Hi, people! Here I am with the official chapter 1 of The Witch's Madness, in which Maka Albarn speaks with Lord Death about this new and strange girl who knows little more than her first name, and they agree to have Lord Death meet her the next day. This chapter probably isn't extraordinarily exciting, but I'm sure it'll pick up sometime soon!

Hope you enjoy reading!

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.

The Girl Called Luna

Maka Albarn left Soul and the strange girl who called herself Luna alone together in her room and retreated into the bathroom. Upon closing the door, she turned the lock to decrease her chances of being disturbed. Taking a deep breath, she faced the mirror in front of her and wrote with her finger, 42-42-564.

A second later, a man with a skull mask and a black cloak appeared in the mirror. It was none other than the head of DWMA (Death Weapon Meister Academy), the Grim Reaper himself, Lord Death. "Maka, what a pleasant surprise!" he greeted happily.

Maka instantly put a finger to her lips. "Shhh... please be quiet, Lord Death. This is something really important."

Lord Death's voice became quieter and much more serious. "What is it?"

Before Maka was able to begin recounting her memory of the last several hours, a voice interrupted her. "Is that my Maka? Oh, can I say hi?" Spirit Albarn suddenly appeared in the mirror at Lord Death side and waved. "Hi, my beautiful daughter!"

Maka sighed and shook her head in disapproval. "Hi, Dad..." she said begrudgingly. "Now, can I please have a moment alone with Lord Death?"

Spirit looked as if he'd been karate chopped in the face, and his bottom lip jutted out as he lowered his head in misery. "My darling Maka doesn't want me," he lamented, slowly sinking down below the mirror.

"Oh, Spirit, relax," Lord Death said. "Maka and I just need to have a quick conversation. Why don't you wait outside and I'll call you back in when we're done talking? Is that all right, Maka?"

"Yeah, sure," she said sourly.

Anything to get him to leave.

"All right," Spirit said with a sigh, standing up and walking away. With that pouty lip still on his face, he turned his head around and said, "I love you, Maka."

Although Maka was still irritated at him and was in a hurry to get him out of the way, she still managed to grant Spirit a tiny smile before he left. Despite all his flaws, when he said he loved her, she knew he meant it. "I love you too."

At those words, a huge grin broke out on Spirit's face and he called out, "I'll see you soon, Maka!" and left the Death Room with his cheerful attitude rejuvenated.

Letting out another sigh, but this time of relief, Maka turned her attention to Lord Death. "So what is it that you wanted to talk about?" he asked calmly.

"It's about something that happened last night," she said. "Soul and I found someone collapsed out on the street."

Lord Death cocked his head. "Is that so?"

Maka nodded. "She was all cut up and bruised... and covered in blood. So we brought her in the house and cleaned her up. She just woke up a little bit ago. And I wanted to make sure you knew about this as soon as possible."

"Hmmm..." Lord Death said thoughtfully. "So, she's awakened? Then, you've spoken to her?"

"Yes."

"What did she tell you?"

"Not much," Maka admitted. "Actually, the only thing she remembers is her name. Luna. But that's it."

"Hmm... sounds serious," Lord Death said. "Is there anything else that you've been able to determine about her so far? Anything at all?"

"Well..." she hesitated. "I'm not sure. One thing I can say for sure is that she has an extremely powerful soul wavelength. Maybe she's one of us? I don't know. The other thing is... nearby, Soul and I discovered something kind of unnerving."

When she held off on elaborating further, Lord Death prompted, "And that was...?"

"A soulless Kishin..." she finally told him. "And a human. Both of them were lying dead in an alley way. Except... the Kishin..." She grimaced as she remembered the awful sight. "The Kishin was all chopped up into little pieces."

Lord Death was silent for a moment, as if unsure how to react to the news of this event. After some consideration, he said, "That is rather strange."

"I don't know if it could have anything to do with her. She actually just seems scared and confused from what I can tell," Maka said, shaking her head. "But that Kishin's slaughter wasn't the work of any regular meister and weapon. It was the work of a crazy person."

When she uttered the word "crazy", the first image to appear in her mind was that of Professor Franken Stein. In the past, he'd had his own battles with madness and nearly lost himself forever in the process. But ever since the fight with the Kishin Asura and the witch Arachne over a year ago, Professor Stein had gotten a handle on his madness and was doing just fine as far as she could tell. As quickly as she had let it in, pushed his face out of her mind; there was no way he had anything to do with it.

But this girl, Luna, was another story. As little as she had spoken to either Maka or Soul thus far, she seemed to be hardly more than a confused, bewildered girl. Maka found it hard to believe that such a girl could have been the culprit of such a cruel and senseless Kishin killing. But still... that soul wavelength had her feeling a bit uneasy. Even leaving Soul behind with that girl made her worry, if only just a little.

Lord Death spent a few more moments thinking to himself. During that time, he even resorted to pacing slowly back and forth between the mirror's borders. Maka stayed perfectly silent as she waited, not wanting to interrupt his thought process, until he finally halted and turned his head. Lifting a finger toward her, he said, "I'll tell you what. Tomorrow, I want you to bring this girl to the Academy so that I can meet her."

"Okay..." Maka said. "What about until then?"

"Well..." he said considerately, "If you're comfortable with it, I suggest you and Soul doing whatever you can to help her recuperate from her injuries for the rest of the day. She'll need to be in condition to be up and about tomorrow morning, of course."

When Maka looked at him uncertainly, he said, "If you're uncomfortable with it, I can-"

"No!" Maka squeaked out. Then, slightly embarrassed, she bowed her head. "Please, Lord Death. It's fine. Soul and I can handle her. Besides, she seems like she might really be a nice girl."

Lord Death nodded. "I appreciate your optimism, Maka! All right, then! I'll leave her in your capable hands, until tomorrow! Call me again if you have any trouble."

"I will!" she said with a smile, clasping her hands behind her back. As she reached out to end the call, Lord Death stopped her.

"Wait, I told Spirit I would let him talk to you after we were done!"

Maka shrugged it off. "Don't worry about it. I'll talk to him later."

Lord Death looked a bit uncomfortable as he attempted to protest, but Maka grimaced and said, "I'm sorry, Lord Death, but I have to go. Please tell my dad that I'll catch up with him tomorrow." Maka then quickly ended the call and leaned her back against the door.

Sorry, Dad... I'm just not up for it, now.

She had more important things to worry about, like taking care of the injured girl in her house. By now, Luna was probably hungry. Maybe Maka would make her something to eat. It was so long since she and Soul had had company. Luna, in her condition, wasn't necessarily the ideal house guest, but maybe this would end up being a fun experience.

"All right," Maka whispered to herself reassuringly, pumping her fist into the air. Then, with a deep breath, she unlocked the door and left the bathroom to join Soul and the strange new girl who occupied her bed.

"So..." the boy named Soul said, breaking the awkward silence between Luna and himself. "You don't remember anything, huh?"

Luna rested her eyes on the dresser at the far end of the room. She was glad to look anywhere but at him. "No... I don't." It was just too uncomfortable. For one, she had no idea who she was or where she'd come from. She knew that her name was Luna, but she didn't know who had given her that name. And then suddenly, she was waking up in some stranger's bed with injuries that she couldn't seem to remember getting. She could feel them inside her... memories wanting to resurface and to show themselves to her. But nothing was coming to her, and the harder she tried, the farther away all those memories felt.

Soul let out a deep sigh and shook his head. "This... isn't cool, at all."

Luna's eyes flickered in his direction briefly, and then looked down into her lap, studying her hands. "I'm sorry..." she said quietly. "I'm sorry about all this trouble. You guys may have saved my life, and you seem like nice people... but I can't remember anything."

"Hey, there," he said, grinning and showing off his exceptionally white teeth that vaguely resembled fangs, "No worries. You just woke up. Maybe you just need some time. No reason to feel any pressure."

When Luna saw Soul for the first time, her initial impression had been that he was an insensitive jerk, just by the way he talked and moved. But upon speaking to him directly and listening to him reassure her that everything was going to be okay, she started to relax a little bit. From where she sat, she could see the outline of his soul. And it was sorta... spiky... but it emitted a strong yet calming wavelength that made Luna rethink her first judgment. Maybe he was a nicer guy than she'd thought.

There was a soft knock on the door. When it opened, the girl named Maka popped her head in with a smile on her face. "Everything okay, guys?"

"We're fine," Soul said indifferently.

Stepping into the room with a plate in her hands, Maka came toward Luna. "I wasn't sure what you liked to eat, but I figured you should have something. So I made you an omelet!" She held out the plate and set it in front of Luna, who looked down at the omelet and suddenly noticed that she was indeed extremely hungry. It also excited her to remember upon eying the omelet that she'd eaten them before, and she enjoyed them.

Luna was about to dig in, but Maka gave her a hard look. "Now, you'd better not eat this as fast as you drank that water I gave you. You don't want to get sick."

Luna nodded in agreement, even though she was so hungry that she couldn't have cared less if she got sick or not. She still knew that Maka was right.

As she ate her omelet, as slowly as she could without torturing herself, Soul asked Maka, "So, did you talk to him?"

Maka nodded. "Yeah, I did. He wants to meet Luna tomorrow."

Luna raised her head and stared up at both of them suspiciously. "Who wants to meet me?"

"The headmaster of our school, the DWMA," Soul told her.

"Why?" Luna asked, not having a clue as to why the headmaster of anyone's school wanted to have anything to do with her.

Maka rubbed the back of her hair, smiling sheepishly. "Well... the DWMA is an academy for young weapons and meisters. Do you know what they are?"

Weapons and meisters?

Luna knew what they were. Weapons were human beings who had the power to change into tools of destruction at the hands of their meisters... the ones who wielded them. But for that to happen, their soul wavelengths had to match properly. Luna knew that something had seemed abnormal about these two. So... Maka and Soul weren't just regular individuals after all. They were weapon and meister.

"Yes," Luna replied to Maka's question honestly. "I know about them."

"You do?" Maka said excitedly. "So you remember something?"

Luna shook her head. "I don't know... I just... know those two words from somewhere."
Maka cocked her head. "Do you think maybe you're one of us?"

Luna once again shook her head. "I don't think I'd know unless I tried." If she had been a weapon or a meister at one point, she couldn't remember it at all. She only knew for sure that she had known they existed.

"What about souls?" Maka asked. "Can you see souls?"

"I can," Luna said, making note of Maka's tiny sphere-shaped soul. It was a strong and spirited one, no doubt, but it was the living representation of youth and a lack of experience. Still, Luna sensed that Maka had a strong will about her.

Soul folded his arms across his chest. "Maybe she's a meister. She can see souls like you, Maka."

"Maybe..." Maka muttered, her eyes cast down in a serious manner.

"So what does all this mean?" Luna asked, slightly fearful.

"I don't know," Maka said. Then she looked up and beamed. "But don't worry. Tomorrow you get to meet our headmaster, and he'll be able to help."

"How's he going to help?" Luna asked skeptically.

"He's only the most powerful meister of them all!" Maka said proudly. "Maybe he can help figure out where you came from, or even better... recover some of your lost memories."

"Right..." Luna said under her breath. Deep down, she was unsure about Maka's words and feeling incredibly apprehensive about this headmaster of theirs. But with all these injuries, there was nothing she could do... nowhere she could go. In this situation, she had no choice but to go along with them, because it was the only chance she had to find out what happened to her.

With a sigh, Luna agreed. "Okay. I'll go with you tomorrow and meet your headmaster."

"Great!" Maka said. "Rest easy, Luna, okay? Lord Death is the nicest person ever as long as you stay on his good side."

Good side? Lord Death?

Luna swallowed nervously.

Who on Earth was this man?