Throw me a line

by Peppermint-Poppy

Written for Reverb 2015. Canonverse. She doesn't give it much thought when the dreams start. Just random dreams, no? When she sarts to see things while awake, she just chalks it up to being tired and stress. When she learns something follows her through her mind, only then she understands it's too late. SoulxMaka, KImxJackie

A.N.: So, finally, finally, my challenge on reverb is done. Big thanks to mae snapdragon (my partner in crime, who also edited part of this story) and several other non-reverb-related people. Anyway check out her beautiful art. It's awesome, really. Just click on my profile, link should be there.

Also don't forget to listen to famix on this.(Link too, in my profile.)

Enjoy!

---

Anticipation.

Is one of the mature ways of dealing with real stress... You reduce the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how you are going to deal with it".

Robin Skynner

---

Maka doesn't know. Where her body, or better, where her soul is present.

It's black, all around her, a void without gravity or floors and skies. A vacuum. But her chest still heaves. Her lungs still work. She breathes oxygen, and her blood carries it to her brain and legs and arms—to her cells and mitochondria, breaking down glucose, producing energy and carbon dioxide.

Biology is reassuring; her body still functions. These are the things she knows.

"So where am I?"

In many ways this place is very similar to her inner soul-space, where she always goes when she needs some alone time (like when Soul's arrogance gets to her, or when she is doubting herself) or where she armours herself against the madness during the toughest of battles.

But this place…it's not that. Or at least it's not the same. She feels it everywhere around her. Mainly because she always has to choose when she wants to get there. And now? It feels more like a subconscious transport of her soul. And she is fully clothed.

She wonders if this is Soul's doing. Did he summon her here? Are they losing a battle? What in the darkest hell is happening? So many questions. Normally they would have her on the edge. But somehow she feels relaxed, her problems biting just the smallest space of her mind. Yeah, just floating around for the next few hours would be nice, she decides.

The void around her shifts, like water in the lake would when someone jumps in, which is weird because she didn't move at all. She opens her eyes. And, nope, nothing has changed. Still as black as the bottomless pit of hell.

Maka closes her eyes again. Her green neck-tie floats around her, gently brushing against her face from time to time. Her skirt flutters against her legs and touches her outstretched arms. The fabric is pleasingly cool.

And then she feels it again. A subtle change in the pressure of the air (?) around her. For a moment she feels like a fish, being able to detect changes in her surroundings. Did she secretly grow a lateral line without her consent?

Yes, biology is still reassuring.

This time, the change is kind of different. The air around her does a little 'bang,' like a blast wave would do, and something crystalizes under her. Her feet touch something, a solid, hard, surface, and when she looks down, she learns that it's black and polished, mirroring her face back at her. She stumbles forward, taking a few steps until she finds her balance again.

Her pigtails and neck tie still rebel against the newly found gravitation, even if her feet are now firmly planted on the ground. She is glad for the support it presents. She is only clad in thin socks, so she can feel how cold the ground is. She stamps with one foot on it few times. No sound, just a dampened vibration she can feel with the sole of her other foot.

And then the real sound appears. For a moment her ears get full of it, and it nearly deafens her.

When Maka was little she enjoyed listening to the small sounds of her city. Like the ringing of the little golden bell on the door of the ice-cream parlor, or the sound of rustling leaves of hundreds of trees in the park, or the buzz of the busy Eleventh street full of people on Tuesday afternoons.

Or the sounds of the little rocks and gravel that always seemed to be on the side of the road no matter how many times the Death city social workers swept it per week. Living in a desert had only one blemish: the constant presence of sand, which was, literally, everywhere. But little Maka liked it. She liked to walk on the side of the road just to hear the sound of the little particles brushing against each other. It was the typical sound of sand, like when wind blew it down the dune or someone opened a window blocked by it. The subtle screeching of little rocks was something she came to love as her days in Death city flew by.

And she hears that same sound now, just amplified a hundred or more times. She walks forward, seemingly in the direction of its origin, every step multiplying the strength of the noise tenfold. She resists the urge to cover her ears because something is telling her if she does so, the sound will stop altogether. So she glues her hands to her sides and marches forward.

An edge appears, maybe ten or maybe fifty steps before her. It's hard to tell the distance, because she can't compare it to other things. So she walks. And walks. And comes to realize that this must be a dream, because only in dreams can you walk with seemingly no progress made.

When she finally reaches the small cliff, she gasps. It's not the sound of sand or a big sand dune as she had pictured in her head. No. It's the buzz of myriads of vocal cords from countless white heads. And as she steps to the edge it all suddenly stops. A song of thousands of cicadas suddenly interrupted.

Interrupted by her.

She realizes that from the start the sound resembled more a cicada than the sound of sand, but she has to shut down her biological-nerd self because all at once the heads turn to face her.

It's a crowd. A crowd of Souls. Of her Soul. With sharp canines and everything. Their bangs cover their eyes—the thing she wants to see the most at the moment—and she gets so, so confused…

She is standing on a podium, she realizes, not some kind of cliff as she previously thought. So then that means she is supposed to be the star. The main entertainment of the evening. And they are her demanding audience.

Their teeth bare in that trademark devious grin, rows and rows of the same canines, stretching all the way her eyes could see. All of them—him—are in his pin-striped suit, tufts of white hair sticking in every direction, moving silently with the non-existent wind.

Her tie moves in exact sync with the white strands

The moment of silence stretches on until one white haired cicada opens its mouth wide and starts his share of the song. After a moment, another one joins in, adding his part to the weird singing. And another one. It's all reverse. She is the audience, they are the entertainers.

Each sound braids together with other, creating the previous mash she had been hearing.

The not-Souls start swishing from side to side, not at all graciously like the real Soul would. The non-existent wind picks up. It's weird, because she can't feel its torrents against her skin, but her hair furiously whips at her neck and face.

The not-Souls lift their heads and she can't contain her shocked gasp.

Their beautiful red eyes are gone.

Their faces are all the same—same mouths, aristocratic noses, high cheekbones, foreheads, but there all the resemblance with Soul, and even humanity, ends.

Their eyes are ones of bugs. Tiny mirrors, millions of them, concentrated together in big bulbous eyes protruding from his face. She can see thousands of images of herself reflected in the eyes of the Souls nearest to her.

"Maka," the crowd hums.

She gasps silently for air.

"Maka." The crowd moves.

Her knees start to tremble, trying to tell her she should move. And quickly.

"Maka." The first row of Souls climbs up to her. Their hands are nearly touching her, greed in their eyes, and in their wide opened mouths…

"MAKA!"

"Ow, like, come on, stop thrashing. You have kicked me like five times! What the hell! Calm. Down!"

She opens her eyes. The first things she sees is Soul's face, and due to the conditions of her not-really-woken up state and him being up too close in her face, she nearly punches him straight between the eyes. Luckily, he is fast to catch her hands, appearing to be mostly accustomed to her previous wild wake ups.

She finally grasps her blurry bearings. First the sharp blue light reflected by Soul's hair comes to focus, then his face, and then finally the whole dim-lit room. She realizes that she is lying, mostly, on their old shaggy couch, the armrest still uncomfortably hard under the back of her head and neck.

And the other half of her body, the not mostly-sitting- on-the-couch half, is comfortably resting on Soul's legs, near the apex of his thighs.

She nearly flies off the couch, only her wrists still trapped in his hands stopping her from making a mess of the coffee table by her side.

"Ow, Maka, stop!"

She freezes on the spot, with Soul halfway dragged down the couch and her awkwardly bent over the coffee table. Seconds tick by. And then Soul's face reddens with the force of his poorly-hidden chuckles, as he lets go of her wrists.

You should have seen yourself," he says with a snort and a short laugh, "your face was like…" He furrows his brows, opening his mouth and crossing his eyes.

"Like this." He proceeds to laugh some more, patting the place by his side. She just gulps down her anger, and sits back on the couch with him. She tries to get comfy again.

"How long did I sleep?" She yawns widely and stretches out her arms, settling into the couch.

"Dunno? Twenty minutes?" A pause. "Then you started thrashing like a horse. Had to wake you up." He looks from the tv to her, sudden concern shaping his brows to a wide and worried V. "By the way, what had you jumping like that?"

Ad really, what did she dream off? She tries to remember but comes up with empty hands—she only has a vague memory of something reaching for her, of a strong breeze ruffling past her hair.

She shakes her shoulders, and puts her feet up in his lap, because they totally belong there. Soul's face remains in that same concerned expression, but he lets it go—he hooks his left arm on the back of the couch, his right arm falls with a comforting weight on one of her shins. She thinks it also belongs right there on her legs. He starts rubbing comforting circles into her flesh and she feels herself ease—all the tension she didn't even know she had starts leaving her piece by piece. He is still not reassured.

"Stop glowering, Soul. You will be all wrinkly by the time your thirties roll up.

---

"Kim!"

Something smashes with a great force on her door, several times. She sinks her face in her pillow, pulling the comforter over her head.

"Kim! I am serious!"

Her pink door thrashes slightly on its hinges. A moment of silence follows. And then the wood starts shaking again.

"We are gonna be late! Again! Stein is gonna leave us after school the whole next week! Please! I don't want to stay in that horrific cabinet ever again!"

Jackie's palm once again rattles on the door.

"Kim!"

She slowly opens her eyes. Sometimes she curses her weapon for being that much of a stuck-up being. "Okay, okay, you sound like nana, I'm up, I'm up, fuck…" A grumpy heave leaves her.

"We have like five minutes to leave the house. You have no time to shower and you will have to…"

Jackie rattles on. Kim just sits up and tries to rub the sleep out of her eyes, all the while ignoring the monologue of her dark-haired partner from the other side of the door. She stretches her arms and bends in all the ways possible till she hears some satisfying popping. Feels good.

But her head feels wrong, as if it is completely disconnected from the rest of her now half-awake body.

And mainly, it feels empty. Kind of dizzy inside of her head, like it's stuffed with one giant cotton ball. She tries to not think about weird stuff, like pink q-tips with eyes.

"…And also, I haven't ironed you shirt for you, so I think it would be better…"

She sleepily blinks. And then realizes something important that's been bugging her for the short time she has been up.

She doesn't remember her dream. And it's weird because she always remembers her dreams. Like always, always. Always.

The shit witches do, like reading from the tea leaves, or telling the future from the bloody guts of some poor, unlucky animal, or abusing the crystal ball with their wrinkly hands... Well, some of that stuff really works.

Like dreams, for instance. They can tell you many things. What the weather will be, if you will have a successful week, or sometimes, if you are lucky, even if Stein is gonna bring any animals in next week for the aforementioned gut-future-telling…

They could reveal many important things for someone, if you just looked well.

That is the reason she tries to always remember her dreams. Sometimes she even writes the stuff down, when she feels like it's important.

But now, she doesn't remember. And it's strange because she always remembers, and yet she is here, sitting confusedly in the nest of her bed, unable to recall one damn thing, not any picture, nor symbol, nor smell…

Just a vague memory of a disgusting feeling of something reaching for her, and of a breeze ruffling past her hair.

She decides to not dwell on it too much.

Shit happens, right?

Besides, it is too early in the morning for some major tripping ball sack.

"Kim?"

---

"Souuuuuul." Her voice gets that tell-tale angry background pitch. Anxiety creeps up her spine. "I swear to death, if you are not by my feet in the next thirty seconds…"

"Yeah, yeah, no need to remind me." She sees him spit the toothpaste in the sink from her position by their front door. He always leaves the bathroom door open. He also lets the tap keep running while he gives some finishing touches to his attire.

She thinks he may be doing it just to spite her inner-eco-nerd. She gives him another vocal warning.

"Coming, coming. Geez, woman…"

It still takes him exactly four minutes and sixteen seconds to get to her side.

"You ready for the ball, cinderella?" She can't help herself.

A sneer is her only response.

She runs all the way down the stairs. It's a beautiful day outside, with the sun just starting to press its hot rays down on the earth. She is the first one mounts the bike, waiting another twenty-one seconds for Soul to mount in front of her, before they're finally, finally setting off for DWMA.

Her killing intent is flaring because she literally knows—and she always knows—that they are going to be late. She presses her hands in Soul's stomach, just to remind him that this is entirely his fault.

They almost hit a red light, running across the crossroad in last seconds, and missing a big red Cadillac going from another direction only by a hairsbreadth. Anonymous driver honks at them.

She spends their entire journey whispering threats and death-vows in Soul's ear.

---

"Woudn't it be, like, easier if we flew there?"

"I don't know? Kim, I don't really think it's a good idea, you know, with the rules and stuff…"

"Well, I think it's a great idea actually. Come on. Transform."

"You know, maybe running at full speed is the better option?"

"Are you out of it? I ain't running all the way from the dorms!"

"I could piggy-back ride you there."

"Jacqueline. This is a direct order from your meister. You hear me? You transform, and you do it now."

And so, Jackie transforms. Dark purple flames swish in the air as Jackie's lantern arranges itself from the particles. Kim mounts her. They fly the rest of the way to the DWMA, even up the stairs right to the front door. ("I ain't going up on foot if I can fly there, duh.")

They end up arriving just on time for Stein to come rolling in the classroom just mere seconds after them.

His grey eyes scan the crowd of already bored students. Kim sees Jackie straighten up the second the professor's eyes land on her.

"Okay, students. On today's lesson we are going to be discussing the effects of human blood on the corrupt souls. Why do some of the kishin eggs drink the blood of their victims, and other don't? Also, miss Natsukasa, would you kindly explain to me why Eater and Albarn aren't in their places?"

Kim rolls her eyes as half of the class snickers at Tsubaki's unsuccesful attempts for an explanaton that won't leave Maka and Soul in trouble. She reddens and stutters for a few minutes; Kim almost feels bad for the girl. Her helpfless stuters carry on for a while, filling up the room withrounds of laughter.

"I would bet a hundred bucks that they are banging the shit out of each other right now!" Someone stage-whispers in the backrows.

The class erupts in humungous laughter. Tsubaki's face is aflame. Stein's eyes snap in the direction of the poor soul that so unwisely chose to open their mouth.

"Mister Darren, I would like you to stay here after the class ends, please. We can discuss the worst influences betting can have on people. Star, you get down now if you don't want to sit after school for next few weeks." The boy in back row, probably Darren, cowers inconspicuously, trying not to attract more attention. 'Good job, dumbass." She feels like clapping for him.

"What did we miss?" And as it is, the pair chooses the absolute worst moment to appear in the class. And of course they are all sweaty, hair and clothes astray. Which is really innocent-looking.

'And so predictable,' Kim thinks.

Class erupts yet again.

"Mister Eater, Miss Albarn, you will stay here after class. This is your fifth late arrival in the last two months. Do you both understand?"

Maka's face first drains of color, appearing almost like one of a ghost, but then the color comes up as a big boom, her whole face turning lava-like in matter of four seconds. Soul takes a big step to the side away from her.

Now Kim feels bad for the death-scythe.

"Also, Miss Diehl, Miss Dupré, does the no-weapons-out rule tell you anything?" Jackie's back goes rigid again.

"I hope you two know what it means. Okay then, with this settled, I expect all of you waiting for me after the class ends. Albarn, Eater, sit down. As we all know, kishins almost never eat the corpse of their victims, except for some rare cases of cannibalism, but human meat and flesh don't have any power-boosting effect on them. However blood is known to…"

Jackie painfully jabs her in her ribs. Kim looks to the side, perplexed.

'What the hell, Jackie?' She mouths to her. But Jackie just turns her head away, scribbling down the pointless things Stein is now blabbering about. She lets her attention slip away.

The rest of the class goes without any major events, if you don't count BlackStar running rampant twice. A pretty common thing these days.

---

She is there again. In the void, or the black hole, or whatever the hell this place is. But now she is not as confused as she was back then. She knows this place now, at least, partly. And she suddenly remembers her whole previous dream. She is a smart girl—she knows what will happen next.

The non-air shifts around her knees, creating small wind torrents that move her skirt and tie. Her pigtails flap around.

The floor solidifies under her. She does not stumble when she lands on it.

The Sound appears. But it's slightly different from the cicada-song from the last time. Now it's more human. Not just some noise, or a random screeching sounds. No, it has pattern, and vowels, and words.

It's speech. And laughter. This is surprising.

She begins walking forward. She needs to know what it is. Maybe what he/she is. Who knows? With the increasing distance she makes—the walk is still as long, the same dream-like slow motion walk—she begins to distinguish words and different voices. There are two of them. One appears to be woman-like, the other man-like.

Twenty-eight steps later and she is sure it's a man and a woman.

Fifty-four steps later she knows it's the man who is singing.

One hundred and five steps later she hears the actual words.

'…Throw me a line… Give me some rope, which I can hang with…'

She sees the stage.

And she is on it, walking towards the edge. What she sees doesn't surprise her as much as she would think it would.

It's Him and Her. He is sitting behind the black piano, his back turned to her.

The girl—it's her, Maka—is facing her. Her face is unsettling, just a grim face devoid of emotions, looking her up and down. The man behind her presses the keys, creating the alarming music. His white hair sticks out in every direction, moving in sync with the non-existent wind, with her tie and the-other-Maka's hair. It appears He doesn't notice her—Soul still sings his soft words: '…Give me a line…Give me some rope, which I can hang with…'

Other-Maka smirks. She's notices Maka has been looking at Soul.

Other-Maka lifts her skirts and moves.

Other-Maka puts her hand on his shoulder, stopping him, bending down to his ear and whispering loudly enough for Maka to hear.

"I'll wait for you…"

He sighs softly.

They both stand up, Soul holding the hand of the Other-Maka, following after her. The piano dissipates in the void all around them. They stop maybe ten, fifteen feet from her. And they begin to sway.

"Maka."

She feels absoultely nothing looking at them.

The ground under them starts growing and protruding out from the surrounding enviroment. It grows and expands, not at all disrupting Soulls' and Other-Maka's dancing. Soon it's towering over her. She is lifted up in the air again and carried above them.

It's hard to take in the thing they are dancing on. It's white and big. Inside is a circle of grey, and inside the circel is a small, black and round stage. The pair has near to no space to move.

Then the stage falls down few feet and they are both swept inside.

Maka blinks. The whole protrusion comes into focus. She realizes it's an eye.

Eye lashes grow out of the ground, and lids eject after them. They are black as the surroundings.

The giant eye blinks. When it opens again, jail bars start growing from the edges of pupil. Soul lifts the Other-Maka up by her waist, and she escapes before the bars completely close. Soul is left behind. He holds the bars desperately, reaching out for the Other-Maka, who is crouching above him and trying to pull him out.

Maka hears her cries for him. That's when she decides she has enough.

She knows this is a dream. That means the only logical outcome is to wake up.

And so she jumps down, accelerating towards them…

"Maka!"

"What! What?" She nearly jumps from her chair. Her head feels uncomfortably numb and stuffed, arms hurting from serving too long as a pillow, and her cheek feels as if drool has run down it. She uncertainly turns her head in what she hopes, is Soul's direction.

He's standing right behind the library table she choose to take a nap on. He looks bewildered as well, as if he wasn't expecting her to react like that.

"Did you… Did you sleep?" He taps the corner of his mouth. "Got something here."

She wipes her mouth with her arm, and feels kind of stupid.

"You told me to call you when I finish. We can go home now." The light coming in from the tall windows colors the library with soft orange tones. Particles of dust are visible, just floating merrily in the air. She kind of feels like them—distant and confused and just floating in her own head.

"Uhh. I... Okay. Just lemme grab my things, hm?" She starts to pack her stuff, looking around herself. She loved library, but she has never been her so late in the evening. The old librarian always kicked them out around five p.m.

She could never know how beautiful a library can be in the evening, how empty it seems when the librarian has already gone home, or how the books appear to be humming contentedly when there are no filthy hands touching them. She takes her bag and walks up to Soul.

She has also never noticed the chilling feeling the vast space and tall shelves can give to a person. There could be anything lurking around here, things she would never be aware of, watching her without her consent. She would never know. But why should she worry about it? She has defeated monsters, and she has Soul with her here. It seems like a stupid thing to be thinking about. "Let's go home now."

A small black thing runs through the narrow corridor. In that short moment she notices it is not casting a shadow.

Has she seen something out of the corner of her eye?

What was it? What the fuck?

She quickly takes the last steps to the threshold, catching up with Soul's casual stroll.

As soon she is outside, the tension leaves her. Here, out on the sun, it seems ridiculous. What if the actual thing was a shadow itself, of some bird flying past the large window? Yeah. Totally plausible.

She doesn't ponder on it, chalking it up to imagination and a sleep deprived brain.

But as she closes the library door, locking it behind her, she can't help but feel weirded out by her own head.

---

"You know, sometimes I feel the same way. Like my head is playing tricks on me, portraying some real, heavy shit in the real world. But.. Uhh, It may be my black blood. Dunno?" He appears uncertain. And maybe a bit worried. Like she is the one flipping shit. Uhh. Maybe she kind of is.

"You mean it's normal?" She tries not to heave as she tosses him from one shoulder to other. This forrest lays on a steep hill—with every step she feels her shins burn more and more. Well, all training is embraced.

"Well… Yeah? I think it is? Sometimes you get the feeling you see a person out of corner of your eye, and when you look directly no one is acctually there…. Yeah, except if it's not BlackStar, I mean."

She surpresses her laugh.

"Okay, so you are telling me it's normal..."

"Yep."

"…To be seeing, like, shadows just passing randomly without the person casting them…"

"Yep."

"And I should not worry about it?"

"Definitely." His voice rings metaly in her ear.

She stops for a moment, looking at the thicket all around them. The greenery is casting shadows on the terrain, creating small pools of moonlight under her feet, every now and then. The air is chilly on the exposed skin of her neck, Soul's blade biting cold under her fingers. Serves her right for forgetting her gloves. That wouldn't happen to her normaly, but this was a last-minute mission from Kidd that came unexpected at ten fucking p.m, while she was getting ready for the bed. Some shit about this Kishin being a weird one, and the need for a death-scythe operating…

They walk aimlessly next five minutes in absolute silence, except for the sounds of the forrest. It's a beautiful night for watching stars—the sky is clear—and maybe she will persuade Soul to go watching them whilst flying.

The moist bed of old leafs squeaks under her combat boots as she takes another random turn. She bends under another low branch, pressing Soul to her chest—ignoring his coment, of course—concentrating instead on the Soul-perception. She doesn't sense the kishin egg as she normaly would—like sensing how old it was or how close she was to it, and it suddenly worries her that this might be a pro…

She feels him shudder through the link, thrumming with excitement. She halts mid step, Soul's eagerness telling her to get ready. He senses the madness first, which is weird—she is the one with perception and so she should be aware of it first…

"Get ready Maka." He shuts her inner rantling.

She knows in few seconds it will come. She takes stance and waits. Sweat runs down her eyebrow, annoingly close to the outside corner of her eye. She has to blink.

"Maka. Now!"

And there it is, jumping down the tree right at her. She skirts back poising the scythe for an attack—she charges but the monster jumps up, leaving her alone again.

"Stay alert."

The forest chirps again, leaves fluttering in the night breeze. She bends her knees, dropping her stance and getting herself ready for the next attack. Something snaps above her.

And with that the assault starts again.

The creature jumps down, right in front of her, and for the tiniest second she is face to face with it, just inches apart from gory face of the kishin egg. It still has some mild human features, but they appear to be thrown in the mixer with something of a snake and maybe snail—is that thing cowered in slime? She is completely taken aback—mainly because she hasn't expected it show up this close—and so she doesn't react when when the tiny black tongue flies out of it's mouth, licking her straight across the cheek. It's really more of an instictin—which kicks in, only at the feeling of that gross stuff being smeared across her cheek. Seriously, ewww—her head snaps back on its own accord and she flips out of its proximity.

She swings the scythe at him, but it's too late—that abomination just twirls and dances out of her reach. And then it's gone again, only the shaking of the dark leafs in the tree top indicating where it had dissappeared into.

"Fuck! Get it together Maka." He says to her. This time she will not let herself get surprised.

"Lets end this quick, Soul! Soul-resonance!" She practically screams.

And there is his presence. He is in her brain and she is in his. She sees with his eyes as the kishin egg lets itself fall down again. She knows where it will land. This time it will not surprise her. She anticipates his attack, calculating every possible move the kishin egg could land upon her. Soul quietly watches her from his position near the ground.

The kishin falls in front of her, cautionously getting some space between them.

"Here it comes." She thinks, or maybe he thinks, she is not sure anymore. A wave of power washes through her, steeling her for the income. And the kishin leaps, saliva dripping from his exposed teeth, his lizard-y hands outstretched...

"Dodge, again. To your left. Now!" Dodge, to left, jump. Yes, she knows. This kishin is probably another one of those basic, predictable-in-attack types. Except it has this giant blinking, irisless, and staring eye in the middle, protruding straight from his pectoral muscles.

"And down!"

"Stop it, I can see with my own eyes."

"Yeah, I know… Jump. Yeah, just like that. Nice…!"

She strangles him internally. They contuinue to bicker back and forth in their minds, while she easily parries with the enemy, old twigs snapping under her feet and under the monsters paws. The 'Gory'- as Soul mentally dubbed—him his true name was Dean Flint—swipes at her with its tail (It actually has a friggin godzilla tail). She blocks it with Soul's pole, and then cleanly slashes it of from his spine. Puss squirts at her—which is just, plainly, gross—and Dean howls and is gone.

"Whoa, Maka. You are covered with that shit."

"Shut up. You are too."

"…Good point."

She jumps up, hooking Soul's blade on the lowest branch ('Hey, what am I, a grappler-hook? Fuck.') and leaps up approximately thirty-feet above the tree tops. She gives a command—Soul transforms mid air—and she jumps on, sliding down so low his blade touches the leafs.

She squints in the darkness. She still doesn't sense Dean's soul.

"You see anything?" They fly up higher to acquire a better outlook. Wind blows past them, roaring in her ears.

"Maka, concentrate. You see his soul?"

"No."

He makes an inquiry—she promises him she will explain later.

"There!" It's actually him, who first sees the movement under them. She angles Soul down, his pole pointing right at the moving branches.

"Come, Girl."Snicker, snicker. "Come."

"What?"

"I didn't say anything."

"Just come… Ahhh, there ye are…. I want to see…" An sharp inhale. "Yer blood. Blood for blood, as they say…. My tail… My poor tail…."

It dawns at her that this is not Soul speaking. This new voice is breathy, rattling lungs full of puss and dust.

"Come,girl, what are ye waiting for."The voice sounds like it's gurgling and choking at the same time. She stops mid air, bewildered beyond belief.

"Maka, what are you waiting for? Go!"

"Come, Come!"

"I can't Soul!" She speaks up, abandoning their inner conversation.

"What? No, what are you doing?"

She thinks quick. What should she do? How come she can hear the thoughts of a kishin!?

"Okay. You need to listen, and listen closely for my commands, okay?"

"What? Maka? Hey. Hey!" He sounds so desperate.

She decides to stick to the previous plan. At least to part of it. It was a dumb plan anyway— just diving right at the monster. What if it was a trap? They hadn't thought about that. What if the monster was actually intelligent enough to plot something even remotely smart? And they were about to jump right into it's open mouth.

Well, no. She has another outcome planned out for them.

She lets them fall.

"Small change of plan Soul, don't transform when we hit the trees, understood?

They gain speed, their strong wings steering them in the right direction, a small ball of fury pointed straight at the moving tree limbs.

"Yes. Yes! Come!"

They surf rigth above the tree top and seconds from impacting with it, she hears it again.

"Gotcha!" The monsters voice in her head sounds absurdly estatic.

'No, I got ya.' And as an aftertougth she ads; 'Slimy.'

Dean bursts out of the oak tree, leafs and snapped twigs after him, his long claws extended and ready to slash her in two.

"Now Soul!" She screams so hard her throat feels scratchy. Soul's wings uplift them, just out of reach of that metal death traps.

"Your soul is mine Dean 'Gory' Flint!" She gives a silent command and Soul transforms the blade to its normal self- she brings it down, the tip stabing the creature in it's scaly abdomen. She presses on until she feels the squshiness of the eye under Soul's blade, presess on until she sees the black-and-red come out from the back of now descended corrupted soul, presses on until the matter under his edge divides in two and, finally, lets Soul's blade come cleanly through the body.

They fall down, safely landing on the soil, the corrupt body dissolving in slim black ribons above them.

---

"Care to explain to me, what the fuck was that?" Soul appears to be mildly annoyed.

She pretends to not watch his adam-apple bob up an down when he swallows. It's always in times like these—when she is exhausted from the mission, and cowered in past-human bits—she lets her caution down. Or maybe she rewards herself like this.

On normal days, she tries to be composed, restraining herself from thoughts, thoughts about him, being careful what she thinks and says. But now she doesn't feel like hiding anything. She is giddy, with excitement, with the new knowledge, about Soul… Everything.

"You won't believe this."

This catches his attention. He stops trying to futily scratch off that slimy stuff – blood – and looks at her instead. He has some of that slime spreaded on his cheeks–she doesn't chastite herself for thinking it's cute how he confusedly rubbs at it– and she motions at his faces. He scratches it but then gives up.

"I won't believe what?"

"I think…." She trails off, intentionaly leaving shocker silence.

"You think…" He encourages her to continue.

"I think, my soul perception just got to a higher level!" She sing-songs. Yeah, giddy doesn't describe her. She is euphoric. She cackles and hoppity-hops around Soul in large circles.

"You don't even know what your soul sounds like right now."

"Isn't it friggin awesome?" She feels like her soul is skipping with her, up and down like an overexcited little girl.

"But haven't you sensed that soul kind of weirdly? You said you didn't know where it was…"

"Oh yeah. That. I think it might have been solely something about that soul. Kidd mentioned there was something weird about it. I can feel you normally now, though." This is the best. She felt like flying now, from under the trees and in the open sky.

"Soul?"

"…Yeah?"

"Transform." He decides to not question it.

She mounts him and points him in the sky.

They burst out of the leafs in similar fashion the kishin did. She whoops loudly, fist pumping the air. For now she just lets the emotions running freely. Screaming and laughing until her throat feels dry and her side hurts and her lungs refuse to serve her anymore.

He laughs with her.

---

She is in the space again. It's the same as it was that another time she didn't remember, but now strangely remembers. High obstacles rise from the black void, creating narrow aisles. In great distance she sees the wall divide in two. She walks on, sometimes randomly turning—there are so many ways she could go, the spaces between obstacles always recreating and yet, somehow she still knows, or remebers the way.

The way to what exactly?

She is not sure what will wait for her this time. She just hopes it won't be myriard of bulbous eyes watching her from Jackie's face.

Her pink hair moves traitorously on its own accord—no wind, probably vacuum, same as last time—and she presses it down, annoyed. She checks herself in the mirror the black wall presents.

The walls around her get higher and higher, growing, expanding in the nothingness. She presses her hand to the black surface. It's warm under her palm and from time to time it raises up against her finger pads. It's… Pulsing? What the heck?

She draws back her hand as if it has burned, and jumps away from the wall. Yeah, from now on she will only walk straight trough the middle of the road.

Time to move on.

So she walks. And walks until she doesn't feel her toes anymore, until the soles of her feet feel like they want to fall off. She has to stop. The walls around her contract, an occurrence she has gotten accustomed to over the course of the time she has been stuck here, the endless corridors leading her to her unknown destination.

She looks around her, and shruggs. Then takes the left turn.

And walks on. Her mind is strangely disconected from her body, as if floating above it, but she still sees with her eyes. She looks to left—something whispers to her to 'just do it'—and what she sees completely awakens her from her slumber-like state.

She is still in the mirror, now facing it completely. But it is not only her who is there.

A string is tied to the right hand of her reflection with a tiny bow, neatly attaching her to a floating cranium.

The head has long, dark hair, that the wind blows to and fro. It's eyes are open, framed with long lashes, strands of black hair from the bangs getting into them, but the head doesn't seem to mind; it just stares right ahead of itself.

It's Jackie's head.

Kim's eyes snap to her side. There is no one there. She looks back at the mirror. Jackie's head still floats peacefully next to her, about her chin level.

Kim blinks, and the nanosecond after she opens her eyes she is taken aback; her bones are strangely visible, still covered with layers of clothes and skin, and muscles, but she can see everything, even the energy–tiny bolts of lightning–running through her system and, of course, her small blue soul, fluttering in the depths of her chest.

Jackie's head is in the same see-trough state, just reduced to a smaller scale—only the skull is visible, and behind it a high number of energy bolts concentrates, presenting Jackie's brain.

Kim tries to reach out with her left hand. It takes her some tries to properly navigate herself according to the reflection. The tips of her fingers brush against something soft. She chesks in the mirror–she is barely touching Jackie's head. She flatly presses her palm against the side of the cranium, just above its ear. Her fingers get tangled in the flying strands.

She looks at her side. Still nothing, still touching air, or whatever the hell this place is filled with.

Kim hears a gasp or a maybe a moan; her gaze drawn to Jackie's face who has her mouth open and formed around an o-shape, her eyes wide, galaxies and nebulas shining in them. Liquified stars in form of tears drop from her eyelashes, and run down her cheeks, dribbling on the floor. Crying Jackie ooks at her. Then her eyes seem to loose interest.

Her tongue slumps out of her mouth, a gurgle coming deep from her troath. First just bubbles of air come out, but they are quickly replaced by a thick red-brown substance that starts leaking out in large chunks. Kim can't tell if it's curdled blood or vomit; she also can't decide if she want's to yell or vomit herself.

She yanks her hand away and backs out of the close proximity of The head.

As it is, she completely forgets about the string, just the sharp pulling reminding her that she is still attatched to that thing. She pulls and tugs at it, but it's tied too strong; she only keeps dragging Jackie's head after her.

Jackie keeps gurgling out the blood, and Kim feels her eyes sting, as the unwilled tears threathen to spill from her tearducts. She gives up on trying to loosen the bow—that somehow still withstands her fierce attempts—and swings her arms crazily.

Kim goes possibly gaga when the head, following the movement of her arm, lightly bounces from her crown.

For one horrible second she is completely still, lightly bent over, her fingers and right wrist all cut and bloody from the unforgiving string, that still refuses to snap…

She feels hot and damp breath hit the back of her neck. And that's it. That's when all the hell breaks loose.

She shoves Jackie away from her; Jackie's moans intensify tenfold. And then the brown-y stuff starts running from Jackie's ears and nose and eyes, from every possible opening, and Kim knows she really is going crazy. She cramms her fingers under the bow, tugging determinately, as the tread just cuts further and further in her meat.

Small droplets of blood—the musky scent covincing her that the brown stuff is, indeed, blood—roll down Jackie's neck and splatter on the floor.

Some of them trickle down the string. Kim watches in mild horror as they make their way down the thread, as small kids on the slide, nearing her very own flesh.

"No. No. No, no, no, no." Kim gritts out through clenched teeth. Her desperation reaches the sky level, as the first, disgusting blob nears her skin in almost slow motion manner.

'No. No. Please, Shinigami. No. No. No. No. No.'

The stuff is now on her skin, coating it like chocolate icing, getting in her fresh wounds. It stings a bit, but not as much as her eyes do at the moment. She retches, the bile raising in her troath. In last second she gulps it down. She suspects her own tears fall too—Jackie still keeps hurdling all that stuff out of her (vomit, blood, her own tears)—it's really only a matter of time before she breaks down.

And break she did. Kim lets her legs buckle, and falls knees first in the solidified blackness under her. The head drops significantly,a sharp movement down, and then up, as if it was a real baloon, bouncing lightly when it reaches the full expanse the string provides.

Hard sobs rake Kim's body. She still has some of the sanity intact to outstretch her left hand furthest away possible.

"Kim."

Kim looks up, and finds the head staring down at her. Jackie's moans had ceased. She opens her mouth again, and all that comes out, except for few forgotten blood drops, is a quiet whisper of her name: "Kim."

She wokes up in her bed, her comforter askew, and Jackie's head floating blurrily above her.

"Kim, are you okay?"

A quick glance at the clock on her bed table tells her that it's two a.m. She sits up and runs her hand through her short, choppy hair, and squints at still standing Jackie. She can't properly make out her face, thanks to the light that leaks from her open door and succesfully blinds her.

"Uhhh….Yeah. Yeah. Everything good." She mumbles. Her tongue feels too big for her mouth, swollen and disgusting.

"Why are you bleeding?...Oh, god… God!"

"What!? Oh, fuck. No. No!" Kim quickly scrambles out of her bed. The side of her sleep shirt feels damp, and something runs down her forehead and her fingers. For a moment she can't see–a lone drop dripps in her eye. She runs, halfblind, towards their shared bathroom, Jackie following her like a lost puppy. Kim kicks open the bathroom door, punching the light switch with unecessary force. She lefts a bloody handprint behind.

"Kim! Stop. God, god, god, what to do, what to do!?"Jackie scrambles through the small under-sink shelf and pulls out a first-aid box. It falls from her fingers, it's contents spilling all over the floor.

Seeing Jackie flip her shit, strangely sobers Kim up. She sits down on the rim of the bath-tub, watching bemusedly her weapon scooting up band-aids and dressings.

"Hey! Come on it's two a.m. Let us get some sleep. I have a test tommorow! Fuck!" Someone yells at them from the other room. Apparetnly they have woken up the other half of their suite, the thin wood of the second bathroom door doing a marvelous job at doing nothing to block the sound of Jackie's hysterical babbling.

"Gosh, shut up Minerva this is an emergency!" Jacqueline flips the door, but continues rumaging through the gathered emergency kit.

The girl, apparently Minerva (how the fuck was she supposed to remeber their voices) responds with silence. There is suspicious amount of whispering and other small noises. She tries to ignore it as Jackie roars at their roomates from behind the door, telling them to shut the fuck up, or, for the love of god, help them.

Kim looks at herself. A minor injury on her wrist—nothing serious, just a lightly deep cut running all around her wrist, like a bloody bracelet—but there is a huge pain in her side. She lifts the hem of her green (now more or less christmas colored) shirt and examines the gash that is there.

It's her old wound that has reopened—well, to say old would be a misunderstanding, she got it exactly four days before on a particulary nasty mission—the stitches torn in five or six places. It's still pretty huge, just not as deep as it was few days ago.

"It's okay. It's okay, Jackie. Look."

Jackie stops dead with torn packet of butterfly closures in her hand. She looks. Her hads fly up to her mouth, butterflies littering the floor again.

"Why didn't you heal it up as you promised?" Jackie whispers.

Few moments of silence folow, in which Kim treis to not wriggle from her guilt (the wound hurts like a bitch).

"I-I, uhh. This is lame… I thought…"After a short silence, Kim just decides to spill the beans: "I thought I could, maybe, somehow, prolong my… Absence in combat-classes?...What? Stop making that face."

Jackie keeps glowering at her from her kneeling position. She feels a bit guilty—true, it was kind of irresponsible of her—and also vexation graces her with its presence. So what? She did it? No need to discuss it further.

"Come on, it's nothing serious okay? I can heal it up pretty quick, ya know?"

Jackie's brows stay in that same bleak, unwelcoming state. It's weird, because Jackie has never glared at her like that–not since their partnership started, anyway–and she just happens to feel like the little shit she actually is.

"Okay. Fine. I get it. Sorry. I will start healing it right now. And I will get it checked before school starts. Just stop staring at me like that."

Jackie's forehead finally smooths out. "Is that a promise?" She asks, hope concealed but still barely hearable behind her words.

"It's a promise."

---

She feels like an eighteen-wheeled truck has just ran over her. From the looks of it, Soul must feel the same way. But she has a power of giddiness fueling her up. Soul doesn't have the luxury.

She playfully jabs him under his ribs. He slinks away at her touch, jumping four feet aside from her. His look clearly says: 'You are not normal. Fuck off.'

Hmph. Men and their need for sleep. Actually, more like Soul and his need for sleep.

She draggs another foot in front of her, pushing herself up the notorious Shibusen stairs. On normal days, they would have already been up. The sun laughs at them, pressing it's rays more hard in their backs as if on purpose. She wonders where had she had her mind, when she was dressing up this morning. Why did she put on her coat?

Well, she could still carry it in her arms, but she didn't feel like it.

"Almost… There." She huffs.

By any means this would have been a beautiful day. Sunny, no tests (even if she fairly enjoyed them), they are on time…Except for Soul. Total killjoy.

"Why… The hell. Would you…" He pauses to catch his breath, "Make us…Go…To friggin school…When we are, basically, excused from the whole day?" He sounds like a grumpy old cat. It's cute.

She doesn't fail to remind him about it. "Oh shut up, you poor, little, grumpy, puppy." She coos. His scowl is possibly poisonous. "We are not excused, because we came before two a.m. And you know that very well. Also I need to talk with Kidd about my new ability." She practically sings.

Soul mumbles a few, choisen, luckily incomprehensible, words under his breath. She laughs at him.

"We are almost there, anyway."

"Fuck me."

She ponders on it for a few minutes. Then lets her traitorous tongue slip.

"Oh... Gladly."

She leaves him flabbergasted and gaping in her wake.

"Hia! Maka's here!" She hears, more than sees Patty hurl at her. She steels herself for the income. Patty's body slams in her and she hugs her like a bear. From what she can gather from her crushed position, the rest of the girls is making their way to her.

"Oh. Maka. How are you? I heard from Liz, Kidd sent you onto some weird corrupted soul. I hope everything is okay?" Tsubaki asks with worried expression.

"Yeah, Tsubaki. Everything's just fine."

They exchange the usual post-mission pleasantries, until the mood gets heavily altered by no one other than Liz Thompson.

Liz keeps looking at her, with something akin to a knowing smile. "Did something happen between you two?" Liz wiggles her brows suggestively and looks between her and Soul, who is currently trying to find a decent sleeping position, while Black Star keeps yelling about something right next to him.

"Uhh... I don't know what you are talking about?" Maka gritts out, observing how Soul's expression grows rapidly from mildly annoyed to angry. He punches Black Star, who is standing on his table, right in his knee. She winces sympathetically at Star's pain (he crumbles, and falls down through the chairs), but feels somehow proud of Soul.

"I mean, he tries to look bored, but he keeps sneaking glances every now and then at you. With a small smile. Hey don't look there…" But it's already late. She looks, Tsubaki looks, Patty looks… They end up all monitoring Soul, who quickly avoids their stare.

"Geez girls. More subtle? Sooo... Why does Soul look so… ravished?"

Okay. So they came home from the mission like at one a.m. in the fucking morning, of course they would look like shit. The flight was a pain in the ass. There was a crying baby and some kid just kept kicking her chair, until Soul tried to stop him. Of course then he insisted on changing places because the brat, just to be a little shit he was, just intensified his kick power. No wonder Soul looks a bit scavenged. Well, he may or may not look like that because of her previous comment.

Why the fuck had she let it slip? 'Am I crazy?' Only now it dwells on her that that was totally not like her. It was weird. What does Soul think now? Won't it be awkward between them?

Oh, fuck.

"Well, yeah. We came home at one a.m. It wasn't a long mission, but it has taken it's toll…"

"You obviously are still trying to cover it. Come on, you even told us you liked him. It's no big deal." Liz rolls her eyes and she inspects her nails, pretending to be disinterested.

"Liz!" Maka hisses out and frowns at Liz. What was up with her this morning?

"Okay. This is getting uncomfortable." Tsubaki says as she claps her hands together, obviously sensing Maka's discomfort. She takes her by her shoulders, ushering her away from Liz, who is whispering to Patty with a frown.

Maka tries to look back at her, but Tsubaki squezees her shoulders, not letting her turn around.

"What's her problem!?" She whispers furiously. Tsubaki looks apologetically at her. "It's a fucking secret. You can't just tell it in front of everybody. It's a secret!"

"Maka. Calm down. No one has heard that." They walk up the stairs, nearing their row.

"That's not the point. She was bitchy beyond belief. Can I sit with you today?"

Tsubaki gives her a inquiring glance but doesn't question further. She only motions with her head at Soul, silently trying to confirm her hunch. Maka nods yes.

Tsubaki continues as if they silent conversation never happened. "I have talked to her. And she is just nervous, and I'm not trying to excuse her. It's just that Kidd is kind of on the edge since last week. You know how they are. If one is in the mood the other two are too. I'm just surprised Patty hasn't reacted to it yet." As if on command both Maka's and Tsubaki's heads snap in Patty's direction. She is doodling something enthusiastically on her messenger bag. Yeah, no change from the normal, whatsoever.

"It may be only Liz then. What's with Kidd?"

"Uh. I don't know. Liz says he feels something in the air. But she also thinks it's his yearly 'symmetrical'," Tsubaki makes air quotes, which is just weird (Maka thinks she is completely reenacting Liz), "fit as she calls it. But truth to be told I have been feeling weird too, since last we…"

"I just can't believe it!" Maka leaves out her frustration. They get to Tsubakis row, Maka following in tow. They sit down nearly behind Soul—he is sitting three seats to her left. She continues.

"I had such a good mood today too." Great now it was ruined. She realizes that she hasn't let Tsubaki finish her sentence. Now she feels bad too. "Oh. sorry, I intrrupted you. Go on."

"No no. It was nothing, really. Why did you have a great mood?"

"Is it okay really?"

Tsubaki nods. Maka spills everything. She tells Tsu about mission, about her new possible ability, and about Soul. What she told him this morning. Of course the last part only written on a paper.

Tsubaki pushes the small paper in front of her. The class has already started, but Maka can't find it in herself to actually concentrate on it. Steins normally interesting commentary turns to a dull background noise.

So you really told him that? I'm… impressed. That's not like you. :)

I know, right? How am I supposed to act around him now? Oh, boy. I'm so stupid...

Just act naturally. He will think it was only a joke. Don't worry. Anyway, I'm fairly sure he would actually like if you meant it. :P

And how would you know that? At this Maka looks to her right at Tsubaki; she has a small smile playing on her lips, as she writes her response with her pink gel pen. Maka cowers a bit trying not to attract the attention of still talking professor.

He looks at you. Even now he sometimes throws a glance at you over his shoulder. Don't look.

Of course she looks. He looks pretty normal. His head rests in the juncture of his elbow. He is either sleeping, or totally ignoring the lecture. Just as she is, her brain reminds her. He raises his head then. She quickly looks away.

I think you are wrong, Tsu.

If it's one thing you can trust me in, it's this. I'm an assasin. I know everything.

Well, that last part was a bit concerning. She looks at Tsubaki, who is only smiling peacefully at her, nodding to exaggerrate her point. Maka takes her pen, kind of wierded out and scribbles her response.

Ok?

We should stop for a while. Stein is looking.

Assasin skills too?

Tsubaki doesn't respond to this. Stein really is looking. Maka guiltily looks at the untouched page of her notebook, her pen rolling down towards her. She takes it and tries to dot everything for the rest of their class.

"...And that would be everything for today. Test will be next week. Thirty questions as usual. Try not to fail me."

Class groans at this. Complaints rise, but dosctor just waves his hands at them, dissmissing himself out of the class. People stand up, picking up their things and casually stroll out of the doors. Maka is left behind gathering her things slowly to prolong the time to inevitable. She will have to face him one way or other.

She looks at her sad notebook. Tsubaki doesn't have notes too; hers were apparently booked by no one other than the blue-haired idiot, as Tsubaki informed her after she asked or them. Oh, the things the poor, poor Tsubaki did for love. It would never cease to amaze her.

She can't, surely, expect Soul to have anything written too, for he never pays attention. Bastard. And she always borrowed him hers.

The things she did for love too...

Ox can't be taken into consideration. Who else would be someone who is always attentive and responsible? It dawns on her that this is supposed to be a class for elite fighters, people who should always try their best, work hard...

Well. That's what they say.

She scrolls through every prerson aviable as she walks out of the calss. She pointly ignores Liz, waves to Tsubaki—they have combat classes now, weapons and meisters pairs each on their own—and waits for Soul. She still thinks hard when he joins her in front of the class. She doesn't look him in the eyes. They set off for their lockers.

There is a silence between them, one she doesn't want to disrupt, but is really awkward. Just as he opens his mouth she interrupts him.

"Maka. I wanted to ask…"

"Aha! Of course, Jackie! And I was worried... Here take this." She thrusts her books in Soul's arms. She really needed those notes. And she needed to get out of Soul's presence. So win-win. Maybe a bit coward-ish, but still a solid win.

She promptly turns around, intent on walking those ten steps back to their classroom. She congratulates herself for thinking it up this way.

"If you are looking for Jackie, it's no use. She wasn't here on the first class. Something with Kim and doctor, they say."

She stops dead in her tracks. Turns around robotically. Walks back to him. Takes her books. Her mind scolds her majorly for being so irresponsible. She continues in her tracks, walking around dumbfounded Soul, who is standing helplessly in the middle of the corridor.

He clears his throat.

"I... If you need notes... I-I took them for you." He says. She stops midstep again. "I saw you were not taking them, which is weird by the way, and I thought why the hell not? You give me yours always. So... Yeah." He does a weird pause, looking like he is about to say something more, but then just scratches the back off his neck.

"Thanks." She murmurs quietly. He has his arm extended, few sheets of paper hanging limply from his fingers. He is looking away, purposely not at her. She takes the notes—the scribbling is horrifing, but it will do—and quietly thanks him.

"Well. Thanks again." She grins at him, trying to abandon the awkward moment that came in between them. "Ummm…I think we should…"She motions in the vague direction of the gym.

"…Yeah. Um. Yes. Probably." He snickers at her. She grins back.

Like idiots.

They walk side by side to their next class.

---

She just lets her body fall on the couch, not caring at all it would probably break, if something just pressed against it with a higher pressure than normal. She hears Soul lock the door behind him—two clicks, per usual–and watches the dust dance in the rays of setting sun.

Behind her Soul pads, shoelessly, to the kitchen. She considers telling him to put on his slippers, but then tells herself there is no need to bully him.

"Juice?" He asks from.

"Thanks, would be nice." She calls back. The fridge door falls shut. Liquid is being poured in glass. She hears a quit whisper of 'fuck' and then a sound of wet cloth slapping on the tile floor. She closes her eyes and enjoys the last moments of sun, deciding not to care.

"Your juice, my lady." He disturbs her from her sunbathing, offering her a tall glass of juice. The ice cubes click against the glass.

"Thanks, mister Evans." She jokingly retorts back. Juice is pleasantly cool in her mouth, even if her hands get sticky because of Soul's previous spill-mishap. They settle in the couch, her legs curling comfortably by his side. Soul reaches for remote, stopping on a game of basketball.

The day was a pain in the ass. She feels like a dead person, refusing to leave the world, just barely hanging on a thin tread to the living. Combat training sucked, and royally for that matter. Their resonation stuck, and grinded, because she refused to let her mind and soul fall freely into it.

And Soul wasn't even mad. He just transformed back, and rubbed comfortingly her shoulders. That made her feel even more guilty. Because it was her fault.

She feels the annoyance seep back in her bones.

Then Kidd couldn't find time for her, just dissmissing her, saying he would examinate the matter later. He was 'concentrating' on something. That totally killed the remnants of her giddines.

To top it all, they even had a library duty. Kim wasn't present, so it was just silent Soul, and reticent Jackie. She scarcely pulled out of her, what the fuck has happened to Kim. Then she didn't say a word, just walked away, pointly hinting she wasn't in for the conversation.

And of course there was Soul who kept looking at her, thinking he was being descreet. Which he just wasn't. Nothing was better than checking the register and feeling something was peeking at you from behind a high stacks of books, thinking he wasn't at all visible. The first hour or so it was nice that he cared about her. Then she felt more like an animal in the Zoo.

It felt good to be finally home, just lounging on the couch. She is dead tired and bored too. Soul appears to be interested in the game–Death Men versus Chicago bulls—so she lets hers mind wander.

And boy, it wanders to places. She tries to stop it but it just keep coming. She gradually becomes more and more annyoed at the images her mind provides her with. Of him and her. She can't help but enjoy them, enjoy this man sitting on the couch next to her, obliviously cheering on their team—and that only drives her up the wall, further and further towards the ceiling. She slurps loudly on her juice and tries to focus on the game.

Annoyed and, apparently, really horny. Not a good combination. Is she annoyed because she has an unrequited love? Or is she horny because she is annoyed? How does the angst sex work?

Why should she think about this!?

She is really confused by all this. She wants him to keep being in her presence, and at the same time wants to escape to her room, escape from this shit that hunts her nearly three years…

Then Soul moves his hand up and down her thigh, and it just boils over. Well, not as much as she snapps at him like the colosal bitch, she actually is.

She didn't really mean to—only it was hard for her to maintain her cool distance, when he kept doing little things for her, which wasn't all that unusual, she was just beingstupid, and annoyed at herself for letting herself feel this way, fot letting herself daydrem about him, when he just really only sat there, more or less peacefully.

"Would you, please, stop touching me?" It's a wisper, but Soul has always had a sharp hearing. And a sharp sense of smell. And sharp teeth…'Fuck.'

For a moment she happily thinks he hasn't heard her. Maybe the evening won't be ruined by a fight powered by her. But then his left hand robotically peels itself off from it's position on her knee, and and slowly, slowly lands on his own leg. There is a small amount of hurt leaking from his soul, before he shuts it in, locks it in his soul for him to mourn over it later.

She has hurt him.

'Great, now I'm the bad one?' She continues to boil onwards illogically.

"Thank you." It's like an small imp prompts her further to continue. It's like testing how much she can stretch an rubber band till it snaps. There weren't many fights lately. Time to change that.

She feels she physically needs it, needs the shouting to function properly, to maintain the distance between them, to show her he doesn't—and will never really care for her that way. She needs to learn it. Understand it.

Accept it. The hard way, because no other way ever worked.

It has always been like that, she suposes.

His fingers curl into a fist resting on his knee, so tight his knuckles turn white. Of course this doesn't go unnoticed by her. She envies him for the amount of cool he maintains. She want it to go away. The imp in her tells her to continue, to poke at him, to make him snap, shout, let out his frustration like she did. Anything. Show her he isn't made of steel like his weapon form is.

"Really, thank you." She gives it a mocking tone. Watches gleefuly as the veins in his forearms pop out even more.

"What the fuck do you want Maka?"

"I?...Nothing."

"Yeah? It doesn't sound like a fucking nothing to me." His voice gets to that rumble, low and scratchy, revebrating throught her. It's on a great way.

"It does sound that way to me."

"Fuck that. Whats your problem?" He now fully faces her. He is still higher than her, even while sitting, his torso long and lean. She is not intimidated.

"My problem is that you keep pushing yourself," she makes a square around herself with her hands, "in my personal space." It's not that she dislikes it. Only she should. She accentuates her point by jabbing him in his tigh.

"Well, last time I checked you were the one who has laid your legs in my lap." The muscles in his jaw flex after he barks out his remark. She knows he is on the edge–he always does when he's about to snap..

"Oh yeah? I'm not the one who looked at me the whole day." She stands up. Now who is towering over who? He leaves out a frustrated groan.

"Fuck! There was something wrong with you, how was I supposed to…"

"There is nothing wrong with me!" Her voice gets higher in pitch. It wavers and shifts in scale. He noticed she was acting weird. The basketball game blares in the background.

He stands up too. "But it is! You are the one with the moods, you are the one who is one moment good and the other like a fucking harpye…"

"Did you just call me a harpye!?" Serves her right. She gritts her teeth.

"…And fuck that. I'm trying to be supportive, but you are like this the whole past month, and it's getting on me!" He punches the remote control. Sound immediately dies off. The screen blacks-out.

"It's not my problem you are annoyed by this!"

"Yes it is. It' your fucking problem, and you should fix it. You know what? Fix it by yourself. I'm outta here." He walks around her and into the hall. She hears few loud curses, and something being kicked over.

"Now you are going to run away?" She runs after him. Stops short when she seees him pulling on his leather jacket and snatching his keys from the shoe shelf.

"Oh, yeah. Run." She hates how she stands there helplessly. This was what she wanted, no?

"No. I'm just going to give you some space to sort it in your head. I will come home in few hours." She hates how passive-aggressive he can be. In the end he escapes before any major shouting can take place. The release she has craved, has anticipated, does not come.

Next moment he is gone. He opens the door and promptly shuts them after him. She slowly walks in the living room and lowers herself on the couch. The motor of his bike rumbles outside, the sound dying off as he drives away.

She sits quietly on the cushions, mourning over it, going through the events. Regret starts to settle in.

'This escalated quickly.' She thinks.

She raises her hand to her face. It's wet. Drops of salty water run down her face. She doesn't even feel them. Her body is crying, but her mind isn't.

The imp claps for her in her mind, in the back of her head, behind her eyelids when she closes her eyes. She curls on the couch in fetal position and falls asleep.

---

"Hello, my dear."

She opens her eyes.

"Over here!" The voice sing-songs. She whips her head around so fast, her pigttails slap her across her cheek. The void around her contracts.

"No. Dear, over here." The voice booms to her left. She wiggles around, trying to look at it. The floor has yet to appear, so she just waggles in the open space.

The voice laughs delicatedly.

"Where are you?"

"Oh, my. I don't posses a solid body for you to see, darling. No need to be scared though. What could a voice do to yo? But if you mean the source… Let's say, I am EVERWHERE!" The last word booms all around her, like a blast wave of atomic bomb. She coves her ears and curls protectively over her inner organs. Her ears are ringing and she has a vague feeling of something hot and moist dropping down her earlobe.

"Oh… I am quite sorry for my… Outburst." The voice giggles. "It's just that you are my very first first visitor since… Well, since the beggining of times. I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time."

The ringing in her ears drowns out even the sound of her own voice. She has to attempt her question few times, before she is finally able to hear it.

"Who are you?" She gasps out.

"Who am I? Hmmm…I don't have a name for myself. No one ever bothered to make it for me. Will you take the responsibility?" The voice asks with a joking undertone. It's classy and over polite. A thing that never really predicted anything good.

At her unresponsinevess The voice just merely sighs.

"Okay, I will give you some options. What about Dave? Hmmm… Chris? Ron? Hell! Who says I am a man?" The voice changes from gender-neutral to definitely feminine one. "And Jeniffer? Sarah? Hmm, what do you say? Or is it better like this?"

The voice changes back. She would most definitely try to not name it.

The floor finally appears. She lands safely on it, feeling immediately more secure the second her feet are planted firmly on the solid surface.

"Okay girl. You can just call me It."

She starts walking, her mind determined on escaping this strange thing in her own head. She wants to see Soul, just for a mere second, even if it would be only in a dream…

"Oh yeah. I like that one! Call me The Thing."

She pauses for a moment. What the hell! Did It just read her mind?

"Oh, yeah. I am pretty sure I can do that."

"But… You are in my dream. I am the one who has a word here." It's always like that. She has a nightmare. Realizes what's happening. Alters and bends the dream to her will.

"I am afraid not, little miss."

"But…"

The voice interrupts her. "Let me show you something."

It doesn't let her react. She hears a snap of fingers and she is flying. Well, not flying exactly. The world under her moves, but she stays on the same spot. The ground underneath her scrolls forward, first slowly but then at a mind blowing speed, as if she was a cosmonaut looking at the earth spinning whilst flying in the space…

The blackness undearneath her comes to an abrupt end.

She faces two persons.

"I think you know these two." The Thing says. "They are quite close to you, no?"

And they really are. It's her and Soul. 'These dreams only show him and me.'

"Bizzare, isn't it? Watch closely please."

Soul and The-other-Maka are leaning towards each other. She wonders if its affection she sees in Soul's eyes.

They lean in, and in, and in, and they touch…

Soul's eyes open wide. They seem to push out of their sockets. He grins. The-other-Maka copies him. They turn their heads, so that their cheeks are now touching. Soul's high cheekbones next to her chubby, round cheeks...

They lean in, and in, and in….

They blend in. Literally. The skin melts together, the bone accomodating, accepting the other, eyes not seeing for only one of them—for Soul and Maka separately—but for both…

Snap of fingers. The Thing giggles. The scene unfolding before her very own eyes stops.

"Hey, hey. Miss Maka watch this."

Snap of fingers.

The scene rewinds. It's all reverse. They lean from each other. The bone molds again, this time pushing out, skin pulls back, creating small strands, like the one of a molten cheese, that leap back on their respective faces…

"Funny. No?"

Snap of fingers.

The scene plays out again. Soul and The-other-Maka are now leaning to each other, in slow motion. Flesh first pulls back, but then leaps out, as if trying to reach for the face of the other one. Cheese-like-strands connect. Bone opens up, and joins—she sees the movement under their, now shared, skin.

Snap.

Scene stops. In the moment when the eyes are becomig one.

Snap.

Rewind. She watches as they detach again, their eyes blobbing back to their sockets with a movement of jelly, bones breaking, and skin separating.

Snap.

Play. Their faces join again, in that same bone-crushing way. Till The Thing snaps his fingers.

Snap. Snap. Snap

Stop. Rewind. Play.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

She watches it, a broken record, like that one Soul refuses to throw out, becouse it's a prized possesion from his grandma. The one he listens to on Christmas, even if it skips beat after every ten seconds of the music…

"How do you like my powers?"

And she doesn't respond, even if The Thing inside her head pushes her to. She I just so overwhelmed, emotionally deprived, she feels the need to physicaly escape. To run and never return.

"Oh. No stop it, miss. We have not ended here."

Snap.

The ground flies under her again, carrying her to some other, probably fucked up, place.

Again an abrupt stop.

A piano is present before her. It's a grand and with an open wing, dark as if it just rose from the surrounding blackness. It's filled up to brink with water.

Something stalks behind her. She whips around, and sees herself as a small kid. With baby fat, cute pigtails, and that flowery dress her mama bought for her on her fifth birthday. The small girl walks from behind her, not seeing, or maybe not caring for her. Maka curiously follows her steps.

The girl walks to the piano. Her shoes clack on the surface. She steps on the bench. Maka stops behind her, watching as the small girl struggles to climb on the piano. Her knees impact with the keys, but there is no disccordant sound, no cacophony leaving it. Only waves rouse on the surface of the water. The girl stands up on the keys. She throws first one leg over the brink, then the other, sitting on the edge.

She slides smoothly inside.

Maka reaches out for her, leaning over the edge desperately. The girl sinks deeper and deeper, to the invisible bottom...

"You know you will die if you don't save her."

She jumps after the girl.

She rolls off the couch.

It's up in her nose, and her mouth is full of it. She tries to breathe in, but the bile blocking her nose doesn't let her to. She realizes with a horror she is suffocating. On her own vomit.

The hydrochloric acid burns like fire in her nose and her pharynx is aflame too.

Her vomit comes out of her nose. She coughs and retches at the same time, knowing she is becoming short on oxygen.

She gasps for air, and wills her hands to do something. She reaches with her finger, down her throath, trying to take everything out. It's disgusting, but the awareness of that doesn't help her in any way.

The retching finally stops. It leaves her heaving body lying beside the couch, still coughing out the remains of her lunch.

She gets up after few minutes. Goes in the bathroom. Rinses out her mouth, and tries to clean her nose. It still burns like hell and her throath feels scratched and wounded.

She goes back in the living room. Couch is a mess. The carpet is too.

She starts to clean up. A quick glance at the clock tells her it's twelve p.m. Soul is still not home. She has somewhat hoped he would come running for her.

She feels disconnected from the previous mash of emotions and events. And really tired.

Her bed is inviting. She falls into it face first.

---

It's kind of hard living with Jackie. Really. Like right now. When she's still mad at her. For no apparent reason.

Well, it was nice having a minute or two of silence. But when it stretched for exactly a day and seven hours, it was nothing pleasing.

Jackie wasn't talking to her. And that meant no meals or free-loaning. It also meant, she had to wash her own clothes. And no TV. Which sucked.

School was a pain in the ass too. She missed the whole yesterday, only to discover they had a test next week. And no one had notes.

Welp, at last the third day of library duties is halfway gone. Maka and Soul have a silent household, so there are no usual murmurs between the two of them.

She looks at the register. Rolls the cart in section B and puts four books in the highest shelf. Of course she uses a small help of magic.

The day rolls by, and she doesn't even know how—she has fallen in a lethargic state, sometime during the monotone act of pulling out the books, and placing them in their respective places.

She falls asleep the second her head lands on a pillow.

When she wakes up, she knows something is very, very wrong.

She doesn't feel the presence of Jackie.

---

Maka wakes up. She remebers. She remembers her dream. What was that Thing? Or whatever the hell it called itself. It has shoved her some pretty disturbing stuff. In this dream and in the previous ones. Tonight she has dreamed of Soul. She has watched him as he threw a rope over a black gallows.

He hanged himself.

She couldn't bear to watch, even as The thing pushed her to. She woke up. Fortunately.

"Soul?" She is ready to call a truce. To admit she was wrong and apologize that she was in love with him, and he was only platonically, and it hurt her when she thinked about what she could never have, could never manage... She fists her hand tightly in her sheets and sits up. She drags the cloth around her shoulders and stands up, intent on walking over to Soul's room and realize her plan, even if she has to wake him up.

She halts, her hand outstretched, ready to knock on his door.

'To hell with it.' She knocks three times.

There is no answer, not even the usual grunt that comes everytime she disturbs him from his sleep in the morning.

She knocks again. Then she opens his door. Light leaking form the open doors illuminnates the headboard. She pads to his bed.

She prods the lump cocooned in the bedsheet. He doesn't move. She tries again. Still no movement.

She lifts his bedsheets.

Drops the one she has hanging around her shoulders as she runs to retrieve her phone.

"It was kind of improper how you left me withouut a word." She is so stratled her back-pack falls out of her hands. She bands down and picks it up.

"Why are you here?" She whispers to the moon-lit.

"Why, hello to you too."

She rummages through her backpack, ignoring the voice in her head.

"Sweetie, I'm not only in your head. This is real. I finally got out of subconsciousness."

She pauses.

"You are only in my head."

"Oh, no. No. You are wrong."Lights flicker off and back on. "See, told ya. I still can't do anything major in physical world, but you just wait."

She finds her phone in the side pocket. Thankfully, it's charged. She quickly dials Tsubaki.

It beeps nine times before she picks it up.

Tsubaki's sleepy voice greets her.

"Maka, what is…"

"Tsu! Oh my-Tsu! He is gone! And something is talking to me and I need to…"

"Calm down! Who is gone? Soul? Maka, you know he takes rides on his bike someti…"

"No! No, this is not it Tsu. I can't feel his soul. The connection between us… It's so weak... I need you to listen to me." She heaves in the phone. Tsubaki is silent for a moment.

"…Kay."

"I started having weird dreams. And then there is this voice talking to me. I know I sound crazy, but It just flickered the lights. It's real! I need you to come, take BlackStar, tell Kidd, they need to meet me…" The line goes off.

"…Tsu?" She asks with small voice, cautiously looking at her phone.

"Nah, I don't think so."

"What did you do?"Her voice wavers. It's more a whisper, not the strong one she has planed to acuse the voice with.

"I told you my powers are getting stronger. It's a continued proportion between his life and mine... It's a shame I had to take the girl too. Well, better for me. It's faster that way." If she could see it, it would surely be shrugging. "I don't really care.

"You took Soul. And who?" 'This is not happening.'

"I don't know her name. This was supposed to pass only between the tree of us. But that young witch's soul latched on to me. Guess she needed someone as Yaga was. But don't you worry. She is going to end up the same way as you."

She thinks of it. This… Thing had a major hand here. He could read her mind. 'What to do?'

"…What are you?" She asks.

"Oh, finally a question worth answering. I proudly present you The Almighty Thing. No need to clap, no need to clap. Where to start… Ah. I was just a mere seed a while ago. Small and harmless. But. And emphasis on that but, ladies and gentlemen, I started to grow. And here I am. Closer to my goal than everr, my plan nearly finished…"

Her phone buzzes again.

"Tsu! Just follow my soul! I can't…" It cuts the line again.

"Well, that was unexpected, little miss. I haven't gotten to finish my story. I grew up, over the course of the past tree years…"

She runs for the door. She shoves the key to the hole, turning it around.

"…Where are you going?" The doorknob heats up, burning her jumps away. The voice sing-songs in the background.

This might be a problem. But sudden idea comes.

She runs in her room, gaining speed with every step and kicking open her door (for the first time in history she is thankful they open to the inside), trying not to think about the crazy idea her mind came up with.

She doesn't bother with opening the window—she crashes right through the glass-pane, protecting her eyes with her forearm from shattered glas. In any other situationn she would think: 'Hell yeah, cool as fuck,' but Soul isn't there to affirm it.

She falls down, bending her knees and softening the impact with a somersault. She jumps up quickly and runs in the direction her soul marked out for her.

"Okay, girl. That was one smart thing to do."

"Oh, shut up." Her strong legs carry her on. She reprimands herself for not putting on her boots when she was standing in the hall. She is half naked—the chilly air is not pleasant—and the cobblestones dig into her barefoot feet. It's not only the rock, but also shreds of boken bottles and in one point she steps on a pastic toy some kid has forgotten there during the day.

She howls in pain.

In that moment of distraction The Thing pushes in their link and cuts the weak connection between them she was trying to maintain and ripps him away from her. She stops, getting panicky right away. The thin thread connecting them is split. She pokes and prods around her soul, concentrating on Soul. The broken end is still there, the imaginary body of The Thing holding it just out of her reach.

She tries to reach for it, but her acces is denied. She setts off again.

It's the same as during their mishap in the combat class. She refused to let him in, as she did many times before. Her feelings were sometimes untameable. They just needed time to settle down properly.

Now she doesn't have time for that. She will need to aim for him with everything she has.

She lets him know, or she looses him. She will stick for the first one.

She tries to recall what his hands felt like when they were holding them, how long ans strong his fingers were in comparison to hers, his smell, his teeth, eyes. His back when she pressed her cheek to it during their rides. His laugh and how he struggled everyday to spike-up his hair. How desperate he got when his headband was lost. How he expressed his emotions on rare occasions. How his hands danced across the piano. She thinks of every aspect of him, of things she loves about him…

"…Maka?" It's very quiet, and only in the back of her head.

"Yes! Soul, is that you?"

"Maka. Thank god. I thought I have lost you…"

"Where are you Soul?" She hates to interrupt him, but she needs this piece of information. Badly.

"Do you remember the Rock-Cave we went to visit last summer?" He pauses for a moment. "The one that's like, twenty minutes away on my motorcycle? I don't know how I got here. I was sleeping and next thing I know I'm hanging by my wrists inside this shitty rock."

She wants to cry from relief. "Are you injured?"

"I-I don't think I am. I just don't have much energy left… It's like something is feeding of me."

"Is there enyone with you?" Her mind reminds her that Jackie—It was talking about Kim, right?—should be gone too.

"Yes, Jackie is here with me. She is the one who tied me up. It's like she has smoked pot, she is just sitting here, looking at nothing. I tried to wake her up, but it's like she doesn't hear me."

"Don't bother. She is under control."

"Fuck. What?" For the first time she catches a glimpse of worry in his head. She sees him remeber all the times, he was under control, how helpless and worthless he felt trapped inside his own soul.

"It's called Kishin seed. I have read something about it in the banned section…" She turns for Reaper venue, looking for some steal-able vehicle. Need is need.

"Hello there."

"What was it? Maka. Fuck!" Fury replaces his wory. She sees as he thrashes on his bindings, the moon-lit cave looking like a shot from shaky-cam.

"It's The Thing. It's probably going to cut us soon, stay where you are, fight Jackie if needed…"

"Okay. Enough I said..." The voice huffs in her ear. "…You have a pretty strong connection, if you are determined. You two… Oh hey! Lookie there."

She almost falls over something, regaining her balance after second. The thing that tripped her dissipates in the ground, until she can get a better glipmse at it.

"Oh, did you see it? That was awesome. Watch out again."

This time she falls. When she tries to stand up, a mass sits on her, right between her shoulder blades. She can't get lungs are pressed together with her

There is a flash of pink and green and she can breathe again. She flips on her back.

She has never felt this happy in her entire life to see Kim.

She is holding a stop sign, drapping it over her shoulder, like a fucking batter—how de she get it out of the ground? —and she is holding her hand out for her. She is only dressed in tank-top and shorts, but her hand is warm.

"Stand up!" Kim commands.

She lifts her up and throws away the sign. "Are you fine. Yes? Okay, we need to go. Now!" Kim starts speed-walking, almost running, down the street, turning sharply for a small, hidden side street.

"Do you know what's happening?" Maka pats out. She steps on something again. She leaves blood foot-prints in her wake. That's for sure.

"Hell yeah! I just talked to Jackie. She has no control over her body, but she has told me everything. She is with Soul. And he is getting worse and worse. Then this Thing cut us off." Kim stops. Takes few steps back. Steps in even more narrow street. Vines drape over them. She has never been in this street before, but Death-City is large as fuck. She will need to inspect it tommorow.

"I already know that. Do you know where they are?"

"No. But I have a car." Kim thrusts out her hand. Moonlight reflects on metal keys dangling from her fingers. She presses the unlock button. Car beeps behind her. Kim twirls the key-ring on her finger.

It's a pink Chevrolett camaro.

Kim cocks her hip to the side, her hand propped up on it. "If stealing something, you should always steal with swag."

---

"Did you have the dreams too?" She asks as they speed down the desert road, cloud of dirt rousing behind them. Kim stamps on the gas. They accelerate so swiftly, she is pressed in her leather seat.

"Oh yes. I did. It was strange at first that I couldn't remember them." She shruggs. "I just kind of, uhh, chalked it up to my sleep-deprivation. We had a hard-core mission week ago, I was wounded, and you know how it goes… Anyway. It started getting worse, like, one time I woke up, and my wound was gaping open! And then this voice appears in my head, and I know. This is the little shit that caused it. Next thing Jackie's missing, and I know I have to find you. Which way?"

"Still straight on. Have you never been in the Rock-cave… Before? Fuck! Watch out!" Maka shouts.

Well, they didn't get much time of privacy. A high wall of sand rises in front of them. Kim jerks the wheel to the right. Maka has to steady herself against the dashboard. She has the belt fastened, but she is still thrashed around wildly.

Things go rapidly to Fast n' Furious from there. Or to that Nicolas Cage skeleton movie.

Obstacles rise in front of them, leaving Maka with about ten small heart-attacks, and Kim sweating soundly. She has lost count on how many times she has bumped her head against the window.

"I found you girls." It was with them again. It whistles happily.

"Oh my god. Maka! Do something with it!" Kim shouts as they make a drift, their back-tires betraying them on the sandy terrain. She violently switches to reverse, backing out of shrinking space between two walls.

So Maka tries to find that ability she has used such a long time ago. It's harder without resonation, but she manages.

"Thank you. At least we don't hear it."

It's hard to keep The Thing at leash, but she is Maka Albarn, three star meister, and a death-scythe wielder! She will fullfill her duty as a meister and a loyal friend…

The car stops abruptly. "Where now!" Kim shouts in her ear. The sand is no longer trying to kill them. The are safe for the moment.

"To the left. We should be there in three minutes… Do you even have a license?"

Kim doesn't respond. She just looks away.

"I just want you to know, if we die, and I'm not saying we will die, you were a good friend." Maka says. Then adds: "Well. Sometimes."

Kim laughs with her.

"Jackie and Soul, we are coming!"

They get out of the car.

The ticket-booth is empty. She spots Soul's motorcycle resting against it.

"We are here."

They walk towards the entrance. The gate is wretched open, the molten iron indicating just who has passed through here. There is a long imprint where the body was dragged through sand, and foot-prints on each side of it. Kim crouches down to it, inspecting the larg dimple in the sand. It's a wonder how Jackie has managed to drive them on Soul's motocycle all the way from Death-City.

She hears the glass being smashed. She looks over to see Maka pulling out her fist—thankfuly it's swaddled with some cloth she probably found in car—from the ticket-booth. She enlargens the hole carefully and opens the door. For a moment she dissappears inside. She hears her rummaging over the things there.

Kim stands up and dusts-off her knees. Maka appears by her side with few items under her arm. She also appears to have found some kind of boots—they are too big for her, but she crouches down to put inside the cloth ripped in tiny ribbons.

"Are we going?" Maka says and walks inside first. She looks over her shoulder at Kim.

Kim takes a deep breath and steps in after her.

They walk through narrow corridor and under the spherical rock overhang. The moonlight is still enough of a light source.

Kim stops short. "How will we find them?" It dawns on her they don't have resonation on their side.

"I don't know. I'm still focusing on my anti-demon wavelenght. I think we should resonate." Maka faces her. She takes her outstretched hand. Kim's soul reaches for her. She tries to accommodate, bend hers to fit Maka's. They resonate. It's kind of slow, but it should be enough.

Maka enhances her Soul-Perception and channels it to Kim. She feels the instant surge of power wash through her.

"Kim?"

"…Yeah?"

"I need you to find them."

"Roger that."

She feels Kim is seeking Jackie's wavelenght. Maka sends her more power through link. She feels The Thing trying to break through the barrier she has created. It's getting more and more annoying, and of course harder to keep it out. They walk further and further in the cave.

"Where now?" Kim asks, as Maka switchs on the flashlight she has snatched back in the ticket-booth.

"If it helps, there was moon leaking inside, everything was visible. So it should be somewhere in the…" She whips out an guide-tour, also courtesy of the booth. She throws the scond flashlight to Kim. "…Section A. That means we need to turn left in next corridor."

The flashlight illuminnates orange walls, colored with pink and white strips. Maka gets absorbed in the tour-guide.

"Did you know this cave was created by small stream? They say it's at least four thousand years old.."

At least they are not making much noise.

Maka shuts up her educational minute at Kim's lack off interest and starts planning in her head. Anticipation is always the best defence mechanism. She feels Kim poking in at her assumptions, looking over them and adding hers too. At one she stops though. She tries to push the idea out of Maka's mind, deeming it as irrelevant.

"Kim. Stop. You know Jackie might be possesed by it, right?"

She doen't respond, but Maka knows what she doen't want to tell her.

"That means, in case she will attack us, we can't hold back, okay?"

"I know that." Kim answers her with intentionally gruff tone. "But maybe it won't happen. I have found them."

"Okay… But you should know the best. We have to expect every outcome. There is no space for surprises."

She meets a silent wall again. Kim even stops planning with her. Maka internally sighs.

They turn left in the crossroads. Maka can immediately tell they are ascending. The walls curve around them beautifully. During the day the more obsure parts were lightened up by lamps. She recalls her last visit with Soul. She had basically kicked him out of his chair last summer and dragged him there. Okay, he was riding so it wasn't much of dragging but still. He needed some pushing.

"Could you stop your dreaming?" Kim hisses at her. "I need to concentrate."

They speed-walk up the small stairs created for better access. The rock around them has bulges and protrusions, some with sharp edges, some smoothened by water. She hears the rhytmical wet 'blop-blop' of water in the distance. It echoes through the cave. it's strangely mind-numbing and relaxing.

"We should be there in few minutes." Maka announces. Kim nods grimly.

They walk in silence then, Maka concentrating on her planning and Kim not giving shit abiut it anymore.

Maka's flashlight illuminates an especially bulky protrusion. "Kim bend down." She warns her.

But it's too late. Kim smashes her had against a protuberance hanging from the roofing. Her hands fly instantly to her forehead.

"Ow! Fuck!"

'Ow, fuck, ow, fuck, ow, fuck, ow fuck….' Cave echoes right back at them, till the sound gets tangled together, creating an uncomprehensible mash. It slowly dies off.

"Kim. No. Be quiet." The cave resonets still. It's unsettling.

She hears Soul. But it's only an echo too, leaking through the cave: "Jackie, stop. No. Where are you going? Stop. Fuck!"

Fuck accidental noises!

"Jackie's on the move. What now?"

"No. Shit. We have to move." Kim resumes her speed walking.

Maka gets more and more anxious with every passing second, her hands feel jumpy, and the cold seeping into her makes her teeth clatter. This was like some scenario from horror, where the thing crawled from the dark attatched to the ceiling, and tackled the first person to the ground…

"Did you hear that!?" Kim snaps her out of her nightmarish thoughts.

"God! Hear wha…" She doesn't get to finish her sentence. Something wet slaps above them. She turns the flashlight slowly upwards, with no intention of seeing what's above them.

And of course horror flicks never dissapoint; Jackie has her head turned around in that weird way, a spider looking at them with hungry eyes hanging of the ceiling. Things go rapidly down from that point.

"RUN!" She screams, or maybe Kim screams. The echo repeats after them crazily.

The light bounces on and off the walls, as they make their crazy dash for safety. Kim screams the whole time, a constant stream of curses and uncontrolable shrieks coming from her lungs.

"Maka!" She hears Soul again. This time it's stonger, as if he was closer to them. She is so glad she could cry, really. If there wasn't a fucking nightmare stalking them.

"Soul!" We are here! Don't move!" She is so relieved to hear him.

"That would be kind of hard, cuz I'm…" The end of his sentece fades in Kim's scream; Jackie jumps down on her, succesfully pinning her down. She blacks out for a moment—her head bounces of the solid floor—but regains her consciousness after second. In that short moment she knows she has lost The Thing.

The first bite doesn't hurt. The second does though. Jackie finds a spot between her shoulder and neck and bites down furiously, ripping away a sound piece of meant.

Kim saves her again. She kicks Jackie from her. She flies thorugh the air, her back impacting with the rock. She falls down face first and remains lying there.

"Maka. Find him! I will deal with Jackie."

And so Maka leaves her and runs after Soul.

---

His wrists hurt like bitch and his back feels strained on several places. The energy comsumptionn caused by the seed stopped a while ago, but it has resumed now. He is also cold, clad only in his pajama bottoms.

He heard screaming, but it wasn't Maka's—he knows it's bad of him to think like that, but, well—so everything should be fine.

"Soul?"

"Here!"

"Soul! Soul. Keep talking to me. I can't use my perception. It's blocked. Her hears her from distance. If he has to guess, she should be about hundred and fifty feet from him.

"Okay. I'm in a… It's not a corridor, it's like a small round cavern. We got here through a crack. I will navigate you. Also I think it's open, I hear wind…" he continues to inform her about other pointless things. He hears her running steps. She comes closer and closer to him.

"Soul?"

"You see the crack?"

She doesn't respond. It takes her som time to get through it. He looks at the crack, and for sure there she is. First her right arm appears, then the rest of her body. She has to push herself out side-ways. He breathes out in relief at the sight of her.

"Soul." She breathes out and runs for him. She huggs his legs—the only part of him she has access to, at the moment—and whispers apologies and sweet-nothings in his knees.

"How will, I get you down?" She asks herself. He sees the wheels in her brain spinning behind her eyes. They light up then. Light of her flashlight dances across the walls, over his face—he winces as it hurts his eyes—and then lland behind his head. "Wait for a moment. In a second you will be down.

She climbs the wall behind him, like a squirrel, reaches for the rope and cuts it with a small butterfly knife. He falls down, his legs buckling under him. She jumps after him, catching his arms and untangling the rest of the rope from his wrists. She hauls him up. He is scarcely standing.

"What happened to you? It's bleeding really much…"

"Not now. We need to go." She takes his arm and tuggs.

"My sweet children there you are." The voice resonates through their heads.

---

She turns Jackie around. She is unconscious. Kim hughs her body to hers, safely tugging her head in her embrance. She tries to resonate with her. It takes her a few attempts to understand it's to no use. She can't. She still feels Jackie's soul, only under a heavy layer of something else. The Thing was still blocking her.

She reaches out for her again. The sparkle is there, only tamed and small.

"Jackie I need you." She murmurs against her hair. It gets in her mouth, but she doesn't care. She only wants to wake up this person lying in her arms.

"You have a beautiful hair, have I ever told you that?" She twirls the black strands in her fingers. It;s smooth, but dirty. Beautiful things always get run-over.

"I haven't lost you, did I?" This thought suddenly scares her. She is suddenly overwhelmed by a pletore of emotions. She is angry, confused but mostly relieved to finally be th=ogether with her partner again.

"I know I was a bitch, this past week. And moth. Hell. Even the past year. But you are the one who stood by my side, even when the witch thing broke loose. You need to fight it. Figh it for me." She pets her head. The flashlight illuminates side of Jackie's face. Kim wipes the corner of her mouth with her thumb, smearing Maka's blood on Jackie's bends down, pressing her ear to Jackie's nose, suddenly scared she was really gone. She breathes out.

"Oh, man. You were like a zombie over there. Biting everywhere." Kim chuckles. "You should have seen yourself… Jackie?"

Jackie's eyes start opening. A hoarse cough leaves her mouth. Her arms come to life.

"Jackie?" Kim calls her again. Jackie starts clawing at her arms. It was fortunate she has put her this close to head-lock. Kim strenghtens her grip, pressing her forearm more firmly on her windpipe. This was really, last thing she wanted to ever do.

Despite this, Jackie keeps thrashing, trying to claw her way out. After few minutes Kim sees the effort she puts in every breath—her chest heaves up and down only sporadically—and she knows Jackie can't continue like this. She will suffocate before Kim buggles.

She can't let this happen. She leans down and whispers frantically in Jackie's ear. "I always knew that you liked me. It's just… I don't know, kind of hard to not notice. And-And I think I always liked you too. At first I thought, it was only friendly like."

She stops to collect her thoughts, think about what she wants to reveal, because Jackie's soul was still underneath, still listening to her rantling. And she doesn't want to hurt her. Not now not ever.

"But it wasn't. I liked you. A lot. But I wasn't sure… You know we witches… We don't have males. We are only female species. We only use men to reproduce. So there are only women couples, if any really. It happens rarely."

She takes a deep breath. "And I wasn't sure if what I felt was just a witch induced thing, or if it was real… And now I'm telling you this, and you are probably gone. If you hear me Jackie, fight it. For me. Please." She feels her eyes sting. She won't cry.

She bends down to the crown of her head. Jackie keeps the wild attempts at freeing herself. Her movement grudualy slows down.

"Please." She murmurs. Jackie's wheezing breath is a pain to hear. She never thought it would come to this. And her magic was of no use too.

What will she do without her?

Jackie gasps for air become less frequent. Kim feels her eyes water. Her arms cease to flail, falling down beside her body. Kim ignores the burn of the scratches on her upper arms, her eyes fixed only on Jackie's.

"Come on. You can do it."

The anticipation kills her. She hopes so much Jackie will jump up and say 'Surprise, youu thought you lost me? No such luck!"

Jackie's eyes slowly flutter down. She tries to keep them open, but her lids betray her. Kim hiccups at the sight. It's like watching small child go to sleep.

Her lids close and her chest heaves no more.

Kim looks at her. She is just lying there on the stone floor, sand in her hair, wet strands plastered to her forehead. Kim feels blank and hollow, and at the same timefulll of emotions she can't express...

Something starts raising from Jackies body. It's like a vapor, only it's black. It twirls and turns around in the light of the flashlight.

And then it flies rapidly away with a small hiss.

She looks at Jackie's body. Looks in the direction of the disappearing thing. Everything alse happens robotically, as if someone has possesed her body. She looks for Jackie's soul. It's still fluttering in her chest, just starting to leave her body.

Kim raises her hands, calling out her magic. She presses her glowing hands in the middle of Jackie's chest and starts healing.

That's how Tsubaki finds her, nearly tackling her to the ground. She doesn't hear Black Stars 'Yahoo! We found them Kidd!, doesn't hear Tsubaki's concerned questions, or Liz dragging her up; she only focuses on Stein picking up Jackie's unmoving body.

He says she will live.

That's when she finally, finally, let's herself cry.

---

"Soul. Transform." She commands.

"I can't Maka. And even if I could, what would you do to a voice?"

That was true. They needed plan and quickly.

"You know I can read you mind, right?"

Fuck.

"What will we do Maka?" Soul asks concerned.

"First, we need to get outta here." She tuggs him again. "Then we can figure out what to do."

"You want to get out of here? But… I didn't give you a permission to do so!"

Soul falls to his knees next to her, clutching at his chest. She too falls down, holding Soul's back and glaring around herself.

The Thing laughs joyfully. "I told you I was growing these past three years, no? I was planted by The Grand master in your Soul." The last words are spitted out with disdain. "But you haven't been listening to me at all. And now, I almost have his soul consumed."

One word echoes through her head, as the Thing rants on.

'Soul, soul, soul, soul,soul…'

It was in his Soul. It was a seed, growing on a fertile soil. In his Soul. She knows what to do then.

She will just need to dig it out.

---

They get out, just as the cave crumbles behind them. Dust flies in the air as everyone stares, incredulous, at the collapsed rock.

"Maka." She hears Tsubaki whisper next to her. Tears create paths on her dust-cowered cheeks.

"What happened?" Stein asks her calmly, as he lifts up Jackie's hand and examines her. Everyone else shouts at each other, BlackStar is trying to unblock the gate, and Kidd tries to steady everyone.

"I-I mean we, Maka and I, started having dreams. And then this thing, it presented itself as The Thing, started talking to us."

"Any idea what it was?"

"No. Well yes. Maka mentioned something about a seed, I really don't know. But it was set on the two of them, not on Jackie and I. I just…" She stops and looks at the stirring Jackie.

"Okay. She is waking up. I will leave you two alone." Stein stands up and flips out his phone. She manages to catch few of his words—he is calling reinforcement—but her attention is divided by a hand. She jumps but the relaxes; it's only Jackie reaching out for her.

She looks down at her. Jackie is smiling. She clears her throath. Kim takes her hand and squeezes it.

"That was one really good plan." Her voice is hoarse.

"Ah, I. Uh, thank you?"

"You made it leave me, and then you healed me. Nice." Jackie's eyes are shining. Kim has to look away.

Kim is left embarrassed. She glares at the small rock next to Jackie's head. There are few minutes of this uncomfortable-comfortable silence util Jackie wheezes again.

"I think…" She pauses to take a deep breath in, then coughs. "I think, I heard something about a not friendly like." She manages the biggest smile Kim has ever seen at her. She is not sure if Jackie is poking fun at her, or if she is actually serious.

But the teasing voice is gone, replaced with more serious one. "I hope you… Meant it."

Kim looks bewildered at her. She doesn'y knoe what to make of hers expression.

"Of course I meant it, stupid." She tugs one strand behind Jackie's ear. "Okay, I mean, I'm still not sure if this is a witch induced thing, or if it's a real affection, but I don't care anymore. I just want to be with you. You know. To make money. And stuff."

Jackie laughs. Or coughs, it's not important. "What stuff?" She asks, the anticipation in her eyes revealing she already knows what kind of stuff Kim meant.

And Kim bends down, and Jackie raises her head, and they kiss for the first time there, in middle of shouting people, dirty and bloody, on the uncomfortable ground, but they don't care. It's for the first time, it's weird and the angle—Jackie's head is lying on Kim's thighs—makes it awkward. But it's nice and it's theirs, so neither Kim, nor Jackie care.

---

It's a miracle The Thing hasn't heard her thoughts. It keeps rattling on. 'Self absorbed dick.'

Soul next to her wheezes loudly. She rubs his back.

"…And In few minutes my form should solidify. You just watch. Oh did I tell you? You remember when you were fighting that godzilla kishin? How you understood him? Well, that was because of me! I was currently looking around your soul, and that idiot started talking. Well. At least you had fun, No?…"

She reaches out for his soul, and they resonate.

---

She is in the void. This time it's her inner soul space. The one she always seeks during the toughest of battles. Or when Soul's arrogance gets to her. Or when she is doubting herself.

She concenrates on his soul. It's there, with her. She opens her eyes.

His soul floats in the air next to her.

She wonders if he sees her the same way she sees him—just a floating, blueish orb.

For the first time, she takes a closer look at him.

The orb appears to be normal. But then she notices the crack inside. It's long and curved, and she doesn't like it. It looks like raw meat, rotting and decomposing. So this was what the seed meant. It was eating him from the inside.

Not for the first time she wonders why everything bad keeps flocking at him.

She takes him in her hands, careful and tender. He is warm under her fingers.

What now?

She remembers all the times her mama took her to granny. She was young, very young, but she will always remember the smiles and sunny days with lemonade and sweet peach pie. She recalls how her granny always worked in the garden and the big straw hat protecting her from further destroying her eyes. She took little Maka by her hand and sat her down on the soil next to her. She used to tell her: "Weeds aren't good. They grow uncontrollably and suffocate everything. Flowers die because of them. That's why granny needs to pluck them out. Don't be sad, hummingbird."

She grasp his soul gently. Takes a deep breath and steadies herself for the thing she is about to do.

She pushes her fingers, one after other uder the surface of his soul. It's squishy, and almost liquid, and hot. She stamps down the need to take her fingers out.

Beside her, in the real word, Soul screams out in pain. She feels his pain too, through their link. It's like needles in heart, white and hot. Her head throbs.

She knows it hurts him. It almost makes her stop.

She reminds herself that he can—will—die. Maybe from the pain, but that's not a sure thing. If she doesn't get it out he will die. Surely.

Her fingers are in up to her palm. Beside her, Soul collapses. She can feel his mind is floating away, so she grasps his consciousness as hard she can.

"I need you to stay with me."

Her palm is halfway inside. She can feel the slimy texture of the rotten soul with the pads of her fingers. She pushes on.

And there it is. Her middle finger bumps into something solid. Tiny roots attach it firmly, refusing to let it go when she tuggs on it.

The Thing screams. From agony, or maybe, from fury. It's the same thing. She know she has found the source of It.

She fists her hand around it, jerking violently towards herself. The seed buggs—she feels the slimy texture spill between her fingers—and she pulls her hand out.

---

She opens her eyes. Blinks several times. Her eyes focus on her surroundings.

Her eyes first land on a pile of ash. It looks like burned leafs and wood.

Then her eyes land on Soul… And she crumbles to the ground beside him.

He is lying on his back in the dirt. His eyes are open, but unblinking and unmoving.

He has a large, gaping hole in his stomach. It's fist sized. She realizes with horror, her arm is bloody up to her elbow. She has pulled It out of him. For real.

Her hand is fisted. She opens it.

Right in the middle of her palm, emanating a redish glow, but otherways pretty normal, rests a tiny, harmless seed.

---

She sits by his bed. Monitors beep, indicating his heartbeat is steady, if a bit slow. His hand is strong and warm in hers, his fingers long. She kisses the tip of each one.

It was kind of a miracle they had found them, as she later found out. The Thing crumbled down the ceiling near the entrance. Kim started immediately healing will need to thank her for that, too.

That was the last thing she saw , when someone hauled her up, and over his shoulder. She really doesn't remember who it was.

There was a DWMA helicopter waiting for them, instantly shipping on Soul. She wasn't even aware they had a helicopter.

It took him to the hospital, where they stitched him up. He had a concussion, broken wrist, and his diaphragma was torn. A nice, big and new scar on his belly was on it's way. They stitched her up too. She had a big bite on her neck, butchered feet, and several other small wounds.

As usual, people came and went. Life went on. Kim was okay. Jackie was too, only she had to wear a collar, until her windpipe healed properly. But she appeared to be happy; she came in with Kim holding hands, afterall.

She was happy for them.

She picks-up the edge of the blanket the gave him. Plays with it for a while, trying to kill the long time of boredom.

He was here the fifth day. He has been put in artificial sleep. But today he was supposed to wake up.

It's another two hours until she sees his eyelids flutter. He squeezes her hand, and looks sleepily at her.

She wants to say something to him, but he is faster.

"Don't leave me." He murmurs, his voice scratchy and surely painful for his vocal-cords.

"Okay, I won't."

He doesn't respond to this for several minutes. She thinks he may have fallen asleep, until he pipes up again.

"Because I like-like you, you know? And when I heard what you were thinking of me, when I was in that cave, it was…"

She snickers at his attempts at proper speech. Of course she is giddy too. He is still dazed,, high on vicodin, and struggling with words.

"Aw, man I'm going to regret this later. Am I? Are I? Fuck?" He atempts to hide his face behind his forearm, but his stitches don't let him to. He hisses in pain.

"No you are not."