Hi again. Going to continue posting this story until it is finished.

I no own Soul Eater or any of the products or places that appear in this chapter.

Enjoy!

Chapter 2

With everything going on, Soul couldn't decide if this trip was the worst in his 19 years of living. After school had ended, everyone had gone back to their respective homes and had gathered their supplies for the coming week. Maka had tried to get Soul excited about the trip but he couldn't find it in himself to be able too. It had resulted in a bitter argument between the two of them with Soul pouring out new lies instead of just telling her the truth. Needless to say, the motorcycle ride had been one of the worst since both of them refused to talk to each other.

The plane ride was just uncomfortable with neither one refusing to sit next to each other in the private jet. The tension was noticeable to their friends and Soul had to deal with both Kid and Black*Star breathing down his neck trying to figure out what was wrong between the two of them. Soul had refused to speak about any of it, opting to play his Ipod at full blast, angering both friends. In the end they both walked away, leaving Soul with his confliction thoughts and emotions.

The next round of interrogation came from Liz, Patti, and Tsubaki, when the plane had stopped to refuel in Philadelphia. That argument ended just as badly as the last two with Liz yelling as she walked away followed by a pissed Patti (which was so scary that it almost caused Soul to confess everything) and a hesitant Tsubaki. With everyone on one side of the jet and Soul on the other, Soul felt isolated from everyone but knew he only had himself to blame. Then the Imp had decided to make an appearance and all Soul wanted to do was go and bash his head against the wall to end his suffering.

The only good part of the jet ride had been when they were over the Atlantic. By then everyone was asleep, or at least Soul had thought because his eyes were closed, feigning sleep. He felt something shift next to him and opened his eyes to see Maka, with a blanket, lay down rest her had on his lap. She didn't say anything but Soul understood the message; she hadn't entirely forgiven him but she was ok with him now. In response, Soul reached over and took one of her hands, giving it a reassuring squeeze, before returning it back to its original position. They spent the rest of the time like that until they landed at the Manchester airport.

They had to switch to a more light weight jet and all sorts of craziness ensued. Oh, switching planes had been easy but then Kid noticed it was symmetrical in the bathrooms and had a fit. That ended with them getting on another plane that fit Kid's specifications. Then there was the fact that some luggage had gotten misplaced when they had waited to board the new plane. At three in the morning they went all around the airport to find who could help them. Luggage and Baggage Claim pointed them to another office who pointed them to another office which led them back to Luggage and Baggage Claim. The hour and a half run-a-round, along with dealing with Black*Star and Patti's antics, did nothing for Soul's already frazzled nerves and when they had returned to Luggage and Baggage, coupled with the man behind the counter piss poor attitude, he snapped, yanking the person by his collar, demanding that they find the luggage or he was 'going to go through the damn place, destroying everything in my fucking path until I do.' It had taken Kid, Black*Star, and Liz to pull him off and resulted in a couple of Maka Chops for threatening people. It got them the luggage quickly though and they were up in the air 30 minutes later. An hour later they found themselves at Edinburgh Airport and in a car taking them to their hotel, the Hilton. The group of young adults was so tired, when they arrived, they just gathered their luggage, checked in, and stumbled into their rooms on the 12th floor.

In his and Maka's room Soul took one look at one of the twin beds, tossed his bags in the small 'closet,' stripped off his shirt, and flopped on the bed nearest the window. He heard Maka mutter something at him but his mind was so far gone that he couldn't hear it. Without much conscious thought, slowly his mind slipped into darkness.

It was so dark, an impenetrable darkness. It chocked him, slowly filling him, killing him.

"Why do you deny me?" a voice hissed.

He tried to respond, tried to move but nothing worked.

"I can give you power! I can give you everything!"

'No!' Soul thought. 'I don't want it!'

"You do! I sense it! Why do you continue to deny me!"

Suddenly a flash and Soul found himself able to move, see, and hear again. Upon seeing everything he instantly wish he could go back to the darkness.

Around him was destroyed, crumbling buildings. They were charred with blackness and there were raging fires all around. There was no sign of green or tree like shapes in sight, just a wasteland of crumbling buildings with the smell of sulfur and decay in the air.

He became aware of something spongy and wet in his hands. He looked down at his talon like hands and immediately dropped the object as if diseased. A heart; it was a human heart.

Fearfully he slowly started to back away from it, when his leg hit something. Spinning around, he looked down at his feet which were in dress shoes, and stared down horrified to see an arm. It wasn't even attached to a body but it looked like it was ripped from the shoulder socket if the jagged edge of the bleeding appendage was any indication of the violence it suffered. But those details were lost to Soul; his attention was more focused on the fact that it was clothed in a suit like material and, much to Soul's horror, a skull ring on its middle finger.

Soul's stomach dropped and he withheld the urge to purge it as his eyes traveled up to the rest of the horrific carnage. The sight before him made him even sicker. Everywhere there were bloodied body parts. Hands, arms, legs, torsos were uncaringly tossed about giving the place more of a massacre scene than a battlefield. What was worst, he could clearly identify each and every one of them. Black*Star's arm, one of Tsubaki's legs, Patti's torso…. Everyone he considered friends and family was there.

His legs felt weak and he brought up a hand to cover his mouth, forgetting it was covered in blood, as he continued to stare at everything with wide eyes. He was so shocked by the scene that he didn't even see that his friend's heads weren't there. They were farther in the background on pikes, staring down at him with dead eyes. As Soul continued to study the area more, his eyes quickly caught a sight of dirty blonde hair sticking out from underneath a pile of rubble. "Maka?" Soul whispered to himself. "Maka!"

Without thought he ran towards her, tripping over fallen store and body parts. It didn't matter to him though, his eyes specifically focused on the head of hair. Arriving, he immediately started digging.

It wasn't long until he discovered the rubble was covering a slab of rock. Quickly he grabbed the one end and tossed it easily aside like a pillow, not giving any thought about this new strength that he couldn't, shouldn't, have as a human, and his heart nearly stopped. The energy left his body as he collapsed to the ground, tears coming to the surface of his eyes and rolling down his face. There, laying face up, perfectly intact, was Maka staring up at him with wide eyes.

But they had no life in them, no spark of the innocence he was so used to seeing. All because there was a hole in her chest where her heart should have been. The life drained out of Soul as his legs gave out from under him. With shaky hands he dragged her body over to his. He pressed her face into his shoulder, holding onto her tightly as he felt his throat constrict tightly. "Maka…," he whispered rocking back and forth not even bothering to stop the tears that slid down his face. "Please, Maka…!"

He got no response, he never would. He wailed her name again mixing it with heart wrenching sobs. 'This isn't happening…,' he thought, hiding his face in her hair as he continued to cry. 'This is happening….'

He didn't know how long he sat there, holding the dead body of the woman he loved. It wasn't until his sobs had turned into whimpers did he feel a slight breeze across his head. He stiffened, no not a breeze, someone was breathing on him. Slowly he raised his head, staring wide eyed at the person in front of him.

It was him. Or at least he thought it was him. They shared the same face and the same head of white hear, though its' was covered in blood, but the rest of his feature were foreign to him. It was smiling madly at him, showing off its blood stained shark-like teeth. Its ears were pointier at the tips than his and on top of its head was a pair of black horns. But what Soul couldn't take his eyes away from was its eyes, more specifically its three eyes.

Instead of white while they were on all consuming black. Its irises were still red but were so dilated that they were just dots. The third eye rest on its forehead and was sideways, reminding Soul of how Asura's looked.

Then the voice was back. "This is the real you…. This is your soul! Why do you deny me?"

"You're lying," Soul whispered, voice gaining strength at the end. "This isn't me!" If possible the thing smiled even more.

"Am I? Don't deny it, this is you!"

"No, it's not!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"YES!"

"NO IT'S NOT!" He then lunged at the thing, raising a clawed hand to strike it. "IT'S NOT!"

Soul jolted awake, sitting straight up on the bed. He was breathing deeply, sweat covering his entire body. It took him a minute to realize where he was and he let out a sigh of relief. He was in the hotel room he was sharing with Maka for their mission. He looked out the window to see it was somewhat dark outside with a little light bringing out the silhouettes of the top of buildings. He glanced over at the clock to see it was 5:23. He then glanced over at Maka on the other bed, happy to see that his nightmare hadn't woken up.

Raising a shaky hand, he wiped the sweat from his brow. Seeing that it really didn't do much he moved to stand, silently cursing at his shaking body. Once he found his footing and assured himself that he collapse, he made his way as quietly as possible to the bathroom.

'Man, this is so not cool,' he thought, closing the door behind him and turning on the light. Heading to the tap, he turned on the cold water and bent over the sink. He brought the cold water to his heated face a couple of times before feeling satisfied with that he had calmed down enough. Reaching out he grabbed the nearest towel and began wiping his face, standing straight as he did so. Bringing the towel away from his face, he glanced up into the mirror.

Before he could stop himself, he let out a startled yell and backed away quickly, nearly falling into the bathtub as he did so. There in the mirror was that thing from his dreams, staring back at him. "I will always be with you," a voice said in his head. "Don't deny me."

"Soul? Are you ok?"

Soul whipped his head over to the door at hearing Maka's concerned voice calling to him. Instead of answering, he looked back at the mirror only to see himself standing there with a horrified expression. Bringing his right hand over his rapidly beating heart he tried to calm himself as he stood straight again.

"Soul?" Soul looked up to see Maka opening the door to let herself in. He hair was messy and she was rubbing her eyes trying to rid herself of her sleepy appearance. That, mixed with her now wearing her signature stripped pjs, was a cute sight for Soul, had it been under different circumstances. "Soul are you ok?" Maka asked again, binging Soul out of his musing.

Guilt engulfed him as he looked into her concerned eyes as he shoved his hands in his jeans. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said trying to play it off as his typical self. He didn't want to bother her with his problems. "But jeeze Maka, could you at least have waited until I got out of the bathroom? Or were you hoping to catch me naked?" He gave his signature toothy grin as Maka puffed her cheeks out in anger.

"Well sorry if I was just concerned about my partner!" she fumed before storming away.

Seeing her leave, Soul dropped his grin and looked at the mirror again. All he saw was his reflection staring back at him. He frowned at himself. 'Whatever that thing was it certainly wasn't the Imp,' he thought to himself, thinking how by now he would have made himself known. 'Then what was it?'

Shaking his head he brought himself back to reality. 'Whatever. It's too early to think about this.' He then left the bathroom to get ready for the day.

It was around eight that morning when everyone gathered again for breakfast. There was a nice restaurant-like area in the hotel lobby where they had an all-you-can-eat-breakfast-buffet. That had thrown Black*Star and Patti over the moon as they garbled down everything in sight. The rest, minus Kid, had taken to eating everything at a normal pace.

"So Liz, where's Kid at?" Tsubaki asked watching her partner go back to the buffet for the fifth time.

"Said he was going to get a paper from a local news stand," Liz said taking a sip of her coffee. "Something about gathering information for tonight's hunt."

"And I have done just that," Kid said from behind her, surprising Liz who almost dropped her drink. After she yelled at him no to scare her like that and the typical greetings by everyone else, he took a seat between Liz and Patti bringing out a newspaper from under his arm.

"So what have you got?" Maka asked finishing her bite from her pancake.

"From the paper," Kid replied flipping it open to a certain page. "There seems to be a festival going on tonight." He handed Maka the paper, showing her the article. "The old man at the news stand also confirmed another private party that is being held at the National Museum of Scotland. That one is invitation only."

"Then how are we going to get in?" Liz asked leaning closer to her meister. Kid reached into his jacket and produced four tickets.

"Father found out and got us these. He only gave me four though. I suggest Liz, Patti, and I take three."

"I suggest Maka take the fourth then," Soul immediately put out there. He would rather deal with Black*Star's antics than deal with having to go to some fancy party. Those weren't his scene. He didn't want to admit though that he wanted to avoid those fancy parties at all cost with the off chance his family was there.

Maka cast him a look before looking back at Kid. "I think it's a good idea," she said, wanting to support her partner.

"You do realize that since we didn't bring dresses, it means we have to go shopping right?" Liz said with a sly look on her face as she leaned toward Maka.

Soul instantly saw the panicked expression on Maka's face. Seeing she might back out, Soul went with a plan that would guarantee she wouldn't. "What's the matter, tiny-tits? Afraid you won't find a dress that'll make you sexually appealing?"

"Maka Chop!"

Soul clutched his head as he peeked out of the corner of his eye at his partner. She was putting her book back with an uncaring look on her face but he saw the sheen of determination in her eyes. He won this round, even if it got him hurt in the end.

"Then it's settled then," Kid said in a professional manner. "Maka, Liz, Patti, and I will head to the party and Soul, Tsubaki, and Black*Star will go to the festival."

Liz squealed happily at being able to shop while Patti laughed excitedly. Maka looked a little fearful but still held that look of determination to prove Soul wrong. Kid went on to read the newspaper while Tsubaki had a look of mild happiness as Black*Star went on to yell out how he couldn't wait for his public to see his godliness. Soul just leaned back in his chair, continuing his "cool guy" persona, but was secretly relieved.

"I suggest," Kid said over his paper to Soul. "That you, Black*Star, and Tsubaki got scout out the center of town where the festival will be. I will scout out the museum while the girls go shopping." Soul nodded before going back to his food.

Once everyone had finished and the table cleared, they left the hotel to get to work.

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