First story on this account. Eek!


It was no secret around the academy that Soul Evans and Maka Albarn were having some serious trouble with their resonance.

Perhaps that was an understatement.

It had started a couple of months back, now. Of course, back then they'd just assumed that one or two off days weren't a serious problem. They were tired. They needed a break. They were young. Tsubaki had told Maka not to worry, not least because she'd had her own resonance problems with Black Star, for obvious reasons, the most prominent of which being his completely incompatible personality.

Despite her friends' best attempts to make her feel at ease, Maka had still worried. After all, particularly strong resonance link was their second-best quality in battle, after their fighting skill and experience. The problem itself had puzzled her inquisitive mind particularly because it had come after a patch during which their resonance seemed to be at an all-time-high, and there was no tangible reason at all why it should have faltered so suddenly.

Of course, after three whole months of crappy resonance, Maka's anxiety around the whole thing had become a little more justified; not to mention shared.

Three months of this meant that despite being experienced three-star weapons, they were being given easy, one-star missions. And it wasn't just their problem anymore, either. Having the strongest pair at the academy effectively out of use was just as painful for Maka and Soul as it was for the management.

Kid's first port of call is to summon them to his office, Dr Stein in tow, for an impromptu evening meeting to discuss this- what he calls- 'temporary challenge'.

So, this is where Soul finds himself, on a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon- sitting in Kid's miserable office next to his nervous and frustrated Meister, his stressed and pressured boss, and an entirely too scalpel-happy professor.

Well, that wasn't entirely fair. Kid's office was quite nice, if one totally disregarded the current atmosphere hanging about. Beautiful white drapes cooperate with the long, slender windows to allow in just the perfect crack of sunlight to keep the office well-lit but dark enough to retain its studious aura. The furnishings were minimal, but that's how Kid liked to decorate.

There was a single chair, an ornate wooden thing on the opposite side of the desk, which was currently occupied by their well-dressed boss, Death's Kid himself.

Dr Stein stands ominously behind Kid, letting shadows dance around his features in a manner most satisfactorily creepy in line with his very persona. Every now and then, he coughs informatively- could someone even cough informatively? – and pushes his glasses further up his nose, before cutting in with some vital information.

Maka and Soul stand on the opposite side of them, representing a dichotomy of interests themselves. She stands bolt upright, stock-still, awaiting orders. Her knitted brows and fidgeting hands give her soul away upon a single glance of the room. Soul leans against the wall and as usual, makes a concerted effort to look like he's not listening.

"You know why I've called you here." Kid begins. Soul can picture it in his mind, the cogs turning and interacting as he meticulously plans and censors every word tumbling out his mouth. He leaves a long enough pause to suggest that, if either of them had any doubt as to why they were standing in this room, they could voice it.

Neither of them do, obviously.

Kid continues. "This resonance issue has become a recurring problem. For you two, and for the academy."

Maka nods, desperately hanging on to his every word as if it were gospel.

"Speaking as your boss, I need my two best fighters to be on top form. Speaking as your friend…" he pauses, about to split his functions as he so often found himself doing these days. "It's clear to me the effect that this resonance issue is having on the two of you, and your… partnership. And it's not positive."

Yeah, you don't say.

"I would hope that the both of you would agree with me that it's best that we nip this in the bud. Figure out what's causing this, once and for all. And sort it out."

Maka interjects.

"We've tried everything." She claims, shaking her and frowning in concerted effort to keep her emotions under wrap. "I've been studying day and night, I've scoured every book in the library. I've conducted analysis on the link, I can't… I can't find any reason why it might be failing," she explains, ending her sentence with a bitter vocal twinge.

Is her miserable tone because she wants to resonate better, or because for once, she couldn't figure something out?

Kid nods.

"I know how hard you have been trying, Maka." He acknowledges.

The fact that she gets a kick out of that makes his jaw clench.

Kid cocks his head, turning to Soul.

"And Soul, I trust you've been doing your part in trying to resolve this issue? After all, Resonance is very much a dance between two… or more… souls."

Soul clears his throat.

"Yeah." He says gruffly.

Don't think he doesn't notice how Maka's shoulders clench in objection to his answer.

He remains outwardly unmoved; unbothered. Kid continues his introduction.

"If you two cannot fix this, it might be time to consider other pairing options." He says, picking his tone very carefully, very neutrally. "I am personally of the belief that this would be a sub-optimal decision, not least because you two have been paired successfully for so very long."

Soul responds coolly to Kid's clinical and clipped diagnosis of the situation, barely allowing himself to react. He's hyper-aware, of course, of that fact that Dr Stein's eyes are boring a hole into his skin as they speak. Sure, his eyes are hidden as always behind the psychotic glint of his round glasses, but Soul knew better than anyone what that man was capable of uncovering with his mind.

"What would happen if we stopped being a pair? Who would we even fight with?" Maka sounds incredulous at the mere suggestion, her body language screaming the answer that she doesn't voice: 'no'.

Stein pushes his glasses up his face and pipes up.

"Speaking logically, Soul's autonomous form is strong enough to sustain him as a standalone weapon. With some training, he could be of a similar level of Giriko, or Justin." Stein coughs. "And Maka… there's no shortage of eager and talented young souls who would lap up the chance to be carved; shaped; trained by you." his head tilts upwards; to the side as Maka shakes her head side-to-side vehemently. "Of course, that's if you did decide to go down that road. Personally, I would advise not."

Kid turns to Soul again.

"And you, Soul?" he prompts, when merely the movement of the direction of his gaze isn't enough to force an answer out of the boy.

If Kid picks his words to be neutral and cause as little a reaction as possible, Soul picks his words to carry a lot of meaning, clunky and brash as they may be.

"Maka said it: it's not working. Maybe it's time to move on."

He simultaneously watches three things: Maka barely choking back a gasp; clenching her gloved fists into balls, while Stein's eyebrows do a very intriguing twitch-y thing.

She doesn't even look at him.

He keeps his right hand carefully shoved deep in his empty jeans pocket, so the room can't see him anxiously and unconsciously tapping out a symphony onto the side of his leg, a habit he'd developed in his childhood and managed to retain throughout his teenage years.

"It seems the two of you don't agree." Kid says in a perfunctory manner, clasping his hands together, his voice soft. He's one-part sympathetic, two-parts agitated. For weeks he's watched his closest friends at total odds with each other, arguing, deliberately irritating each other, avoiding each other. So, it's with a lack of surprise or novelty that he says the following sentence. "You have to try to reach some sort of agreement."

"I've tried!" Maka starts up, the fire in her temperament she's been keeping on simmer exploding. "You don't know how hard it is!"

Kid nods.

"All weapon-partners have disagreements. It comes with the nature of being so close to one another."

"Not like this! He won't even TALK to me!" Maka accuses, her temper still flaring.

Kid glances to Soul's tired figure, still leaning.

"There's two sides to any story." He tries for diplomacy and achieves redundancy.

What is this, group therapy?

Soul's eyes shift to Maka for second, before moving to Kid, before settling on the oak flooring. He admires its craftsmanship; the intricate carving consists of crosses which tesselate perfectly. It's extremely Kid.

"What exactly happens when the two of you try to resonate?" Stein jumps in, injecting science where Kid's diplomacy tactic fails. "Maka, you said you conducted an analysis?"

Maka's back moves to be a little straighter.

"I tried-" she corrects herself. "We tried to do witchhunter, but… it was like we couldn't even get past the starting block. Every time I felt our wavelengths begin their resonance, it would meet this huge… resistance." She says, her tone laced with regret. "I couldn't figure out what was causing it. It stopped everything past that dead in its tracks."

Dr Stein scratches his non-existent beard.

"Interesting." He mutters to himself.

Keep your morbid curiosity to yourself.

Unfortunately, Soul's cynical stream of consciousness remains inside his head, and Dr Stein does exactly the opposite.

"If you could please attempt to resonate, so I can look inside your souls?"

Why does it feel like this goes one step beyond science?

Maka coughs, and glares at her partner, outstretching her arms and displaying the palms of her hands expectantly, readying herself to wield his metal form. A white, discordant flash of light signals his transformation, landing all eleven feet of his impressive, metallic being, accurately and delicately in her gloved hands.

She breathes in deep, closing her eyes for a second.

They feel that familiar breach of familiarity, a different wavelength upsetting the delicate balance of one's own wavelength, and just when Maka's passionate, healing waves are about to accommodate his contradicting jagged, enigmatic waves, something, something fires back at it; closes up the bond; seals the two of them off for good.

"Fascinating." Dr Stein breathes, making a mental note of something while Maka tosses her weapon to the side, swearing under her breath; Soul just about managing to inelegantly stumble and regain his footing without eating dirt as he turns human.

Or, should he say, without eating freshly waxed intricate floorboards.

"See! This happens every time! There's no way past it."

Stein nods.

"Does it hurt?" he enquires. "When you are forced out, Maka?"

Soul notices that he doesn't ask a similar question to him. This kind of thing was exactly why he was opposed to letting the maniac doctor examine them in the first place.

He knew too much, that sly academic.

Maka responds in the negative, and the doctor once again scratches at his head, but Kid speaks before he can say anything else, causing the entire room to remember that Kid was even there.

"Maka, Soul. I can only propose that Stein work with you very closely over the next three weeks, see if there's anything he can do." Kid and Dr Stein share a dark look. "If there's no improvement over this period, then we'll consider the alternative." He makes a pained expression. "I'm at a loss. I believe that this difficulty has already taken too much of a toll on two our best students."

Maka's ponytail flies up and down in a sea of submissive nods, her hands clenched but her toes betraying the fact her body is trembling. Whether of jittering nerves or abject rage, well- that was any man's guess.

Soul nods his acquiescence.

"I promise, we will find out what is causing this." Dr Stein puts on his Serious FaceTM and Soul wonders how he's possibly going to go three whole weeks of intense soul therapy without anyone finding out that he's already hyper-aware of exactly the culprit of their little 'Resonance problem' and he highly doubts that it's going to disappear any time soon.

So: he keeps his mouth shut, and his expression bored.