Disclaimer: Well I wish I owned Soul Eater but I don't.
Soul Eater One-Shot: Requiem
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
- Oscar Wilde
The albino ran his fingers through his hair as he looked at the panel on the room's mahogany door, making sure once more he had arrived at the right place.
Room 4
The neat font ran across the panel in gold, pristine in carving and embedded in perfect depth for every letter and number.
'Well I can't get it wrong unless I'm vision impaired…' Soul thought dryly as he crushed the small slip of paper and shoved it into his suit pocket. Loosening his obsidian black tie, he sighed for the nth time in a day before turning the brass knob and entering the room.
The brass knob felt cold under his heated grasp, a sign that its occupant had arrived a long time ago. He blinked twice when the brief cold air that expelled out of the room hit his exposed skin while he opened the door, sending slight shivers down his spine. It served little as distraction as he scrutinized the room, leaving no detail or object uncovered.
There was nothing distinct in the room that caught the death scythe's trained eyes. The decorations in the room were rather lonesome – the windows were darkly draped with red curtains that were pulled back. A thin layer of sheer fabric muted the dark moon's light in place of the curtains, billowing from the slight breeze that entered the room from some open windows. Red and black tiles ran across the room and at a corner, a black piano sat next to a record player.
"Soul."
The said person turned towards the source of the low whisper, immediately sucking back a breath.
Well he certainly didn't expect that.
The dim moonlight shown upon his meister, bringing out her unique shade of ash-blonde for hair as it cascaded down to the midst of her back and covering her bare shoulders. From his position, her body was slightly turned and he barely made out the silhouette of the simple body-hugging black number she had on with a thigh-high slit and a large bow to contour her waist. She had donned on low heels that gave an illusion of a slimmer figure, completing her overall look.
A smile tugging his lips, he spoke after a momentary silence. "Maka, you look beautiful."
"This piece?" She murmured, doing a twirl for him. "It's not really my style but Liz insisted that it looked great on me."
"She is right about that one. Although I am unsure how putting a fancy wrapper on something beautiful changes the fact that the person is already gorgeous on her own." commented Soul. His lover flushed at his words, looking away uncomfortably.
Taking advantage of her inattentive state, he strode forward and caressed her red cheeks and down to her exposed collarbone, continuing to trace down her shapely figure before stopping at her waist. His motions were quick and fluid that Maka barely had any time to react before he pulled her in for a long kiss. Lips moved against one another in synchrony, causing a delicious friction that sent their nerves in an overdrive.
"You're sly…. And that's uncool." She could only mutter half-heartedly when they broke away, burying her furiously red face in his chest.
Soul snorted, placing a chaste kiss on the crown of her head. "I'm plenty cool, or you wouldn't have agreed to go out with me."
"You're lamer than a llama."
"I don't want to hear that from someone who has such a bad pun sense."
The meister glared at him. "Quiet you."
"Yes, yes, whatever you say." He chuckled. "So, what did is with the piano room set-up?"
The green-eyed lady immediately became silent, her eyes moving to stare at the laughing moon that was enveloped in black substance.
"It's been a year since Crona sacrificed his own body to seal away Ashura." She said bitterly, a tinge of sadness and longing in her tone. [A/N: Before anyone becomes anal (for the lack of better words) about Crona's gender, which was never clarified I'm portraying him as a guy because it makes it easier for me to write]
Her weapon partner quirked his eyebrow, "So is this suppose to be a funeral?"
Maka shrugged. "I don't know. I know he's alive but yet at the same time… dead. It feels wrong to pass this day like it was the same as the rest. We are alive because of him. The world isn't ridden with insanity because of what he did. It annoys me that he would only be remembered in generations to come for ruining the color of the moon. But at the same time… I hate my powerlessness to offer him an alternative at that time and now."
He sighed, poking the middle of her eyebrows. "Frown more and you'll get wrinkles. You're already doing all you can."
She groaned in frustration. "But sometimes it 'all I can' is not enough."
While he wanted to claim that she was wrong, he immediately halted that train of thought, knowing that she would always be right.
Everyone in Spartoi was devastated by the Battle on the Moon, even if the results were deemed as a victory. To them, it felt hollow because they had to sacrifice someone that they had so desperately tried to save; the one who has selflessly gave his person up even though he was afraid. He had sealed himself with a menace for the sake of them all; nullifying much of the madness that would have ravaged the world.
Who would know the blood splattered on the moon once they had died out with time? Who in the future would glorify him when he was the cause of destruction and yet also the saviour? Who would know of the honorably sacrifice he had made, even though most of them had known him to be a coward?
How could they - the ones who were closest to him and yet failed to save him - see his gestures, not react to them?
They had poured their free time into black blood research, translating the notes that they had found in Medusa and Arachne's lair, infiltrating places of suspicion and consulting any material that might have a similarity to it. Soul knew of the countless of nights that she had spent in Stein's lab to help him in his research (although it did bother him that she was in the proximity of a mad scientist) and the nightmares that forced her awake to try even harder.
Hell, Soul had even offered to become a pin cushion because in him dwelled the same specimen but in more dilute and unstable amounts.
And so far, every attempt had met with utter defeat and no new leeway to find.
Frankenstein and Maka Albarn, the two most prodigious and undisputed meisters in knowledge could not find a way to separate Crona from the mass of black blood and madness.
Crona, using Brew had exponentially increased the durability, density and volume of the black blood to contain Ashura's madness. He was its medium – tearing him away from two powerful components would kill him and unleash Ashura once more. The pair did not want to risk a situation where the odds of him surviving were less than forty percent.
Even though they knew the black blood seal would be permanent as long as they didn't mess with it, they had still wanted to release him from the cage of his self-imprisonment. Even if it defied the laws of physics or if people called it impossible, they still wanted the solution to exist. If there one none, they would force it to exist or even create one. They believed that what was broken could be healed and what was sealed can be undone.
Time stood against them. The organizations, the world that would be disadvantaged should the worst outcome came true was against them. All that they could count on was a similar madness to understand, to find a solution to the answer that they wanted. The Spartoi were very much like tortured souls at some point - tormented by their own incompetence, of having to live a world with the same rules while he did not exist like he used to.
Seeing her distracted state, he pinched her nose as he sent a small wavelength to her to drag her out of her self-loathing thoughts. "I don't think Crona would want us to keep thinking about these things. He would be bashful that we were trying to save him but he would hate for us to be sulking because we can't do it. In fact, he wouldn't know how to deal with it."
She couldn't help but let out a giggle. "That does sound quite like what Crona would say."
"So let's move on from it. What did you ask me to come here for?" The albino prodded.
"Ah," A flash of confusion flitted across her eyes before she pulled herself out of the intimate embrace and walked towards the record player and set the needle down.
When the first low note rang in the still air, Soul widened his eyes.
There was no way he could mistake his own composition for another.
Requiem for Crona.
The melody started up once more and his meister swayed to the beat, her expectant jade green eyes never leaving his wine red ones.
"I thought it'd be a nice thought to... You know..." She murmured in the heated reticence between them.
Smirking, he inclined his body slightly while offering his hand to her. "May I have this dance?"
Maka tilted her head upwards in fake snobbishness as she accepted his hand. "You may."
Intertwining their fingers together, he placed his free hand on her waist once more, taking the lead in the dance. She placed her hands on his shoulder and allowed herself to glide effortlessly across the dance floor with no words spoken and the beautiful tune filling the air.
"When did you record this?" The pianist asked curiously, breaking away from the lack of conversation.
"I noticed that sometimes you would play the piano in the middle of the night," Maka said in a matter-of-factly tone, "your soul would feel uneven and playing the piano would calm you. It was all the matter of setting up the recorder and praying that you would play the tune I wanted."
"And I presume I did."
Her jade green eyes became clouded for a moment. "More often than not on the nights of my recurring nightmares."
"Is that so?" He said in surprise.
'Well trust Maka to notice things that I never do…' thought the death scythe as he spun her.
The ash-blonde meister let out a hum of acknowledgement, returning back to his arms.
Not wanting to ruin the good mood, he changed the subject once more.
"If I haven't mentioned already—"Soul dipped her lowly, kissing her pale column of her neck— "you look positively alluring Ms. Albarn."
He brought her up slowly but fast enough to see her flushed face. "You look immaculate as ever too, Mr. Evans."
"Couldn't you just say I'm handsome?" He refuted dryly.
"A gentleman never asks for more compliments and would have left me and my vocabulary be."
"There is nothing wrong with your vocabulary and I never said I was a gentleman, Ms. Albarn."
Maka gasped in mock horror. "Am I dancing with a brute?"
The albino returned a wicked grin. "We could test out your hypothesis in bed."
"Your wanton behavior is unneeded, sir." She scolded mockingly.
"I am no rake but..." He hesitated for a moment before leaning closer towards her at the correct moment, pressing his body flush against hers, "I do like to possess the things I love."
"Love is appreciation, not possession," chided Maka.
"Then I appreciate and possess. And who said you're not already mine?" He teased.
The green-eyed lady retorted even quicker. "I am my own person; you do not own me and you never will. I'll have you know, Mr. Evans."
Soul let out a laugh. "Whatever makes you sleep at night, Ms. Albarn."
Silence between them ensued once more.
The song quickly reached its crescendo soon after as their steps got more hurried and yet not ruining its grace, the light tapping of shoes and heels in synchrony rang in the air along with the song. As the song progressed, it almost seemed like their moves became madder and madder, gaining a quality where they seemed to be moving towards ruin.
No longer was it the calming song at the start, the pianist's frantic playing seemed to become crazed as it's reached its climax, filled with raw desperation and will. The soprano notes complemented the bass, playing its own furious tune to meld to a masterpiece played in G Chord.
Yet, none of the dancers seem spent, looking into each other's eyes intently and passionately, almost as if they were trying to search out to heal the pain evident in their eyes.
This song would hold greater significance than most songs – it was the requiem they made for their friend and perhaps the last he would ever hear, the song that started with them and was breeched by Crona and the souls sacrificed, inevitably ending with them.
Like all things, the song will come a full circle.
When the song started to climb down from its intensity, their movements slowed with a lifeless feel, their minds drained from the recollection of their last moments.
The pair would be the one who would hold the deepest regrets, the one who had seen him personally and felt the resonance of his soul for the last time, and yet were unable to save him.
With the finality of notes ringing into the air, the weapon and meister stilled, pressing their heads together and calming their slightly ragged breath.
It was resoundingly clear in that dark room under the dark moon's illuminated light that they could only do this because of his sacrifice.
"Let's do this every year." Maka breathed shallowly. "In recognition for Crona."
Soul could only nod.
Well I haven't done a Soul Eater one-shot in a while and I'm missing my favorite OTP. (Lia, if you're reading this, although I doubt you will, stop laughing)
Does feel nice to write angst and romance together once more.
Any thoughts about this? Loved it? Hated it? (Because its Mary Sue?) Tell me in the reviews :3
Although seriously, my heart would break if its Mary Sue.