Spirit manages to avoid the certainty until the last opportunity to brace himself has passed him by. He can feel the cold creeping dread in the back of Stein's head, the weight of exhaustion pulling the meister's arms slow and lethargic until even Soul Force can't inject enough shock through the younger man's blood to keep them moving. Spirit can feel the extra jolt of desperation in the way his handle shudders when he blocks hits and in the heat of blood trickling down Stein's arm from another not-quite-dodged attack. There's even a momentary flicker of fright - for him, Spirit knows without thinking about it - under the word when Stein's voice drops Senpai into his thoughts.
I'm not going anywhere, Spirit shoots back. It's crucial that Stein not say anything, that he not acknowledge what Spirit can sense at the back of his thoughts, because Spirit is very good at avoidance, and as long as Stein doesn't say anything he can keep it up.
There's a smile, bright and startling like the sun in winter, and Spirit sighs in relief even before Stein gives back, I didn't expect you to.
There's another swing through the air, the movement that always feels incongruously like flying regardless of how much blood is coating Spirit's blade. The approaching creature, the grasping arms - they offer almost no resistance at all, as if he's hit a particularly recalcitrant patch of smoke and no more. The dark liquid of almost-blood splashes back over his blade, though, up onto Stein's sleeve, casting the pale fabric into a curved splash of shadow as the meister twists sharply to shove his hand hard into the chest of another attacker.
Spirit sees the third coming. It's over Stein's shoulder but having his back to an enemy has never stopped the meister from defending himself before; Spirit can feel the Soul Perception illuminating all their surroundings, Stein must know the thing is coming. But he's not moving to block, he's not moving fast enough, and there is a moment of cold horror that dowses Spirit as he realizes that Stein can't go faster, that there is not enough time.
The scythe edge is blurring into transformation when Stein snaps at him. Spirit don't! The shock of hearing his given name in his meister's voice combined with the whipcrack of forced dominance under the younger man's voice freezes him. It stalls him mid-transformation for less than a breath, less than a heartbeat, just a crackle of thought before he can regain his self-control and keep going.
That's all it takes. Spirit was too late in seeing the oncoming attack, or too naturally obedient to Stein, or maybe it was the distraction of stopping Spirit that kept Stein from coming up with some impossible defense. It doesn't matter, really. Stein is twisting sharp even as Spirit properly drops into human form, stumbling and clumsy with his nearly aborted shift, and there's a burst of heat across Spirit's shirt that he doesn't recognize right away. Stein's hand crashes into the attacker's chest, hard enough that Spirit can hear the creature gasp breathless with the impact even before the lethal electricity burns through its veins and shoves it backward.
"Stein!" Spirit is coming forward and lifting a hand to touch his wet shirt, it feels like his skin is on fire with the heat, and he recognizes the texture of the liquid on his fingers even before Stein half-turns and drops to the ground, too fast for Spirit to catch him. The meister's soaked in blood, too red to be from the enemies, and there's an awful ragged gash gushing liquid from his throat, and Spirit doesn't need to be a doctor, doesn't need anything to know.
"Stein," he wails, crumpling nearly as boneless as his dying meister, and Stein can't get a hand up to even attempt to stem the rush of blood from his throat but he reaches for Spirit, desperate fingers that start to drop before Spirit is able to fling himself forward to catch at his meister's hand. Stein's skin is cold, not just the usual cool that the meister general maintains but cold, his hand feels like ice, and even as Spirit reaches out to touch his face Stein's eyelids flutter and don't open again. There's a dreadful sound, wet and ragged, and Stein's chest doesn't move nearly as much as it should for the desperation in that noise.
"Stein," Spirit says, or tries to say, but his throat is doing weird things, closing up and going liquid with panicked tears. He can barely hear himself clearly, there's no way Stein can catch the words. That's why the meister doesn't react, surely, it must be a result of the way the word strangles the weapon and not because Stein can't answer.
If he could, Spirit would lie to himself for minutes, let himself hover in the self-deception of 'dying' and not 'dead.' But Stein has always been all too skilled at making him face reality, in this as in everything else, and even in human form Spirit can feel the connection between them pull tight and break more than he can sense the faint warmth of life fade from Stein's chilled fingertips.
There are other aspects to his life, pieces wholly separate from his meister that he has formed in the years they spent apart, things that are unaffected by this. And he is Death Scythe, and he needs to be strong, for Lord Death and for the Academy and for Maka, especially for Maka. But in the first few minutes, when there isn't anyone to see, Spirit tips his head, and lets the pain hit him, and crumples into the tears that at least push away the endless darkness of the future, if they do nothing to assuage the pain of the present. There is no one to chide him for it, now.