A/N: You all make me sad by not reviewing, seriously, if I don't get any, I'll stop writing. I don't like to keep posting things if I think that no body reads them. Like, 25 people clicked on the story (assuming that half of them did it by accident it's still around twelve people), and I got no reviews (excluding my three friends , they did because I told them to). Pushing away self-pity and going on to those who actually read this, here's chapter two.
CXM if you squint.
Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater, if I did, Crona and Kid would get more screen time.
42…
Chapter 2:
The Beginning of the Game, Who Will Die Today?
As the doors opened, Crona charged before anyone could react, a blur, then jumping back into the room, the corpse of a large man falling in front of him. How the boy killed the Kishin egg was a mystery to the others, but they shrugged it off, he was the son of a witch after all.
Smearing off the red blood splattered across his cheek, Crona turned to them, "That was the first object. Be aware of your every surrounding."
The boy stepped over the dead body that was leaking blood onto the glossy floor of the ballroom, exiting out the doors, waiting for the others to follow. Almost immediately, the others felt the large wave of insanity wavelength hit them, making them dizzy.
Crona waited until they regained their original posture, he was far to used to his own insanity and others for it to affect him at this low level. Maka stumbled over to Crona, scythe held loosely in her hand, and held onto his shoulder for support, making the boy wince at the touch.
"What are we supposed to do first?" she asked.
The witch's son scooted away a bit from the girl, he didn't know how to quite deal with them, "W-we're just supposed to walk around for the first couple hours. Getting used to the mansion, killing things so they won't get us later. Things won't get very interesting until one of us goes insane."
"You're like your mother." Death the Kid grumbled toward the depressed and maddened boy.
Crona turned to look at him with his pale blue eyes, the dark circles enhancing the sadness, "I don't like my mother, it hurts to know that I'm like her in any way."
Turning away slowly, eyes cast downward, Crona started down the hall, which had looked differently than it had before. Instead of the clean hallway that it was, blood was smeared across the walls, most likely from the Kishin egg. The short carpeted floor and also stained with blood, the meisters noticed, as Crona walked farther away from them.
The thin boy was a bit different also, when he first was introduced as the bellboy, Crona was timid and obedient, some source of life in his powdery blue eyes. Now, Crona seemed to show his true colors, black and gray, depressed and saddened.
The meisters followed Crona, who seemed to stiffen that they found him as their leader of guidance through the house. The more they seemed like they depended on him to help them get through this, the tenser the boy seemed to get.
When he turned a corner to go to the thin dark passage that had a flight of stairs that led to the fourth level, Crona relaxed himself, he was just this way because all of his hate was bound up and he didn't spend time around other people. Calmer now, the boy gestured for the meisters to follow him, his more timid nature returning to the others relief.
"Watch your step," Crona whispered, "it gets darker."
It was true, that even on the third step of the stairs the dimming of light was apparent, by the time they reached the top, it was nearly pitch. Maka bummed into Crona, and the boy gasped and jumped away, bumping into a crate that was lying around.
That wasn't good, everything either held something bad, or something terrible. Crona landed hard onto it, breaking the wood with a loud crack, making the meisters take a defensive stance as they thought it was a kishin egg.
"What was that?" asked Maka.
"It sounded like it came from the left." Kid stated.
"Maka," BlackStar called, "you have soul perception. Try to use it to see where the thing is."
Crona yelped when he felt a mouse, which there were many in the box, squash under his weight and another run up his dress.
Yelping wasn't very good at the moment since the meisters thought that now there was really a kishin egg there in front of them. The meisters were letting out small gasps of surprised when the mice ran around their feet, squeaking and making Liz whine. But Crona was mumbling how he didn't know how to deal with the small mouse that was trailing around his leg, making the boy shiver and let a small uncomfortable whimper.
"Hey, where'd that boy go?" BlackStar asked.
Maka raised an eyebrow, though it wasn't seen in the darkness, "You mean that Crona kid?"
"I-I'm… over… here…" Crona muttered out, trying to catch the mouse that was still squirming in his dress, finally catching the small animal and releasing it.
"Why are you still on the ground?" Maka asked, realizing that the boy was the one who crashed.
Crona stuttered out his response, "A… a mouse… ran up my dress."'
Of course at this, even in the deadly situation they were in, BlackStar bust out laughing at Crona, causing the boy to blush, though no one could see.
"That's what you get for looking so much like a girl!" The ninja chuckled while Tsubaki tried to scold him with her words.
Crona pushed up form the ground, sending a non-seen glare in the assassin's direction, "I can lead you into a room and lock you in there from the outside."
"I'd break it down!" BlackStar exclaimed, "I'm going transcend god!"
"Let's just get going," Crona blushed, "There are several kishin eggs scattered on this level."
Death the Kid directed a question toward the boy, "Why haven't they attacked us, yet?"
Crona's footsteps were audible as he began to walk again, "They're in the rooms. So… be careful when walking past any doors, I don't want any of you to die."
"Why?" the meisters asked in unison, the weapons nodding in silent agreement.
The thin boy hesitated slightly, his footsteps stopping, and a breath of his was heard, "Because… I don't like death… and… you all have been nicer to me than any one else has in this world."
Crona's footsteps continued, more softly and quieter, the outline of his body that was once barely visible was gone into the darkness. The three meisters followed after silently, but the weapons blinked in awe, perhaps the witch's son wasn't that bad.
From ahead, they all heard the creak of hinges and a wet gushing sound, abruptly followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor. Maka, Kid, and BlackStar rushed over to the noise, hoping that Medusa's son wasn't dead, because not only will their guide have been lost, but it seemed sad now to think it.
"Crona?" Maka called out, the unfamiliar name rolling strangely off her tongue.
"Y-yes?" a timid voice called out.
The meisters and weapons all let out sighs of relief, Maka called back, "Oh, okay, we were just wondering-"
The presence that was supposed to be Crona grew closer, a dark aura around it, "Wondering if I was okay?"
Maka backed up, as well as Kid and BlackStar, at the thin figure approaching them. A feigned smile was plastered on his face, powdery eyes crazed. A light shined from behind it, a small circular orb that had the streaks of the rainbow at its borders. Suddenly, the body that was Crona sucked in a breath and fell to the floor with a thud, making Maka take a jump back.
"… Don't be fooled by those…" Crona's voice spoke softly.
Looking up from the dead body, the meisters saw that another body that was of Crona, was holding a flashlight. He neared them and handed one over to Maka, BlackStar and Kid, but the ninja stared intensely at the boy.
"W-what?"
"How do we know you're the real Crona kid?"
Crona sighed, "The shape shifting Kishin eggs don't have snakes in them, I do."
After Crona passed the test of having a snake and the dead corpse didn't, they continued onward, flashlights shining across the dark floor. The floors squeaked at the combined weight of the teenagers and weapons, making them all wary and straining their ears.
With a step onto a sensitive part of the wood that made up the floor of this level, Maka's foot slipped through the crack, making the meister fall, causing a loud thud to echo through the walls. She tried to squirm out but wasn't able to, her flashlight rolling on the floor around her.
Death the Kid was about to help the meister out of the hole, but several kishin eggs suddenly appeared around them, emitting soundlessly from the hall doors. There were a total of twelve, how Medusa found so many kishin eggs was a mystery to the students at Shibusen, and they were circling around, eyeing the blonde stuck.
Flinging his flashlight down, BlackStar went and swiped at one of them, cutting the one closest to him at the shoulder, red blood spraying from the wound. Death the Kid and Crona acted as well, going at the ones the closest, handling four at a time, blocking them from getting to Maka.
The insanity wavelength that came from the crowd of kishin eggs and the madness in the air was overwhelming to all of them, including the weapons. Soul transformed back into his human self and kept his arm into a blade, ignoring Maka's objections, helping Death the Kid with his bunch.
BlackStar finished of his crowd and went to take out one of Crona's enemies, who was taking them out with a sword that he didn't know where it came from, seeing that Death the Kid was in no need of his help. Crona was knocked onto the floor by on of the kishin eggs, the sword making a clatter, but abruptly being cut off by Crona wielding it again somehow.
Once they were dead, red orbs bobbing through the air, Crona insisted that they take them, seeing as it would only help them survive even longer with more powerful weapons. The boy was sitting cross-legged on the floor as the weapons took their fair share amount of souls.
Apparently, as what the students saw, Crona was a swordsman, how he somehow made his sword appear from nowhere like Maka with her book, confused them. Crawling over, Crona went to the blond still stuck torso deep into the floor, fuming silently.
He hesitantly took the hand she gave him, and pulled her out, surprised when the meister wobbled and needed to hang onto him for stableness. Soul returned to his meister's side and went back into his weapon form.
They carried on, Liz still panicking about how it was dark, and Patty cheerily echoing her laugh through the now empty floor. The flashlight beams started to dim and they all had to squint to see. Crona mumbled to them to hold their breath for a moment before he kicked the wall.
Apparently in doing so, he deactivated a censor that would spread out smoke fumes, and said it was safe to breathe again, how that was just a precaution. The Shibusen followed the witch's son silently, he was a strange one, with his dark aura and timid personality, no emotion leaking into his voice.
"C-crona-san?" Maka asked quietly.
Said swordsman stopped at the mention of his name and answered hesitantly, "Y…yes?"
The blonde voiced her question, "Where do you keep your sword?"
A brief moment of silence.
"… it's a secret… I can't tell you." Crona whispered, saying near the same words Maka had with Soul, only his was true in hiding something.
Death the Kid spoke up, "It's safe to tell us. We won't hurt you."
BlackStar let out a small snicker, "Only because we'll die if we do kill him."
This earned the assassin a sharp jab by Death the Kid's elbow in his gut, the shinigami hissed, "shut up."
"No," Crona slowly spoke, "I'm… different… even for a witch's child."
"Why-?" Maka started, but a large crash was heard.
Directing their flashlights toward the spot were it was heard, being close in front of them, they all saw Crona pushing himself up from the ground with a groan. A blade was sliced across the hall, horribly close to the swordsman, seeming to have gotten him since Crona was clutching his shoulder.
Standing up wearily, Crona stood up, something splattered across his face. The boy lifted his hand from the wound, but his let out a small hiss when the air touched it, clamping a hand around it once more. Crona blushed at the stares the others were giving him, stuttering out in a question why they were staring.
Maka moved closer and lifted a hand to Crona's face, curiously running a gloved finger over the black liquid splashed over his cheek, causing the boy to flinch and stumble back. The scythe meister looked at the substance on her fingers, wondering where it had come from. Death the Kid and BlackStar came to look at what it was two, furrowing their eyebrows at it.
"Oooh~ what's that?" Patty asked.
Death the Kid studied it with his gold eyes, "I don't know."
BlackStar poked it, "Ew, it's sticky."
"Then don't touch it!" Soul yelled at his friend.
Maka looked up at Crona, who was inspecting the wound under his hand, almost seeming to try to hide it. The blonde snatched his hand, earning a small squeak from the boy, and looked at his shoulder. A visible gash was seen, splitting across his skin, with the same black substance pooled around it, camouflaging with the black dress.
BlackStar blinked, "What is that?"
Crona avoided their eyes as the wound began to close with the black substance hardening, Patty throwing in an awed, "Woah!"
"What is it?" Maka asked.
Crona took his hand back from the blonde and began to walk slowly in the other direction whispering, "Do you know? My blood is black."
Death the Kid's eyes narrowed as the swordsman began to walk again, noticing the other to meisters sink in the information. Liz was trying to wrap her mind around everything, the poor girl couldn't handle shock well. Tsubaki was mulling over the fact, wondering if it was possible that the black substance, was indeed, Crona's blood.
The swordsman was far ahead of them before they all broke away from their thinking, making them all have to jog up at the boy's pace. Crona directed his flashlight toward another set of stairs, gesturing for the others to hurry.
The boy ran his hand over the wall and came across a switch, flipping it on, the third level was filled with light. Maka and Kid shielded their eyes from the light while BlackStar looked around, narrowing his green eyes at the scenery.
Blood was splattered across the walls, they all would have thought it was the Kishin eggs just smearing it on the walls, but either they murdered each other, or there were other people. Crona noticed that the students were staring in awe at the wearing wood and blood, the floor torn apart in some places, door hanging from their hinges.
Tsubaki transformed back into her human body and held a hand to her mouth, pointing to the inside of one of the doors. Death the Kid noticed the girl's gesture and looked inside, tightening his grip onto Liz and Patty as he peered through the door.
A flesh colored Kishin egg was pinning a man to the wall, the monster was almost blob like with no sharp angles on its body. The man seemed to have already died of fright, his limp body hanging from the kishin egg's grasp.
It was leaning in to the man to rip out his soul, and the monster had no mouth. But the closer it got, the skin below its slotted beady eyes ripped apart, the skin holding on by a stringy connection, like saliva made from the flesh. It revealed black and brown stained sharp teeth, a hiss escaping its mouth as the kishin egg moved in to tear out the dead man's chest.
"What the hell?" BlackStar whispered to Crona, not loud for once, "Why is there a human here?"
"I think I remember Lady Medusa telling me about that." Crona thought, "How there were some humans here to satisfy their hunger so they didn't kill you first thing."
Maka growled, "We have to find them all before it's too late."
Death the Kid shot at the disgusting creature, gaining the Kishin egg's attention, and yelled behind him, "Here he comes!"
The Kishin egg growled and dropped the dead carcass and came speeding at Death the Kid, running on his front arms like an animal would. It came at surprisingly fast, charging at the shinigami, Death the Kid jumped back with his yellow eyes wide, sweat appearing at his temple and he braced himself for the impact.
Kid froze for a moment in shock when the kishin egg sped around him, sprinting on his chunky arms toward the rest of the meisters. The others began to act, as they felt the kishin was attacking them as a group. But their eyes widened when the blood splattered across their faces, bodies frozen.
The kishin had targeted one of the four meisters, mouth opening wide, black teeth sharp as they cut through the flesh at the chest. Maka's grip on Soul was shaky as she saw the targeted fall onto their knees, the section of the chest gone, heart slowing to a stop, soul in the kishin egg's hand
BlackStar's eyes widened when the Kishin egg charged at him, and the last thing he was aware of was the stench of it ripping out his torso.
42…
A/N: yes, I can see the flames already. Though, at least flames are better than nothing. No, I don't hate BlackStar, I think he's epic in fact, but I just had to kill ONE of them off first. No, I'm not suggesting he's weak either being taken out by a kishin egg, he was just in shock at the speed it was going and how it targeted him. So, putting that aside, how was it? I really want to know, if I don't get reviews, I won't continue it. And all the people that hate the story because a cannon died, it's in the horror section for a reason. To all of you who actually ENJOY this, please, please, please review. It would be greatly appreciated.
