft one, echoing off of the walls of a dark and empty tiled hallway. It was an average banter for the androgynous Crona and his loudmouthed weapon partner Ragnarok. Crona was shrunk into himself even more than usual as he kept his thin arms close to his body and wrung his hands, gray eyes darting from one side of the seemingly endless hall to another. His partner puled the boy's pale pink hair as he complained. The two were attached, quite literally. Ragnarok's body was fused with Crona's and seemed to spring straight out of the teens back. It wasn't the strangest thing about the young but haunted meister.

"Stupid, stupid...no duh we're somewhere where we haven't been before. That is what they call 'lost'. Man you are really hopeless without some woman. Now it's Maka, she tells you everything to do...before that Medusa did exactly the same-Augh!" The weapon's sentence was cut short by a sharp uppercut from beneath his round head. Crona stopped walking and his usually sad eyes had become full of rage.

"Don't. Just don't." The meister's voice cracked a little, unable to contain the rush of hurt, fear and hatred that had flooded him for a moment. He had hit Ragnarok harder than he meant to, and now his own head ached from the blow. He knew before he swung that it would probably hurt himself too, but he couldn't help it. Whenever that woman's name came up he would have flashes of memory of the things they had gone through. The things they had been forced to do...to see...the blood and emptiness that surrounded everything from his childhood like a swirling storm. Ragnarok fell silent. Without thinking, Crona began moving his feet again in slow but determined steps. His mind wandered.

"But I don't understand..." The eight-year old meister whimpered.

"I don't ever want to hear that word from your mouth again, worthless, repulsive little shit. You will not address me as 'mother', EVER." The witch spat. Crona was sprawled on the floor, across the room from her. He could still feel the sting of her hand against his face, and of his shoulder from where he had landed. Ragnarok had learned a long time ago that hardening Crona's blood against these blows was useless. If he did so try to defend his meister, she would turn to some other, much worse form of pain. Like heat or cold. They had been locked inside of a walk-in freezer for a couple hours once. No, by now it was just best for both of them if he allowed Crona to take the gentler beating.

"B...b.b...but...I saw a little girl call a grown up that..." Crona stammered, trying to no avail to lift himself to his weak and aching legs. He had been running for most of the day, moving and dodging spells that she would throw at him. When he couldn't take anymore he had uttered that word. "mom". She had halted everything.

"Is that so. Where was this little girl at?" The witche's tone had changed completely. Now it was cold, serpentine and apathetic. She fixed him with eyes full of false curiosity. Still the child-like mind of the little one wanted to believe...maybe just this once...could it be okay? How wrong those hopeful thoughts were every time. The next thing he could remember was the girl..drawn out of her house by his innocent face...and then his vision split in two.

No.

It wasn't his vision at all. She split in two, right before him. He screamed as blood spattered his face. The girl's blood. Her strangled breathing still echoed in his memory. She...Medusa...placed Crona in front of the house and hid behind a tree, then sliced her in half with a single vector arrow.

She died, only flashes and echoes of the last moments of her life preserved in his memory.

"That, is exactly what happens when you learn things from other children. They will die. You will watch. You only learn from me, got it? And you never use that word. I will make you the perfect tool. You will obey my every word and you will remember that you are not and never will be like other children. You are a tool. And I will take you to hell when I go."

Crona became vaguely aware he had stopped walking again. In fact, as he allowed himself to take in his surroundings through the dizziness of the bloody memory, he was at the end of the hall he had been walking. To his left was a plain, classroom or laboratory door. To his right was a wall with a death-skull shaped candlestick. In front of him was a pair of very ornate double doors. They were oak, and looked a bit more like they would fit in down in the dungeons where he lived instead of up here on the upper-levels of the school. He sighed. Ragnarok finally ventured another word.

"Where are we gonna go from here, Crona?" The weapon's voice was much quieter than last time he spoke. It was obvious he knew he had gone too far. But then, it was true that everything the Meister had gone through was also gone through by the weapon living inside him. Ragnarok beat through Crona's heart and in every black vein, every moment of every day since either of them could remember.

They were different like day and night, or more like fire and water. The two had existed simultaneously through all of their memory. Two different ways of dealing with what happened. Crona locked his fear away, trying to hide it and trying to hide from it, and Ragnarok lashed out against it and anyone or anything else around him. Still, they understood each others' silent and spoken moods better than anyone else probably ever would.

There was a long pause as Crona decided how to deal with the question. Finally without any other answer, he spoke softly, eyes cast down and hand clasping his arm tightly. "We'll go through this door." he said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper.

–

Justin law, Priest and music fanatic. A man of God and a man of means. A death-scythe, spiritual to every fiber of his being. He sat in the chapel, or what was once the chapel. No-one held service in here anymore. There were few religious people left in death-city, and it wasn't as if the students here were jumping at a chance to do something other then rest between the school's strenuous classes. His feet were propped up in the pew in front of him, headphones blasting out passionate music with a heavy-sounding beat. He stared at the alter before him. His was the only candle burning. He did this every day, no matter where he was in the world. Sat before an alter for exactly the length of time it took to burn a single white candle. It was his way of reflecting upon the state of the world and how he could improve it. Under the sometimes calm, sometimes fanatical surface was the mind of a thinker. He would let his thoughts wander, and often times the thoughts that came to him from out of the blue he took as a message of sorts. A guidance. This time though it wasn't a thought that came out of the blue. It was the frail form of the broken ex-kishin, Crona. The one that young meister Maka had more or less rescued from the witch Medusa. The boy had slipped past him without a sound, or at least not one that Justin could hear.

Crona was unaware of the blue eyes that watched him as he crept very slowly into the room. He crossed directly down the center of the pews in the dimly lit room, straight towards the alter. He stood before it, as if entranced by the small table, drape and candle holder. Justin mused in his own mind, 'could this be the first time Crona has ever been near an alter to the Almighty?'

"Crona..." Ragnarok began, his voice turning into an impatient whine.

"Go. away." Crona said, quiet but very serious. He really had no desire to deal with Ragnarok or having to share the thoughts running in his head at the moment. It was strange to him, but it was so easy to speak to Ragnarok firmly...yet to anyone else and he could barely speak much less stick up for himself and his needs.

"Fine then! Find your own way back to the room!" Ragnarok snapped. Still, when Crona's soul wavelength wavered earlier he had known that the meister was trekking across memories better left forgotten. And when Crona did that, Ragnarok knew he was better left alone. With that the weapon faded into the body they shared, his conscious mind slipping into the back of Crona's subconscious, completely infused once again.

Finally, it was time to break the silence.

"IS SOMETHING BOTHERING YOU CRONA?" Justin's voice filled the room, nearly scaring the very life from Crona. He leaped forward with a magnificent scream and sent the alter crashing to the ground. He spun around to see who had shouted, now sitting on his rear with his long arms and legs out on either side. He shook slightly as he stared, sunken eyes full of shock, back and forth between the toppled and scattered alter and Justin's blank stare. Would he be punished for messing it up? By Justin or by some sort of god?

Finally the priest just sighed and gave Crona a small smile. He took his earphones out as he stood. The music could still be heard, as if it were playing from two tiny radios now hung around Justin's neck.

"I am sorry for startling you." He said with a smile. "Is something bothering you though?" He knelt to begin picking up the unburned, scattered candles and the basket they had been in.

"s..s...s...s...S...Sorry!" Crona stuttered on the word until he was finally able to speak it. Justin moved his hand closer to Crona and the pink-haired meister flinched involuntarily. The Priest looked at him with surprise for just a moment, but grabbed the candlestick he had been reaching for and continued to fix the alter.

"Don't be...I forget that others can hear me better than I can hear myself." He laughed. "But all joking aside...what's up? I don't think many students even still come to this place these days. I had this room put in when I worked here a long time ago...but it's become old and dusty." As he spoke he finished re-setting the alter and re-lit his own candle with a match. Crona was now huddled on the floor, arms around his knees, watching the deathscythe intently.

"Hmm?" Justin looked at him curiously. "What is it...do you want me to light a candle for you?" Silence. "I'll just...um...take that as a no then...why don't you come sit down and we will watch mine burn, then you can decide if you want to light one." He said finally, returning to his seat in the pews. Slowly and shakily Crona followed, until he was seated a couple of feet from Justin. They sat for some time. When Justin's candle burned out, Crona had expected him to leave. To leave Crona all alone, just like always whenever business was done, it was time to leave Crona all alone. He tried to repress a violent shudder at the memory but failed. That dark, empty room was still there in his mind, looming.

But Justin didn't leave. He waited, patiently...what was he waiting for?

Hours seemed to pass, though they were most likely only minutes, and Crona's mind wandered until he forgot where he was. He thought about many things, but they were all incomplete thoughts, unformed images...little bursts and flashes of memory. The sorts of dark things he saw behind his eyes, the ebb and flow of madness and the voices that whispered just beyond the edge of hearing were always there, always familiar. Crona knew they always would be. One does not simply wake up one day, all better. No, even though he was now fighting the insanity that clung to his mind his haunted thoughts would always be this way. He was damaged. He would think about something simple, like a candle. Then he would remember a fire, what fire smelled like, felt like...the heat, and screaming that came along with fire, and silence that followed when the wind blew the ash away after the fire had had finally burned it all, all the homes and people, to ash. Ash would remind him of snow and the way it fell daintily beyond the iron bars of the window in his room. How cold his skin was...would make him think of something like himself, and fall into a pit of self disgust that would be broken only by fear of what anyone would think if they knew his thoughts. Crona's mind was damaged in this way that it jumped from track to track, like a train that was just running on a field of busted switches with little to no actual track.

His voice broke the silence without beckoning when he came to a thought he couldn't deal with without speaking it out.

"Do you believe in hell?" His voice was a flat note, no emotion, almost as if he didn't mean to speak the words to anyone but himself.

Justin smiled. He this was what he had been waiting for. Years as a priest aside from being a deathscythe had taught him how to draw out someone's troubles just by waiting for them to speak. He knew there were a lot of things about Crona he couldn't do anything to fix, but it wouldn't keep him from trying to help, even a little. It was his trade and his life's work. Still, the inquiry was a hard one to answer.

"Well, lets see. I think hell exists...but whether its a literal place or whether it is a metaphor for the worst thing a person experiences in their lifetime is the real question. What is hell to you?"

Crona shrank into himself. "I don't handle questions very well..." Nervousness was edging into his voice.

"I'll wait." Justin said quietly. He offered Crona a small, sympathetic smile, which caused the meister to blush and look away. He wasn't sure if he would ever be used to people smiling at him. The rush of emotion that seeing a smile brought was more than he had ever dealt with, especially when that smile was directed at him. The only smiles he was used to were the deranged kind that accompanied madness or the innocent ones of people he was watching from the distance...people who had no idea their lives would end soon.

Crona knew he wouldn't be able to leave without talking this through. Something about Justin's demeanor told him the young blond would wait hours if he had to just to drag a few words out of him. Crona mustered his courage.

"I have always thought...hell was in my head...b..but I am afraid the its a p..p...place that me and Ragnarok will go when we die." He said, his words disjointed and monotone.

Justin thought for a moment before he spoke again. "Well...I know that traditionally Hell is located far below us, and that's where all the evil people go. But the existence of so much more on the other side of Death's door would lead to a belief that there are many other possibilities. Crona...why do you think about it so much?"

"B...because now that she's dead...if there is a hell...my m..mo..mo...the witch...the one who made me..." He couldn't bring himself to say certain words to this day...the thought of saying 'mother' was already making him start to shake. He lost control of his thoughts and they became more and more frantic with his increasing heartbeat. Before Crona knew it, Justin was kneeling beside him, one gentle hand placed on the frightened meister's shoulder in a comforting way. Crona flinched from the touch but fought himself not to pull away. Friends...friends were like this...that's what he had been told by Maka. He re-assured himself that his life was different now. He took a deep, shuttering breath.

"If there is a hell she's there, waiting for me..." He said, almost inaudibly.

"You won't go, if such a place exists." Justin's response was firmer than his usual tone. His face was determined. The confusion on Crona's face was enough to explain the pink-haired boy's feelings. Justin elaborated. "traditionally, if you are an unrepentant sinner, you will go to hell to be punished, but if you have faith and try to repent for any sins committed...you will be saved."

"There is no repenting for the things we've done..." Crona said darkly, his eyes now hidden under his uneven bangs. His hands were locked together in a tight grasp.

"That's where you're wrong." The words caused Crona to gasp, his head snapping up to bring his eyes to meet Justin's ice blue gaze. "You have faith in something now, am I right?"

"I d..d...don't know..."

"Faith is believing in something you can't see, Crona. You can't see Maka's soul, or her love for you...but you believe in it, right? You believe in her love, in the love of your other friends...even though you can't see it. That is a form of faith. To believe in something as positive as love is faith. And you stopped harming, stopped killing in spite of the fact that that course is all you have ever known. That is all it takes. You still have a demon in your heart, you and Ragnarok both. But you have chosen a path you have never walked before. You are fighting against those memories...And you may never be free of what happened. Being saved from Hell is not about what you do...but what you choose to try and do. You were saved from the Witch's dark fate the moment you were offered a life of love and took it. You were saved from that hell a long time ago. From the hell which exists inside the mind of anyone who does not know or rejects love completely. You don't have to be afraid anymo-"

"No!" The word echoed through the chapel as Crona's voice cracked. "I can't be saved from what I've done...Children...animals...they didn't do anything wrong...and they died because of me! That little girl...she died because I pretended I was the same as her...He blood was so red...so shiny..so bright and her face was so surprised..she couldn't breath...there was so much blood she drowned...like those animals...the one's I tortured...they screamed...I scream...and run...and hurt...the blood...my blood is black..." Crona had begun to push himself further and further back in his seat to try and get away from the priest and his love and his faith and anything that could make him believe those things were okay, but Justin wouldn't let go. His grip was firm and he pressed down on Crona's shoulder until he couldn't move. It didn't hurt, but it was firm.

"Crona." He said, a little squeeze from his hand accenting his even tone. "The fact that you regret all of that...think of it as proof that you are an innately good person. An evil demon wouldn't regret doing those things." He said simply. Silence echoed, only disturbed by Crona's occasional gasp of breath as he slowly calmed down. Justin's grip eased, and then disappeared, leaving a warm spot on Crona's bony shoulder. Slowly the meister stood and very carefully walked away from Justin Law. He stared at the floor the whole way towards the alter. He didn't even flinch when he felt Ragnarok re-appear from inside of him, the demon-sword materializing out of the flesh of Crona's back.

"What are you doing?" Ragnarok hissed into Crona's ear. Crona didn't respond. No doubt Ragnarok heard the entire conversation that had just occurred, Crona could feel any time that the black-blood weapon was awake inside of him.

One steady, elegant hand picked up a candlestick from the basket of unlit candles and held it tightly, almost as if it was the only thing to cling to in a windstorm that threatened to take him away with it. Very carefully he placed it into an open slot. Then with the same determination he plucked a match from the open box on the alter and struck it, lighting the candle quickly and dousing the match immediately. The flame barely clung to life, tiny and struggling...then as Crona watched it melt away the hard wax that coated the wick it grew, burning until it was bright and dancing. It lit his features and the light from beneath his curious expression made the dark lines under his eyes a little less visible. As Justin watched he noticed...Crona looked a little younger somehow, in this light. A little less gaunt...a little more warm. Almost more child like. Ragnarok watched the flame, too, the ever-unreadable face of his unable to express the fascination he actually felt right now. Perhaps...things were really changing.

Not another word was spoken between Justin and Crona as the young Meister and his Weapon took their seat back, and they all watched together the candle burn until it was gone.

–

Justin had offered to lead Crona back to his room, since it was being lost that had drawn him to the chapel in the first place. As they walked, Justin had his music-player out and was switching songs around with his fingertip on the small screen. He spoke without looking up.

"I have an idea for you, Crona...a mission of sorts. You don't have to tell me if you accept it or not, but if you can, try and remember how many people lost their lives when you lived with Medusa. Try and get a number in your head. Then...try and save at least one more life than you took. Think of the number of lives each evil being would have taken had you and the others not defeated it together. Add in the number of times you have saved any of your friends lives...you may have to write it down somewhere...but I bet it wont take long...for you to save more lives than have been taken in your past." He said, finally looking up as they stopped at the door to Crona's room. Crona looked up at him. Their eyes met, pale gray to icy blue. Crona thought about the request and finally nodded, a small, awkward smile creeping it's way onto his face.

"Th..th...that would be...good. I'd like that. To know I mean...that I was making a difference."

"That's good. I really think you will be okay. Remember, the memories and the past never really go away, but the pain will ease with time and strength...and you will be able to deal with it soon." He said. Crona didn't know what to say in response...maybe he still wasn't good at dealing with other people but...something about yet another new person saying the same thing was comforting.

'your going to be okay.'

Justin put both of his headphones into his ears in one quick motion and hit the play button. Overflow of loud music was audible even several feet away.

"WELL GOODBYE!" He shouted, and with that turned and walked away.

–

Justin Law would stay in death city for two weeks after that day totaling two months after Kishin Asura's defeat. Each afternoon he would make his way to the chapel to light a candle and each afternoon he would find that he was not the only one who had been there. There would be one candle already burned right down to the bottom of the holder, just a black wick standing up in a hardened pool of wax.

On the last day of his time at the academy, post-kishin clean up was complete...he went to the chapel one last time to find a piece on notebook paper on his alter. In very scratchy ink writing it read:

lives taken before Maka:

(each hash is ten)

IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII

IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII II

lives saved after Maka:

IIIII IIIII II

"we are getting there..."

C&R