TheGreatElisaMousy: Hey, everyone~ Surprised to see me back so soon?

Spirit: Back already, huh?

TheGreatElisaMousy: I'm sure people are dying to know what happened to Stein last time!

Spirit: It's kind of in the summary…

TheGreatElisaMousy: Shut up and let me have my fun! Anyway~ Disclaimer, please, dear Death Scythe/Spirit Albarn~

Spirit: Alright. TheGreatElisaMousy claims no rights to any of the Soul Eater characters, and only owns the plot of this story.

Alright, deep breaths, Spirit, the Death Scythe thought as he approached his unconscious friend. Seeing Stein unconscious on the ground unnerved him, especially when it was after such an easy battle like that one. He's probably coming down with something, and that Resonance put too much stress on his body. Yeah, that's it… But no matter how many times he told himself that, he couldn't make himself believe it. He'd felt something… off, during their Resonance, but he wasn't able to place it. Trying to avoid assuming the worst, he hauled the taller man onto his back and carried him back to the stitched together home.

Once he arrived, he managed to ignore the fact that he was in a building full of scientific equipment and dissection tools with probably the world's maddest scientist. His first priority was getting Stein settled. If he really was coming down with something, it might not be the best idea to just leave him laying anywhere, so he entered his old partner's bedroom and set him down on the bed. Blankets would be a good idea, too, so he took care of that. He smiled a little before turning to leave. Despite being terrified of the man sometimes, Spirit and Stein really were close friends.

X

The next day, Spirit had to sub for the Crescent Moon class because Stein never showed up for work that morning. While it was nice to be able to see his little Maka, even though she ignored him, he still couldn't help but worry about Stein. He had to just be sick. That was the only real explanation… or rather, the only one Spirit really wanted to think about, anyway.

As soon as class was over, he was called to the Death Room.

"Ah, Death Scythe," Shinigami-sama said, skipping over the pleasantries again. "There's a favor I'd like to ask of you." At the look on Spirit's face, he chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm not sending you into another fight. I'd like for you to check up on Stein. He missed work today, and he didn't even call in sick. I want you to see if he's okay. And if he's perfectly fine and was just skipping…" He raised his hand in a way that Spirit found threatening. "Bring him here." Spirit nodded. He hope now, for Stein's sake, that he had a good excuse for missing work. Otherwise, he'd have to suffer the famous 'Shinigami Chop', something Spirit knew all too well.

"Yes, Sir," he told the Reaper.

X

Spirit found himself back at Stein's place twice in less than twenty-four hours. He knocked on the door gently. "Hey, Stein. You okay in there? You didn't show up for work today." No response. "Can I come in?" Again, no response. "Alright, I'll take that as a yes, then," the red-haired man said, opening the door and stepping inside. He checked the labs first. One of the only reasons that Stein would skip out on his teaching job would be if he was on some sort of mission, which Spirit knew he wasn't, if he was sick, or if he had some new project going on. But the younger man wasn't in any of them. The next place to check was the bedroom.

Spirit opened the door slightly to take a peek inside. There was a decent sized lump under the blankets, so Spirit turned around and was about to leave. Something seemed wrong, though, so he looked back over his shoulder. That lump was too small to be Stein. Oh, man, had the maniac kidnapped some child to do experiments on? If that was the case, he had to get the kid out of there and report this to Shinigami-sama. He walked over and lifted up the covers, and the sight before him made him freeze.

A boy that looked about ten years old was curled up in the bed, seeming to be desperate for warmth, even though he was sweating. The boy had shaggy silvery grey hair and a thin, scrawny build. But Spirit would know that boy anywhere. This boy had terrorized him for a long time, but that was twenty years ago… How was this possible?

He silently put the covers back over the sleeping boy and tried to tiptoe his way out the door.

"Stop," a young voice commanded, and Spirit turned around. The boy had apparently woken up, and was sitting in the bed, fist clenched around a scalpel. "Who are you?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Spirit studied the child for a moment. He was paler than he should be, and was still sweating buckets. Despite all of that, though, he knew the damage he could make with that tiny little scalpel. "Spirit Albarn," he replied honestly.

The boy's fist tightened around the scalpel. "Don't make me laugh. Sempai's not an old man like you."

"O-Old?!" Spirit yelled, insulted. "I'm only 33!"

"Sempai's 13," the boy answered simply. "I'll ask again: Who are you? And if I don't like your answer, you'll wind up on my dissection table."

Yep, that's him, alright, the Death Scythe thought. "I told you the truth."

The boy glared and tried to stand, but he seemed a little wobbly. "Wrong answer," he growled and went to take a step forward, but his leg wouldn't support his own weight and he fell to the ground.

Spirit was by his side in seconds. First things first, he managed to pry the sharp object from the boy's hand, setting it far out of reach. "You're in no condition to get up," he told him. "Now get back in the bed." With that, he helped the protesting ten-year-old up, sitting him down on the bed. "Look," he said. "You can see people's souls, right?"

The boy paused. "How did you know about that?"

"Taking that as a yes. Look at mine, alright? Tell me what you see."

The boy stared at him, somewhere in the vicinity of the man's chest. His brow furrowed in confusion. "But that's not possible…" he muttered. Everything he saw was familiar, though. It was exactly like his Sempai.

"Now, tell me what happened, Stein," Spirit said.

"You tell me what happened. How did you get so old?"

"I told you, I'm not old! And twenty years passed from what you seem to remember. What happened yesterday?" Spirit asked. He needed to know what the damage was.

"You started hitting on Yumi-san, but she rejected you. You tried hitting on Marie a couple of hours later," mini-Stein replied. He was starting to understand what was going on, though not completely. He knew it couldn't be a trick, because no one could mimic another person's soul exactly. They could try, but they would never get it perfect. This was Spirit, alright. He knew that he must actually be around thirty, but something happened, reducing him to a ten-year-old and getting rid of all of his memories past this age. But what? "What happened yesterday?" he mimicked the question, wanting to know was happened the actual night before, not the last night he remembered.

"Shinigami-sama sent us after a Witch that we accidentally let escape a few nights before. We—"

"Wait. Tell me more about this Witch," Stein ordered.

"Okay then, Mr. Bossy," Spirit joked. "She was some weird Witch that kept casting spells at us, but you blocked them with me. The kept bouncing off, but her last one… it was different. Instead of bouncing off, it absorbed into me."

"Were you okay?" the man-turned-child asked.

"I thought I was, but now I'm not so sure. I mean, we Resonated last night to get rid of some Kishin Eggs, but as soon as they were dead, you passed out. I brought you here, and well… you know the rest," Spirit told his friend.

Stein nodded slowly. "Maybe the spell was intended to affect whoever you Resonated with. Kind of like how some animals carry a disease but aren't affected by it. You probably carry a curse, but it does nothing to you. But why us? Why would the Witch attack us of all groups?"

Spirit's mouth formed a small 'o' in understanding. "She was after Shinigami-sama."

"How would cursing you affect Shinigami-sama?" Stein asked. But then he caught sight of Spirit's soul again. It was stronger in a way that he'd seen only once before. "You're a Death Scythe," he stated.

"Yep."

"We… we did it?" the boy asked, his eyes brightening a little in excitement.

Spirit hated to dampen his mood. After all, Stein hadn't gotten excited about anything other than dissections and experiments in years, but being a child again, which a child's memories and mentality, he was a little easier to make happy. But Spirit had to tell him to truth. "Actually… After five years of us being partners, I found out about your experiments."

Stein laughed. "It took you five years to figure it out?"

Spirit ignored him. "I told Shinigami-sama about it, and he partnered me with someone else. Kami, actually."

"Oh…" the young boy said softly, shoulders sagging, head hanging. He'd gotten so excited. Spirit had been not only his best test subject, but his best friend, too. The thought of his best friend being taken away from him saddened him. He was probably asking for it, though, taking five years of experimentation and dissection into consideration. All this sudden new information finally washed over him and he closed his eyes, feeling his body sway a little. Spirit noticed this as well.

The older man placed a hand to his younger friend's forehead. "Whoa, you're burning up, Stein. I'm going to go tell Shinigami-sama about this, and then I'll be back, alright?"

Stein nodded slowly. His curiosity had powered him during their conversation, but now that his questions had been answered, this apparent sickness was rearing its ugly head. He laid back down and drew the covers over his head.

Spirit chuckled a little at the childish action before standing to leave. As he opened the front door to exit the house, he ran right into his little girl, fist raised as though she was just about to knock on the door.

"Papa!" she said, a bit confused. "What are you doing here?"

"Shinigami-sama asked me to check up on him since he didn't call in this morning. He's… not fit to see visitors right now, though. You'll have to come back some other time, I'm sorry, Maka," the girl's father told her.

"Okay…" she replied, disappointed. As soon as he disappeared from sight though, she snuck inside. She typically wasn't one to break the rules, but her dad was acting weird… even for him. "Stein-sensei?" she called, wandering the rooms.

Stein, still curled up in his bed, opened his eyes at hearing her voice. Who was this girl, and why the hell was she in his house? And what was with this 'sensei' business? What happened in those twenty years that he didn't know about? He slowly pulled the covers down. Spirit had told him to rest, but just because the man was older than him (much older, at the moment), that didn't mean that he would listen to him. Besides, this girl didn't sound like she was going to leave unless she found him. But what did she want with him? He cursed silently when he noticed the scalpel on top of a bookshelf. Spirit just had to rub in his face that he was that much shorter than him, didn't he?

The girl's footsteps drew closer to his room, and when the door opened, he stared at the girl in the doorway, confused. "Kami?" he asked. This girl looked exactly like the girl Spirit had apparently switched to.

"Huh? Who are you?" she asked.

He shook his head. No, it couldn't be Kami. Spirit had explained to him already that he was behind by twenty years, meaning that Kami would be a grown woman by now. "Who are you?" he retaliated. He wasn't about to divulge his information until he knew who he was talking to.

"Maka Albarn, two-star Scythe Meister," she answered, taking a closer look at him. She seemed kind, and… wait. Albarn? She couldn't be…

"Are you Sempai's daughter?" he blurted out the question, unable to quell his newfound curiosity about this girl. He looked at her soul. Hard-working, brave, reliable… And there was something else. He whistled, honestly impressed and intrigued.

"What?" the girl asked, temporarily forgetting about Stein's own question.

"A Grigori soul…" he said, amazed. "I never thought I'd see one myself."

"You can see my soul?" she asked, earning a nod. "What's your name?"

After a moment of deliberation, Stein decided 'what the hell?' and decided to speak. "Franken Stein."

Maka's eyes bugged out. "S-Stein-sensei?"

"Why do you keep calling me 'sensei'?" the boy asked. When she didn't reply, he sighed. It looked like he was only going to get any answers out of her if he explained his situation first. "Sempai told me that something happened when we fought a Witch a couple of nights ago, and it affected me last night."

"How old are you?" Maka asked curiously.

"Ten."

"And you don't remember anything past ten?"

"Nope. Now can you answer my question?"

"Oh, right," Maka remembered. "You became a teacher at DWMA. You taught my class, and we first met during a remedial lesson. After that, you kept a close eye on me and my friends, and you helped us out a lot."

Him? Helping people? He cracked a small smile at the absurdity of the idea. "Right," he said, and laid back down on the bed. He really did need some rest.

"You don't look too good," Maka pointed out. "Are you alright?"

"To be honest, I don't think so," he replied simply. "So, you're Sempai's daughter, right?" She nodded. "Who's your mother?"

Maka's mood darkened. "Her name's Kami."

"Really…" the young scientist muttered. So the girl that took his best friend from him became his wife and mothered his child… "I'm surprised he got married."

"Actually…" Maka started. "They got divorced a little while ago, because my good-for-nothing Papa kept cheating on her."

"You don't seem to be very fond of him," Stein observed.

"No," she confirmed.

After a moment's pause, Stein said something he wouldn't have expected. "Don't be angry with him. He's a good guy, really. Or, well… he was, twenty years ago."

Maka laughed a little. "Since you look kind of sick, I'll let you rest. I'll see you later, alright?" she said, turning around. She had to process all of this. Her favorite teacher was suddenly younger than her. Oh, boy… This is going to be an adventure… she thought, leaving the boy to rest.

Stein was asleep within seconds of her departure.

TheGreatElisaMousy: Well, it was kind of boring, but I wanted to get it done.

Spirit: Poor Stein…

TheGreatElisaMousy: You feel bad for him? I thought you were terrified of him.

Spirit: Well, yeah, but…

Stein: *holding his trusty scalpel* Oh, Sempai~

TheGreatElisaMousy: I suggest you run.

Spirit: AHHHHHHH!

TheGreatElisaMousy: Anyway, here's my update policy. I need at least two new reviews before I post another chapter. That does NOT, however, mean that I will automatically update as soon as I get two new reviews. I do have a life outside of fanfiction.

Stein: No you don't.

TheGreatElisaMousy: Ignoring that. Anyway, please review and/or favorite and/or follow~ Til next time~