I did not seek out write this, but it seems to need to exorcise itself from my mind. After this hopefully the vampire thing I WANTED to write will be the next thing. And a oneshot. My brain is ignoring mission parameters!

Disclaimer: see part 1


"Oi Tsubaki, you got a minute?" Soul walked over and plunked down next to her on the ground.

Black Star was napping under a tree while the demon weapon looked out at the park in front of them. Maka was sitting on a blanket and reading. She was on an enforced vacation while her ribs healed and the higher ups decided what to do with her now that she had both failed a mission and gained a demon. It was more attention than Soul liked, but Maka seemed to be taking it in stride. Her fingers were tapping out a rhythm next to her unconsciously, a habit she swore up and down hadn't started until she and Soul had become partners. The air was just starting to turn cold, autumn so close you could almost taste it.

"I have no objections." Tsubaki gave a facsimile of a disarming smile, something she did often to put people at ease around her. Every demon weapon had a tell, something that let people know they weren't quite human, and with Tsubaki it was more like a feeling something wasn't quite right the closer you got to her: her eyes were too dark, her hair too shiny, or maybe her body too shapely. For a demon, she seemed improbably kind and if she and Black Star had been in a lineup and you said 'pick the demon' she would have lost to her loud master every time.

"Is Spirit, like, really Maka's dad? Or is this some bit of insanity that infected him from his master?"

Tsubaki started and then looked around guiltily. "We don't really talk about those things…"

"Well, it's not like he makes it a secret what with him fawning all over her every time she gets in visual range of him. She's clearly no demon, I would have noticed by now. It just seems like it's weird she'd let some guy who isn't her dad call himself her dad…" Soul didn't think it made any sense. Normally he wouldn't care, but a small part of him wanted to have some kind of ammo against the annoying older demon. Being able to say I know you're not Maka's real dad seemed like the perfect cutting remark, and Soul loved cutting all sorts of things.

"You've only been Maka's weapon a couple weeks, Soul. You should probably talk to her yourself once you two have gotten to bond a little more."

Soul huffed out a sigh and leaned back against the tree. "That's the thing, Spirit is around like, every spare moment he isn't on a mission making sure I'm not taking advantage of his precious princess of a daughter. The only time we've had any peace and quiet is when we sleep."

His sleep wasn't very restful either on Maka's lumpy old couch with the spring that poked him in the back just so and the slight smell of old popcorn that it gave off. She had promised him she was looking for a new apartment, but it would take a little while before they could move. At least when he was up all night he could watch TV on his own without fighting over who got to choose the channel. Secretly, now and then, he would walk past Maka's bedroom door on the way to the bathroom and pause just long enough that it might be considered creepy if she ever opened it at that exact moment. Maka was often on his mind even when she didn't have to be.

"Spirit seems to think all demon scythes are the same, and he remembers rather clearly when he was your age. He told me to tell him if you tried anything today." Tsubaki smiled apologetically. "I wouldn't want to see Maka hurt either." There was steel behind her words that Soul didn't like. It seems no one trusted him.

Soul gave Tsubaki a slightly annoyed sideways glance, hiding his anger imperfectly. He'd sworn his life to Maka, and the idea that he wasn't a man of his word was insulting. They were bound by their very souls and people still didn't trust him to do his job. He'd show them all, they would be the most powerful team ever!

"Don't get me wrong, Soul, I don't think you'd harm her physically but…"

"You can't believe what that crazy codger is saying! I'm not out to eat Maka's soul!" Soul was so vehement that Black Star actually grimaced in his sleep, eyelids fluttering. The weapons both stilled so the blue haired man could sigh and roll over before they continued to talk.

"What happened between Spirit and Kami was terrible, and it fractured their family and put our whole organization in danger for a time. I think her parents just didn't want her to repeat their mistake."

Whatever had happened between Spirit and his master, Soul felt like it was making his current life miserable now and that he was entitled to some answers before Spirit finally lost his marbles and snuck into their apartment to castrate Soul in his sleep. In the fading afternoon sunlight, Maka had fallen asleep on the blanket with her book still in hand. This break wouldn't last long, she had another month before she would be healed enough to be back on active assignment and he knew she wasn't managing her pain so much as gritting her teeth against it. Maka was a tough girl, she never complained about her pain she just stored up her ill humor to gripe at him for forgetting to do chores or smacking him for insensitive comments. He admired how she didn't ask for help.

"Maka and I are not Kami and Spirit." Soul said definitively.

Tsubaki smiled at him apologetically. "But you have to admit, you can't blame everyone for freaking out when the witch hunter who was never supposed to have a demon weapon came home with the same rare weapon type her mother was famous for using."

"You're just as rare," Soul wondered what it was like to be able to have so much variety in transformation. It must be really cool.

"But I also have a typical contract with Black Star. Signed in blood. Locked in a chest and buried in a secure location." Contracts were sacred; contracts were safe and clear… if Maka had scandalized her family by binding herself to a weapon then Soul had scandalized his fellow demons by binding himself without a contract. He wasn't sure if they were envious of him or worried for him.

"Maka won't take advantage, that's not who she is." Soul wasn't sure who Maka was, but he believed in her. Up until this point she'd never forced him to do something he wasn't prepared to do. No one but them knew that the binding had not been completed. He was truly her slave until she bound herself to him as well, and she hadn't told anyone of that fact yet. Soul was almost grateful Spirit was an annoying busybody because if he was alone with Maka all day he might be more nervous about the imbalance in power.

"No, Maka isn't like that." Tsubaki agreed, but her brows still knit in concern as she followed Soul's eye to his sleeping master.


"I'm showering now." Maka took showers in the evening, Soul had learned. It came from showering after training and then later after missions. Going to bed covered in sweat and blood was not her idea of a restful night, and even when she was not dirty she still preferred showering at night from habit.

She had only asked him one favor since he had begun to live here with her two weeks ago, and that was to blow-dry and comb her hair after her shower. Lifting her arms up and moving the dryer around had been nearly impossible to do without lots of painful hissing, and eventually she had come up to him and very nicely asked if this was something he would be willing to consider. He wondered if she understood that she didn't need to ask him. She could order him to do just about anything and the binding would compel him pretty strongly to obey.

If having a master was this painless, then he should have done it a long time ago and escaped his ridiculously overbearing family. Of course, once she was all healed and they started training together, he assumed more work would be involved. Tomorrow they had to go to some central agency that evaluated and assigned missions to the various hunters. He wasn't relishing that so much.

Between spacing out in front of a crime drama and worrying about tomorrow, Maka managed to get her shower and then practically materialize in front of him with a towel around her shoulders and the brush and dryer in her hands. Soul muted the TV as she sat down on the floor in front of him while he plugged the dryer in near the couch.

They never talked about this. It was almost sensual the way Maka closed her eyes and let Soul run the brush through her hair. She'd tilt her head just so as the warm air washed over her, and Soul found his dark blood would rush through his body uncomfortably when he saw the contented smile that pushed at her lips. The bruising and the cuts had recently completely faded from her body leaving smooth pale skin in its wake. Every now and then he'd notice the line of a scar. More often than not he'd want to trace a finger over them.

He could feel her emotions leak over when she was most tired, and tonight she must have been pretty tired as her soul was practically purring. It sent tingles of feeling in places it really shouldn't, and Soul reminded himself that thinking of her as anything but the wielder of a demon weapon and a human was dangerous territory.

"Is there anything I need to know for tomorrow?" Soul broke through the drone of the dryer. That disconcerting purr from her soul was immediately masked as her defenses came up along with her focus.

"They're probably going to formally ask us how we came to be partnered. We will have to be honest about the circumstances, but I don't think we have to tell them everything."

The silence between them was thick as Soul finally shut off the dryer. "Have you thought about it?"

Maka bit her lip and drew her legs up into herself. "I can't do it yet, Soul. It isn't about you, you've been great so far. Really, I've had roommates before and most of them couldn't stand me, but we get along."

"No one is more surprised than me." Soul grumbled, trying not to let his disappointment show that she wasn't ready to finish the binding.

"Let me get a little stronger, and then we'll see how we resonate. I think I'll be more ready then." It didn't feel like a lie, not exactly, but Soul wondered if maybe she had told this to herself so many times that she was lying to herself first. Maka was nervous about binding herself to her weapon, and he knew it all came back to Kami and Spirit somehow. Maybe one of these mysterious authority figures could shed some light on it.

When Maka retreated back to her bedroom she left the lingering scent of her shampoo on his hands. Soul wondered with a frown when it was that he started noticing little things like that about her. Surely two weeks didn't change a man, but whatever this binding was, he was different than how he used to be in some imperceptible way.


The cross examination had been disturbing to Soul, Maka knew that much. She hadn't been called into evaluations more than a couple of times in the past five years of active duty, as compared to practically every third month like Black Star. Every now and then people had to be judged mentally sound to continue with the work they did. Corruption and a fall from grace was an ever-present possibility in their work as the toll of sanctioned murder ate at people's minds. Only a few hunters could sustain active duty more than a couple decades, if they lived that long.

The usual biographical details were extracted from Maka, but then they had done the same to Soul. While Kid, Sid, and Stein had asked Maka her questions, Marie and Nygus asked Soul his. Liz and Patty had looked on, impassive or bored (she could never really tell). In the end they had been satisfied that Maka's actions of partnering had not been premeditated and that no ill will seemed to be present on Soul's part. Continued monitoring and a downgrade in difficulty for missions were going to be their next six months. Emotionally exhausted, they had deflated once out of the examination room.

"What the hell was that really about!" Soul turned on Maka immediately and she wondered if his level of menace towards her needed to be reevaluated. "What did they mean our compatibility was 'suspiciously high'?!"

"My mama was a scythe user, not by choice but because she tested high for compatibility with demon scythe-type weapons and then purposefully summoned them until she found one. It was risky of her to keep trying, but she was stubborn." Maka had heard the story many times, told in various ways and various mental states by a mother she idolized. The last telling she remembered had been her least favorite. "When she finally found papa, she was so overjoyed…"

"If he was the same as he was now she should have just banished him back to the Infernal plane." Soul was following Maka through the twists and turns of the underground levels of the inconspicuous building they had entered to visit the mysterious authority that directed all witch hunting activity for their region.

Usually, when Maka started rambling about something Soul would start looking around and clearly distract himself from her words. Today, however, he was keenly waiting on what she had to say next. It was a refreshing change of pace so Maka kept going with her story as they walked.

"They were the greatest partnership of their generation and she had made papa a real Deathscythe before they could legally drink. At their celebration banquet papa apparently spiked the punch." A fond smile curled her lip before she stopped it in its tracks. "Sid told me that once a while ago, he's the one that was sitting to our right."

"…Nygus' master, eh?" Soul shuddered. Something about Nygus seemed off to him, even for a demon.

Maka lowered her voice to stop the echo effect of the stone hallway. "They're worried we're too old, Soul."

"You're kidding." Soul was absently shredding the lower corner of his t-shirt with one tiny scythe index finger. Maka restrained herself from slapping it away. They would need to buy him more clothes soon at this rate.

She shook her head and lowered her voice even more, leaning closer to him to deliver her message quickly. It was more than likely they were being monitored even now.

"There's a reason hunters are paired with weapons while the weapon and the hunter are young. By rights we shouldn't resonate hardly at all. They are watching us to make sure we aren't at one another's throats.." Her greed for a weapon could have been the end of her. The loud lecture she had earned from Kami once she had gotten out of the hospital a week ago had been followed with a slap to her face so painful she swore she could still feel it. She was reaching for power she wasn't meant to have. Her death would be her own fault. No one seemed to have faith in her besides the one person that she shouldn't trust.

Soul hissed a breath out through his sharp teeth. "So that's why everyone thinks I'm going to kill you…"

Maka started at that. She hadn't realized Soul was getting harassed just as much as she was, only in a different manner. He hadn't clued her in to it. Was that his own way of protecting her? She felt defensive on his behalf, and swore to herself to look out for when people were isolating him to talk. All this fuss and they didn't even know she hadn't finished the binding. That was a shitstorm she'd rather avoid as well.

"Then again, you do chew pretty loudly when you eat chips. One of these days…"

"Don't even joke about that, Soul."

"What can I joke about then? How about how you dress like a demented schoolgirl? OW! Death's sake Maka that fuckin' hurts!" He clutched the back of his head where she had firmly dealt the blow. Maka didn't flinch even though his skull had been so hard it had hurt her too, next time she should use something else beside her hand.