A Rain Soaked Sunrise.
(Soul Eater fiction.)
…
Author's note: I do not own this.
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This could be the end of everything, so why don't we go… somewhere only we know.
Soul is trying to plan beyond her end game strategy. He knows, because he has been witness to every intelligent and brilliantly reckless choice she has made on the battlefield, that she will fight. He grimaces in admiration toward her.
For a moment he panics at the unknown-ness of her mind. She has purposefully blocked him out of her mind, shielded her thoughts and left him in the dark. He can feel the screaming, phoenix-song focus of her soul as she fixates on the Kishin.
Her white gloved hand connects to the Kishin's face and Soul feels his panic dissipate as the demon reels from the hit. The grey skinned body is collapsing to it's knees and the weapon feels it click in the middle of his mind. This is over. He cannot explain how he knows this, but his technician is still standing so it must be true.
She is still. Her shoulder sagging under the weight of something heavy. He is stumbling mid-stride in his haste to reach her. The look in her eyes flickers from icy determination to something decidedly more human.
It's a broken look.
He is staggering to her, automatically recalling each of her injuries. When his memory skips across the way she had lay in the demon's grasp …
…her ribs breaking and creaking, the hazy sight of that thing digging its fingers into the tissue between her bones, breaking the skin and making her scream in stereo. The sound amplified in her soul and louder still as it tore through her throat…
His eyes glaze over as he wonders if she is now running on borrowed time.
She is pale skin and dull pigtails when she tips forward to her knees. Those small gloved hands are holding her sides and her jaw clenches hard before he reaches her. Time seems to shutter out of sync with itself and he reaches her. He is gentle and abrasively rough as he wraps her too-thin body in his arms.
Soul is calling for help when he feels her tug their resonance link wide open. His awareness of the burnt shale beneath his sneakers fades.
It is like waking up.
One moment his eyes are wide open and they are on the battlefield. The next moment he can feel her and he opens his eyes expecting to see the inside of his soul rendered in white, red and black.
It is her soul he sees when his eyes flutter open.
Bookshelves and dozens of tall thin windows that reach up to brush a stone arched ceiling. There are light, thin curtains that move gracefully. He spots battered wood floors and a metal spiral staircase that fills the corner of the room like an elegant spine. It is two floors of sturdy wood shelving and a massive collection of books. Purple and green wing backed chairs fit tidily beside a small round stone and copper fireplace. Flickering dimly on the walls are dozens of iron and glass lamps. The space does not lack for light.
"Hey Soul."
She is standing at the foot of the spiral stair, a calm look on her face. He is tempted to ask why he's never been here before, but he holds the question back.
"Did it work?"
Soul can hear the hesitation in her voice. He smirks, but its slight and forced and she can tell.
"Asura's dead."
There is a pause.
"You almost got yourself killed though."
She nods, a small shrug, before putting her gloves onto a table beside the nearest plush chair. Soul is only just aware that the curtains are stirring due to his irritation. He would find it fascinating that her soul bends to his emotions under any other circumstance but this.
"You could have died."
He grinds the accusation out between clenched teeth. She seems to go completely still and the room gets noticeably brighter.
"But I didn't.'
Her tone is low and metallic without being sharp. He moves, taking a few steps toward the center of the room, shoes quiet on well-worn wood.
His head is filling up with images. The things he didn't see while he was out cold. They have the tenor of her mind woven into them.
The blinding blue light of the Kishin's hit as it slammed into her bones and seared across her skin. The ease of looking into Asura's eyes and spreading her arms out, palms exposed. The unspoken promise that she would defend him always.
He lets out a laugh and a smirk, her memories sluff off of him like ash. They stay in his memory though, sewn in like scars and re-healed fractures. His previously unasked questions float forward.
She cuts him off with a curious stare.
"What was your last memory?"
She is eyeing him with unease, he tries to explain but only opens and closes his mouth. A fish out of water, drowning in an world of air.
"Your last memory, what was it?"
He hears the prying edge to his voice.
She is quiet, bright green eyes and dull blonde locks. The room settles back into it's prior state, dim lamps and complete calm.
"The blue-white light. As it hit me all I could hold onto was that I needed to kill him."
He nods, familiar with her single-minded bloodlust and rage.
She lets out a laugh, its small and bright.
"Its weird, to think I did any of that."
She exhales the words and he nods along to them.
"I am a weapon."
She murmurs it like it's a myth.
He is looking at the hundreds upon dozens of books and trying not to tell his technician in explicit detail that she had unexpectedly become a crazed body… blue blades jutting from every possible location on her body.
Instead he phrases it simply.
"Yeah, nobody really expected that."
She makes a sarcastic agreement-type noise. His back is to her as he smirks.
The moment he pulls his expression under control he turns back to her. She is meeting his eyes but it feels more like she is boring a hole out the back of his skull. Soul absently wonders why there is no sign of a clock in this room.
"I nearly burned this place to the ground, I'm guessing that's when I lost it."
He cracks a real smile, its easy to picture the old books going up in flames as the room floods with light and wind and sparks of energy. Its almost as easy as recalling how his soul filled with black blood.
He starts suddenly, pushing the thought of their souls self destructing aside. The need to get her body to medical attention presses at him. There is a shift in the room, the curtains still and the fireplace dies to a low stoked ember glow. The lamps dim further.
He crosses the space between the two of them in a few relaxed strides. His hand slides into her palm and Soul finds his vision washed in white.
It is like blinking.
They both return to the world outside her soul in a rush of raw sensation. It is harsh and solid here. The feel of her body in his hands is positively skeletal and he wonders how she doesn't break like glass or bleed to death. She grinds her teeth together before inhaling a gasp of air. Her grip on his forearm is both painful and assuring.
He feels bodies behind him, Kidd, Patty and others. There is a hand on his shoulder and it suddenly becomes a vice grip. Maka screams a half second later. Its pitched high and feels like agony in the same way her battle cry feels like rage.
He is scooping her up into his arms and standing, all one fluid movement in spite of how unstable he is on his own feet. She is settling back into unconsciousness as her arms relax their grip on her body. Soul's low growl is a reflex when Black*Star reaches out a hand toward her.
The blue-haired Technician's eyes widen before Soul regains his senses at the sound of Kidd's voice. The gun technician is an uneasy sort of brooding calm, standing before the white haired weapon with his eyes fixed on Maka.
"Let me."
Kidd is holding both arms out, his eyes dull and his voice a bit too lifeless. Soul doesn't hesitate to shift Maka's body into Kidd's arms.
The white haired weapon does not fixate on the fact that he just handed her, the tangible representation of his everything, to death. It is too easy to think about how fragile she is, how easily she could be killed, how uncomplicated it would be to snap all of her bones and let her bleed to death or stop her heart and watch her body starve for oxygen.
Soul understands the dull look in Kidd's eyes.
The young reaper pulls his skateboard into existence and jumps onto it, a cold glare on his features. He spares Soul a sideways glance. Soul swears that the reaper's expression is completely human in that moment. Then it is gone, replaced by something like noble obligation and dedicated loyalty.
The board rises. Kidd is settling into a low crouch with Maka, paper skin and glass bones, tightly in his grasp. It is a silent affair, the pair of them are skyward before Soul can really register it. Maka's jacket flutters in tandem with the coattails of Kidd's suit.
-End.-
Author Note: I was always disappointed that Maka's soul is never shown, I have always been of the impression that all technicians and weapons would have a unique space that is the manifestation of their soul. Based a bit upon the events of the anime-verse. (I highly recommend the manga version of the series as well. It is darker in a more complex way.)