Author's Note: Major spoilers on both anime's parts. Read at your own discretion. As of yet, there is no adult content, aside from violence.
Chapter One: The End of Maka's Bravery! Trapped in the Wrong World?
Silence enveloped the decimated battlefield. Ugly gray rocks were littered all over the broken platform, signifying the cusp of the end of the world. The wind whistled, the black gel cage that surrounded the gory scene roiled, and shallow breaths tickled strands of stray hair. Death was heavy in the air, weighing on the victims of this gruesome sight. Maka, Soul, Kid, Liz, Patty, Black Star, and Tsubaki were all scattered around the last standing figure, Asura—the risen Kishin. He smiled a sinful smile, stepping with the stuttering beat of his heart.
Asura twitched his head to the side; the corners of his lips spread from ear to ear, elated. There was one still able to fight, one stupid enough to claw her way to her knees. He glanced over his shoulder.
"You're still up? But only hanging on by a thread…"
One of his many skin-scarves flickered toward Maka with the slightest of thought. A loud ching rang out upon impact, and curiosity overtook Asura.
"How did you use that? Magic? Huh? Tell me!"
Asura sent a dozen more attacks at Maka, doing his best to instigate a reaction out of her. She was unresponsive, and deflected each of his stunning blows with pin-point accuracy. The Kishin was left baffled and enraged at her nonchalant behavior. She ran at him then, a head-on attack that put a ferocious agitation in Asura's hollow chest.
Several yards away, she offered him the whole of her secret. Two sleek, black and gray blades burst from either of her elbows, and she continued to charge with deathly silence.
"A-ha!"
Moments before impact, Asura threw out his hand and summoned a blood red barrier to protect his body. While both attacks were whistling and grinding against each other like a sinful dance to the death, Asura sought a solution to the problem before him.
Fiery balls of light were aimed at Maka, throwing her off the offensive and covering her in a growing cloud of dark smoke.
Through the black and bloody clouds, Maka flung herself at Asura, swiping her blades at him, cutting through air and the sickly stench of battle. Another sickle shot out of her lower leg giving her an opening for an uppercut, sending Asura flying through the air, eviscerated. With one singularly gigantic blade, a sickly curved from her spine, entrapping them in its crescent shape. Two more shot from her shoulder blades, but Asura bounced off her crescent blade, putting as much distance as he could between the two.
That's when he saw her eyes, and he smiled at the truth.
Maka jumped a few yards in to the air, pulling out more sickles from her arms, and aimed to land on Asura. The Kishin let fly another fiery ball that Maka deflected with ease, but the opportunity was there. He came from behind her, mid-air, and choke-slammed her into the harsh concrete below. Dozens of sickles exploded from her entire body, shredding Asura's skin, but he ignored all of it. Black blood trickled down the blades. The thick blood dripped on her taut face as he shifted his arm around the sickles.
He smiled at her futile attempt with wicked attempt, and brought his other hand up to place it gently on her waist. And then he squeezed.
"AAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH! AGGGHHH! AGGGGGHHHHHH!"
The blades around her glowed like cobalt and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Maka continued screaming, and screaming, the agony lasting an eternity she hadn't known existed. The agony kept on like a blaze, even when all else was black and formless, void of anything for senses to grasp. Even then, the pain ripped the skin from her body, tore at her muscles sinew by sinew like a razor blade grinding back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… Her mind twisted, her body lurched, and Maka screamed ever louder.
And, then, gracious silence…gracious oblivion. Maka felt relief like she had never felt anything before. Her entire soul gasped and let out a breath of air, wallowing in the lack of pain. This absence of any sensation was more treasured than pure ecstasy, one that Maka wouldn't trade for…for…what?
Maka opened her eyes, and all around her was a black plasma, tinged with red at the edges of roils that appeared here and there. She gazed around with dim green eyes, and had no idea what the point of anything was. What was "was"? Existence? How far did that extend? Or life? Or…any of this plasma? Did it ever end?
The nameless girl shifted in the void, but the scenery did not change with her motions, and she felt sick to her stomach.
Opening her eyes, the girl was assailed by tens of thousands of painful shots all around her. Everything was bright, and her chest hurt, and her stomach lurched, and her hair was covered in chunky goo pouring out of her mouth. She gagged, grasping something fine and smooth, but it was easily torn from its hold, and she found herself slipping from her hands, falling, falling…
"Hey, watch it, now! Just breathe, okay? Calm down, you're really sick…"
The clueless girl took in a huge breath, sobbing from the memory of her agony and the questions and uncertainty that plagued her mind. Everything around her hurt her. She didn't understand any of it, didn't know how to deal with this crazy madness. What was this thing talking to her, the thing beneath, the things around her, the thing touching everything? She brought her hands to her face, but she felt something grab her arms. She opened her squinting eyes to a painfully bright figure, shining in the horrible light. She cried out and wrenched away, but the thing wouldn't let her go, and she cried in to it. What was going on? What was happening?
"Gah! Gi-yah! Ohn, da-da!"
She didn't know what came out of her mouth, or what it meant, but the thing in front of her didn't seem to mind.
"Maka, hey, shush…"
"Na-yah!"
"Maka, come one! Snap out of it! Hey! Maka!" The thing that wouldn't let her go shook her, and something in her mind snapped.
There was a person in front of her, and he wanted her to calm down. Looking around, she noticed tall, metal and iron buildings surrounding her. Unlike she initially thought, everything was gloomy; rain poured over the scene. She looked back at the boy sitting in front of her and found herself frightened by his razor sharp teeth and his blood-red eyes.
"Wh-Who are you? What are you doing to me? Let go!"
She pulled away, standing up, but was caught in a mind-blowing vertigo and fell hard on her back end. She winced and rubbed the soreness, looking around her. There were more people, five in all, who talked with somber expressions. She wiped spittle from the corner of her mouth, and then looked away in disgust to find the red eyes of the boy who shook her.
"Maka? Are you alright?"
"What?"
"I asked if you were alright." The white-haired boy looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Feeling the way she did, if someone told her that was what had happened, she wouldn't find it hard to believe them.
"I don't know…but who're you?" She looked up at him with big, strong eyes. "And why do you keep calling me Maka?"
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me. Maka, don't play this game with me, alright? Be serious. Stop acting like this." The boy seemed agitated, proved by the grit of his teeth and the clench of his fist. What was his deal, anyway? Acting like such a jerk!
"I am serious! Who're you and why won't you leave me alone?"
"W-Ma-I-" The boy shut up his mouth and shook his head, looking down at his shoe, crossed beneath him. He sighed tiredly. "My name is Soul. I'm your weapon. And you, you're Maka, my meister. Maka Albarn." He looked up at her with a hopeless expression and willed her to understand what was going on.
"What? Maka?" She looked down at her hands, torn up and sore from something, probably that black agony. She winced and looked back up at this Soul. "Are you lying to me?"
"Of course not. I'm your best friend. We've fought together in life-or-death situations, kicking ass, and saving the world. Although, I'm not sure what we got ourselves in to this time." Soul trailed off and Maka time to examine her surroundings more thoroughly.
"Who are they?"
"Your friends. We're all your friends."
At that moment, everyone turned to face her and smiled. She was comforted, but also frightened, because she couldn't remember a single one of them. These friends of hers, who she was said to have fought life and limb with…these faces that should have been ingrained in her memory…they were all perfect strangers. Her eyes began to water at these thoughts, and she rubbed at them feverishly with the sleeve of her black jacket.
"Where are we?"
"We have no idea."
Maka looked up at him with wide eyes, and a sudden wind carried away the voices of her distant friends. Suddenly, it was just her and this boy's eerily quiet voice.
"We scouted the area, and…this place is nothing like what we've ever seen before, and we've literally been all over the world. Yeah, there're similarities, but it's like we're on a different planet." Soul looked at her with solemn eyes.
"A different planet? That's…sad."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't even remember my own world. And now…I'm here," Maka gestured to the mist-hidden city around them.
The wind whistled through an alleyway, soothed Maka's heated skin, and wrestled discarded trash to the ground. All six of the DWMA students stood from their places on the ground and looked at each other. They had been in many situations before, all of them. However, none of them had been like this. None of them had ever found themselves on an alien planet such as this.
What were they supposed to do in such an unprecedented situation?
"There's…something…"
"What do you mean?"
"In the rain. There's a disturbance, but," the deep voice trailed off.
He was confused. The woman behind him looked up in worry. He was never like this. He was always sure of himself and his actions, his beliefs and the future he drove the world toward. This man standing in front of her wasn't that. He was utterly, wordlessly confounded. He stepped farther onto the veranda and weaved the hand signs for releasing the jutsu that brought the never ending rain to Ame. At once, Konan knew what he wanted.
"Konan," he said. She understood without any wasted breath.
"Yes, Pain."
She fell away in a storm of papers folded in the shape of frail butterflies. Pain watched until every slip disappeared into the gloomy day. He was emotionless, but questions plagued him like the pain of his childhood.
What was that he sensed in his rain? It was as if the space had been ripped open, erased, and shattered into oblivion all at once. And then it exploded with the presence of six unidentifiable bodies. They were wrong. The rain told everything Pain needed to know about their existence. They didn't belong here. They weren't supposed to be here. It wasn't a summoning jutsu, a teleportation, or any jutsu Pain knew of. It was something so powerful, this self-proclaimed god admired its strength.
"Well. The playing field has changed drastically."
Author's Note: As I stated in the summary, any pairings, if any at all, are up to the reviewers. I'd also appreciate as many ideas thrown my way as possible. I'm doing this off the fly, out of the seat of my pants, however you'd like to put, so I'm blind-ish.
I'll say this! Akatsuki will be involved, of course. *heart*
Hope you enjoyed!