As Maka fell into darkness, her breathing felt constricted. The further she fell the harder it became to take even the shallowest of breaths. 'Why is it so hard to breathe?'
The hairs on the back of her neck went up. "You're a persistent one aren't you?" Maka heard a familiar raspy voice.
"What the hell are you doing here demon?" Maka managed to say. The dwarf red demon appeared out of the darkness. No, they weren't in darkness anymore. They were in a library. The black shelves were overflowing with books. Most of the books were red, black, or green, like Maka's eyes. There seemed to be endless shelves creating rows and pathways. The tile was green and white checkered, unusual for a library. The walls were covered with more shelves and a window here or there. The windows were covered with heavy drapery, keeping out any natural light. Every few rows there were piles of books threatening to topple over onto the ground. Another peculiar thing about this library was the lack of tables and chairs. There were only two chairs and a table in the center of the room, where there was an opening between the shelves.
"As if you haven't realized it yet..." The demon drawled. At the look of annoyance and confusion on Maka's face, he sighed. "I, the black blood, madness, however you choose to call me, have entered you, finally, and am here to stay."
"...How?" She managed to whisper after a few moments. The hesitation was out of anger and fear.
"Oh, use that head of yours. Obviously, you're smarter than this since you saved Soul from me all those months ago." The demon seemed to have fun playing this game of know-it-all. "What were you just doing?" He seemed to repress a giggle.
Maka thought. 'Well, Soul and I were on a mission. I remember locating the egg. But it disappeared. I think I got shot, but an explosion happened nearby. We got to the city square and someone was there. Who was it...?!'
"Her name was Sukai if that helps..." The demon taunted.
'The Sky witch? That's right! She hit me with some magic to send a message, and something else. The upper hand?' Maka collected herself. "So, it was that magic?" She muttered.
"And we have a winner!" He seemed to be making himself at home. He was now lounging on the table in the middle of the room. He was stretched out, his legs swinging, almost touching the floor.
"Where are we?" It had a striking resemblance to the DWMA library but seemed unreal, other-worldly.
"Hmm, so you've been far into your friend's souls, but you've never been in your own. Interesting. I might have the upper hand then." The demon started walking towards her, easily towering over her figure.
'Has he been growing this whole time?!' Maka thought in alarm.
"I think you will make a comparable replacement for Soul, though I'd have preferred him. He had a nice song..." He reached for the small meister.
'Never...' She thought. She dove into the aisle to her right. Frantically, she searched the shelves and towers, hoping for something useful to show itself. And then she saw a book. The leather-bound volume seemed huge at first glance. The blue writing on the cover read "LAST RESORT - VERY DANGEROUS." There was a buckle clasp keeping it shut. The brass buckle contrasted with the red leather of the book. 'Worth a shot...' She tried to grab the book, but something peculiar happened. It started to glow, and there seemed to be a chain reaction between her and the book. 'What's happening?!'
"What did you do?" There was a hint of fear in his voice.
She felt power build in her soul. The book seemed to be inputting its information into her brain. 'Imagine the weapon buried within your soul.' She did as the book told her and her arm transformed into a scythe blade.
"What the hell?" she whispered, still having difficulty breathing. The blade had the jagged painted design similar to Soul's but colored with silver and green.
"How the hell did you do that?" The fear in the demon's voice was clear now.
Maka let her courage run through her veins, strengthening her. 'Less talking or I'll lose my breath too soon.' She developed a quick attack plan, acting before finishing it. She was able to slice through the demon several times with spin attacks before she had to stop.
"My turn…" he teased. As he pounded his fists together, the room began to spin.
"Huh…?" she managed to mutter before falling to the ground. She had tried to breathe too harshly and needed more oxygen than she was getting. The demon was above her, looking down.
"You're making it too easy!" As he was bringing down the madness around them, Maka fought.
"You. Will. Not. Win!" There was a flash of blue that cleared the darkness. "I will not be defeated!"
Maka suddenly found herself in the battle against Asura. The kishin had been defeated, but the magic barrier he had made was still solid. Maka tried to look around but found she had no control of her body.
She had been forced to watch this, or something similar, every night since the battle. Soul was across from her, and suddenly she felt her body moving. It was like she was watching herself in slow motion, the corners of her mouth stretched in a crazed smile. She felt her gloved hands being placed around Soul's neck, slowly squeezing the air out of him. He tried to fight her off, but he eventually became limp.
The twisted thing controlling her body continued to choke the lifeless body that was her weapon. She watched in horror as her fingers forced his eyelids open, the red irises staring blankly back. When she regained control, she fell to her knees.
Maka cradled her partner, sobbing into his chest. "Please! No! SOUL!"
"Maka! What's wrong?"
The tears were real and stung her eyes. Or maybe it was the bright light streaming in. But Maka remained silent, afraid that if she said it aloud it would come true somehow. She quickly tried to wipe her eyes dry and appear okay, though she knew Soul had already seen. "Nothing's wrong. Wait, where am I? What happened?"
She saw Soul's eyes twitch, but he dropped the matter. He told Maka of the events from when they had started the mission, all the way to the drive up to the DWMA. "All that happened? We really encountered the Sky witch? I thought that had all been a dream..." Maka looked out the window at the sun laughing down at her. She remembered the mission but felt that had been an eternity ago. "Wait, how long have I been here?" Maka turned towards Soul and asked frantically. 'Weeks, months?' she thought fearfully.
"This all happened last night. Why do you ask?"
"Well, I can't miss class baka!"
Soul rolled his eyes.
Naigus made sure that no other visitors, including Death the Kid, were let in. Even though he was the son of Lord Death, Maka needed to heal quickly. As soon as she saw his black hair with three horizontal stripes, she reiterated what she had said to multiple students. Spirit had tried a few times, but neither stress or anger was a remedy. "If we want Maka back sooner, she needs the most rest she can get. Come back in a week."
"Fine," Kid muttered, his gold eyes passive. "I guess this gives us more time to research Sukai in depth. Maybe father will be able to answer a few questions on this matter…" 'Though I doubt he will directly,' Kid thought to himself.
Liz Thompson considered her meister for a moment. "Do you really think he'll help us?"
"One of our top meisters-"
"-and close friend-" Liz cut in.
"Yes, was attacked. If he expects us to not investigate then he has another thing-"
All of a sudden, the two heard a stomach growl and pivoted to face Patti Thompson, Liz's younger sister. "I'm starving!" Patti whined.
"Yeah Kid, can we grab a quick bite to eat first?" Liz didn't want to return to the library just yet. And a hungry Patti was a cranky, hard to deal with Patti.
"Fine," Kid, once again, muttered distastefully. They started to walk through the halls of the school. Passing by fellow students, the trio was used to the blatant staring. Being Lord Death's son had that effect on people. They walked by their year's classroom (Crescent Moon), the mission board, and even the dojo.
Walking the maze-like corridors, the three bumped into a friend, Black Star. Or rather, Black Star ran into Patti. His blue spiked hair was now even more disheveled looking and his mouth turned to a scowl. His green eyes flashed at the obstacle he was facing now.
"Hey!" Patti's short blonde hair was now covering her blue eyes because the hat had been knocked off of her head. "Watch where you're going!" Her tone was murderous.
Black Star's cocky attitude would not take the blame. "The awesome Black Star always watches where he's going! It was you who'd-"
"What's the rush Black Star?" Liz cut in. She knew Black Star was always in the 'now' but he typically didn't ram into friends.
"Just got a mission! Gotta go find Tsubaki!" he explained. And with that, the trio watched Black Star's blue spiky hair bounce away at lightning speed.
Liz followed the fading silhouette of their energizer bunny friend. "Wait, I thought after Maka and Soul's latest mission and what happened that Black Star and we weren't allowed to go on missions?"
"Yes," Kid said in thought. 'But the only way he'd get a mission would be that Father gave it to Black Star directly (with an alternative purpose) or Black Star took it. Either is likely…'
"Whatever… Patti's going to throw a fit if we don't hurry up. C'mon Kid."
"Sure," Kid led the way deep in thought about this new turn of events.
"Kinda reminds me of when Soul first got hurt by Crona. I wonder how they deal with that black blood/madness thingy. That'd be so scary to deal with! I can't imagine if that happened to us! Of course, the two-pair thing was the solution for the whole school instead of just our team, but still similar. Just think though, always having a little devil on your shoulder, kinda like a craving or your OCD. I guess you already sorta understand..." Liz was just talking for the sake of talking now, but Kid caught something in the meaningless babble.
"Yes, similar… You guys go ahead. I'll meet you at the library." With the rushed words, Kid ran off in the direction they came.
"What came over him?" Liz furrowed her brow at her meister, making to follow.
The growling from Patti's stomach started again. "Sis! I'm starving! Let's go!" she whined.
"Okay okay, we're going…" Patti always came first for Liz, and Kid would have to wait. Besides, they were used to Kid's secretive detective work. There would always be another case.
"I guess he'll meet me in the next class…" Tsubaki slowly gathered her books and entered the throng of students making their way through the halls.
Tsubaki was making her way to her next class when Black Star found her. Her long black hair tied into a high ponytail was unmistakable from a distance. Her brown eyes found and connected with his green eyes as she waited for him.
"TSUBAKI! I GOT A MISSION! LET'S GO!" he bellowed down the hall anyway, as if she needed a reason to wait.
Tsubaki looked at him with utter confusion. She walked over to him since yelling was not something she liked to do often. "But we aren't supposed to leave Death City until further notice" her soft voice stated. "What did you do?" she asked accusingly. It was just like Black Star to steal a mission when he was restless.
"Professor Stein specially gave this to me, knowing that my awesome strength is what he needed." Black Star flexed his muscles as he said this.
"Well, what's the mission then?" Tsubaki wasn't going to argue with Black Star; if Stein did give him the mission, it needed to be completed. And Black Star had never lied to Tsubaki before.
"He told me to meet him at the infirmary after school. But I, the amazing Black Star, wanted to train some more before our first mission in over a week." As he said this he proceeded to stretch, almost backhanding a passing student in the process.
"Black Star, you trained for eight hours yesterday… I think you can give it a little break…" Tsubaki was tired of his restless training and wanted to focus on a little school work for a change. "Let's just get through today's classes, okay?"
"Tsubaki! Hurry up! A guy like me who's going to surpass the gods can't wait around much longer!" Black Star had been constantly talking about the new unknown mission throughout their last class.
"I'm coming!" Tsubaki quickly gathered her things and left the classroom.
They reached the infirmary on the other side of the school within five minutes of the last bell ringing.
"The amazing Black Star is here! Who do I need to assassinate this time?" The energy emanating from Black Star was overpowering.
"Actually Black Star, you're here to assist me in an experiment." The smoke from Stein's cigarette drifted through the air. "We need to see if we can activate any madness in Maka while she's conscious." Stein remained passive as he took another drag from the death stick perched in between his fingers.
"Wait, what? That would mean attacking her, correct?" Tsubaki was not going to willingly harm her friend, no matter the reason.
"Attack Maks? I think I'm too strong for that job. Go get Kid or someone weaker."
"No Black Star, we need your strength to provoke what could be there. And we need to do this quickly. I regret telling you to come later, but she's awake now. I suggest you use your soul as your weapon. Sorry Tsubaki, I should have told him when I first gave him the mission." Stein took several more drags from his cigarette. "Let's do this...we'll have to act quickly, so no hesitation."
"What could be there, professor?" Tsubaki considered the man before her, contemplated the lengths he would go to test a theory.
"I don't have time to explain. It's now or never Black Star, either you do it or I do."
Black Star considered his position. Yeah, he and Maka fought from time to time, but siblings always had squabbles and she was like a younger sister to him. 'But this'll help her, won't it?'
"Fine..." Black Star followed Stein into the infirmary. The walls were cream colored, like most of the walls in DWMA. There were two beds for patients and curtains that could give them privacy against the far wall. Against the wall to the left of the door were a desk and swivel chair. Against the wall that the door was apart of there was a cabinet full of medicine and remedies. There were some potted plants sprinkled around the small room.
They had heard Maka lecturing Soul through the door about something. She was on the bed closest to the window, the sun shining on her dirty blonde hair, not in her usual pigtails. Soul was sitting in a chair in the corner next to Maka, his white hair pulled back by a headband as usual.
"What're you doing here?" Maka's angry green eyes looked Black Star over, but there was joy behind them, thinking her friend had come for a visit. Then her eyes flashed. "Don't try to sign my face again, I will Maka Chop you..." Before she could recognize the pain in his eyes, Black Star attacked.
Admittedly he did hold back. He just couldn't use his full wavelength against her while Maka was in this state. Time slowed as Soul registered what was happening in front of him. Black Star grazed Maka's solar plexus, but it was enough to make her bounce against the mattress.
"What the hell Black Star!?" Soul jumped over Maka, his arm a scythe. His instincts had taken over and his weapon form was showing through. "What's gotten into you!? She just woke up! She didn't remember a damn thing and you attack her?!" Soul placed himself between the bed and Black Star, fire blazing in his eyes.
But Black Star looked past Soul at Maka. Her eyes went blank, her face slack, and scythe blades started to form. The blades had Soul's jagged design in gray and green.
Confusion appeared on everyone's faces except Stein. "So I was right. She has weapon blood inside her. It must be a defense mechanism, though why she hasn't used it before, is a mystery."
Maka looked ready to strike, but she didn't move. It was as if she was waiting for another attack. 'Must be her morals coming through...' Stein thought.
After a few minutes, Black Star spoke. "How the hell do we get her out of it?"
At that moment, the scythes disappeared and Maka went limp. The group sat in silence. The young meister and weapons were baffled at what they had just witnessed. Then Stein cut through. "Soul, you said she doesn't remember the events of last night?"
Soul broke out of his trance. "Well not exactly... Maka had thought it was all a dream at first, but she remembered as I told her. It didn't take much for her memories to come back..." Soul commented ruefully. He recalled the argument they were having when Black Star had burst in, one of many that happened after he would protect her in his human form during a fight.
"Hmm…" Stein sat in his stitched up office chair. He held his cigarette in his right hand, contemplating his thoughts. The smoke from it curled in the air around them.