BakaMokashiMokashi: I'm glad you like how the story is so far. I hope you like the new chapter.

Chabeli05: I love to hear from my readers, and I'm glad that you are getting into the story. I only have the bare bones outlined, so I don't really know what all will happen myself. We'll just have to wait and see. ^^

CrazyAnime3: I'm glad you like the change in setting. I was a little worried that it would confuse people. I do plan to tie it in with the current storyline so fear not! Pandora has not truly been forgotten.

"I see." Kid concluded as he walked to the cafeteria with Crona. "I don't know who could have been down there. As far as I know you're the first guest we've had."

"Oh." Crona sighed.

"Who knows, it could have been Black Star." Kid shrugged.

"Why would he be in my room!" Crona fretted.

"He used to come here to train on the steps when he was younger. It could be that he played in the rooms of the school as well." They walked into the mess hall and went separate ways. "Library. After school." Kid reminded before sitting with Liz and Patty.

"Crona!" Maka called. "Over here." Crona made her way over to the table where her friends sat. Maka looked over her shoulder at Kid as he sat down with his partners. "What was that all about?" Crona bit her lip, not sure if Kid wanted the others to know. If she told them, Kid might stop trusting her.

"I…Um-" Crona stuttered.

"She was just pestering Stripes about getting a new room." Ragnarok supplied.

"Oh, o.k. then." Maka said as she eyed them. "Well if that's all then maybe you can come over to our place to study for the upcoming from after school."

"…after school?" Crona muttered. She couldn't go! She had to help Kid in the library today. "I can't!"

"Hunh? Why not?" Maka asked.

"Uh… Kid said he was going to help me with a… a project!" Crona exclaimed. "Yeah! A project! To catch up with the rest of the class! Kid suggested that I should learn how to resonance with other people like the other students." Maka's brow furrowed.

"I thought you didn't know how to deal with Kid." Soul supplied. Crona froze, she suddenly became aware of the others' stares. She began to fiddle with the folds in her dress to alleviate the stress.

"Well Maka wanted me to learn how to deal with more people. So I thought I could do it one person at a time?"

"O.k. then." Maka chirped. With a sigh of relief, Crona poked at the food in her bento. Truth be told, she still didn't know how to deal with him. It was strange, when she met Maka, it wasn't the same as the other people she had fought with. It was as if she knew her before then, perhaps they had passed each other on the street or something. And then, when they became friends, nothing in the world made more sense.

When she met Kid however, she was terrified. Medusa had said that shinigami were soulless monsters that hunted down witches and ate their souls. Then she saw him, and obvious shingami, with a powerful soul wavelength; one that wanted to defeat her and bring her mission to a halt. There was an underlying bloodlust that had shook her to her core, the soul of a boy who had killed many like her before. That was the soul she had expected to see when she bumped into him again. What she saw instead was a negative wave length that held the same warm familiarity that she had felt with Maka. And that was what scared her the most.

"You know," Maka said through a mouthful of food. "If you're going to resonance with another person you should first study souls."

"Won't she just end up further behind?" Tsubaki asked.

"Actually if she doesn't she'll probably fail the class." Maka corrected

"What! I don't want to fail!" Crona pouted.

"That's why you have to start with the basics. If you jump to the end of a lesson without knowing the beginning, any information you gain will be useless."

"Oh, I see." Crona nodded.

"So instead of jumping right into resonating, you should review phasmology or if you practice fighting, to study weapons." Or before studying Shinigami-sama, study the tools themselves.

"Thanks Maka, that helped me a lot." Crona beamed.

"What!" Ragnarok cried. "You thank her immediately for that?"

"Why does that bother you?" Crona asked. Her partner paused.

"Nothing… Now give me some food!" He growled.

-8-0-8-

Kid sat in the corner table of the library while he drummed his fingers on the wood surface. He had finally gotten Crona's help, but with what? He had hoped to ask her about the witches' role in making the magical tools, but he didn't want to scare her off.

A small cough alerted him to the presence of another person. As he glanced up, he smiled at the girl who had found him among the shadowed shelves of books.

"Crona, you made it!" He said. Crona nodded shyly and sunk into the chair opposite of Kid. She picked at the grooves in the wood of the table, thinking of what to say. Finally, she looked up.

"How much did you know before you asked for my help?" Crona stuttered.

"Magical tools are dangerous items that were built by my father and the wizard-"

"A-about the magical tools." She interrupted.

"What?"

"What do you know about the magical tools?" Kid stared at her in silence. "Ah! I didn't mean to insult you, but if we don't know what the tools are for, how do we know Shinigami-sama is doing suspicious? If they just built something silly like a toaster then we'd feel silly for worrying about it… but that in itself is silly- But still we should double check... and I… I'll just stop talking… now." Crona hid her face behind her hair. She slowly stood up, there was no way he'd want her help now. Her actions sobered Kid's laughter and he stood to reach out to her.

"I'm sorry." He said. As she turned she felt a soft hand grasp her wrist. "I didn't mean to laugh at you. The reason I was laughing was that you are right. I never considered that the tools were for something innocent." He sighed as Crona relaxed under his touch. "We should get started."

-8-0-8-

Thanks to Crona they managed to find sections on the magic tools in six different books. However the books were extremely thick, the smallest only three hundred forty-six pages. His shoes clicked on the stone floor as he walked through the dungeon hall with three of the books in his arms.

"Thank you again Crona." He said and he turned his head to look at the small girl.

"No problem." She said as she adjusted her half of the text. "I don't mind lending the space; I have lots of spare room."

"It's just that I don't want Liz and Patty to find the books and become suspicious." Crona nodded in agreement.

"Ragnarok, could you open the door for me?"

"And why should I do that?" Ragnarok huffed. "Is it my fault that you spent 3 hours in a boring library looking for heavy books to carry? No! I-"

"Please?" Crona begged. Ragnarok froze mid rant and sighed.

"Fine." He pushed the metal door open.

"Thank you." She said as she entered the room.

"HOLY CRAP!" Ragnarok proclaimed. "Hell's froze over! My little Crona just thanked me without prompting! Did you hear that Stripes." The blob turned to see Kid frozen in the door way. "Stripes? You o.k.?" Kid's face was pale, his hands fell limp and the tomes fell to the floor. 'Oh my god.' He mouthed as he took a step back.

"Shingami-kun, what's wrong?" Crona asked. She set the books down and rushed to his side.

"Just look at this place! I have never seen something so… so horrible! The bed is forced against the left side of the room, there's only one dresser and THAT!" He exclaimed, and pointed to the worn desk in the corner. "That table has a stain in the lower left corner!" He turned to Crona. "You have completely understated the severity of your situation." He bowed to her. "And then he had the nerve to bolt down the furniture. Taunting bolts!" He walked over the sink, prepared to contact his father about the matter.

"Maybe we should put the books somewhere else, somewhere you'd be more comfortable."

"No, this room is perfect." Kid said hollowly.

"WHAT! But earlier-"

"This is the only room in the school that doesn't have a mirror." Kid said. He turned to face Crona and gestured to what she had previously thought to be a dingy mirror. Sweat dripped down his forehead and he forced a smile. "The 'mirror' you have is just reflective metal, not even a polished piece at that. I can't use it to contact my father which means he can't see us if we use your room as a temporary study." Kid's knees shook as he tried to maintain his composure in front of Crona. The last thing he needed was for his disorder to scare her off. Crona saw his internal battle and guided him out to the symmetrical hall. He breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the tomes he had dropped. "Sorry, I was just unprepared for so much asymmetry. Tomorrow I'll have more time to brace myself."

"T-tomorrow?" Crona asked taking the books from his hands. Kid nodded as he straightened out his shirt.

"Yes, we can start going through the books tomorrow after my mission." Crona nodded in response and shyly waved as he walked down the hall. She hauled the books into her room and closed the door.

"He's coming back." She whispered, a puzzled frown crept on her face only to be drowned in a wave of panic "What am I going to tell Maka?"

-8-0-8-

"Another study session?" Maka asked in disbelief, "Crona that's the twelfth one in a row!" It was true; Crona had been working hard with Kid to solve the mystery of the magic tools. The tools were amplifiers for different aspects of the soul, each with their own unique abilities. Of course she couldn't tell Maka that. Kid had made it clear that on one other than her was to know about the research.

"Well I still have a lot of catching up to do." Crona said. She looked down to the floor, unable to meet Maka's gaze. It hurt that she could lie to Maka so easily now.

"Still, you need to have fun once in a while."

"I'm sorry Maka, I just can't right now." Crona bowed and rushed off before Maka could object. She was becoming nosier about what Crona had been doing during her studies. Crona sighed, she didn't know how long she could keep this up.

-8-0-8-

He didn't know how long he could keep this up. Kid knocked on the door to Crona's room, and braced himself for the impending asymmetry. It had taken him a while, but finally he could tolerate the dusty cell. The immobile furniture bothered him, but he could put up with it. After all he had a nice symmetrical room to return to at the end of the day; Crona just had to bear with it until he could find a way to casually suggest that Crona's accommodations should improve.

Crona opened the door and let in the young shinigami. She frowned as he slumped to the floor near the open books.

"Shinigami-kun, are you alright? We can go to the library if you want." Crona suggested. Kid meekly shook his head.

"I'm fine." He dismissed. "Let's get to work." Kid struggled to read the font on the page before him, body ached. Truth be told, he was simply exhausted. His father had been giving him more missions as of late. Today he had to complete two back to back. This wouldn't have been a problem if he went straight home afterward, but he had to find out what his father was up to. So instead of going home he told his partners that he had an errand to run and would be back in a few hours. At first Liz had objected to Kid being out at eleven in the morning, but soon gave up the fight when Kid insisted on going.

They had made progress on what the magic tools were for. The key he had taken from the train was made to extend the duration of a resonance link. All the tools seemed to contain similar properties. One could double the power of a person's wave length, another gave artificial soul perception; but one in particular had caught his eye. The brew; a magic tool said to have accidentally gained a dual property. The tool was designed to amplify the other magic tools, but something had gone wrong and it instead amplified the magic of an individual. Not only that, but in the wrong hands it could accelerate the madness within the user's soul.

"Shini-kun?" Crona asked as Kid once again slumped with exhaustion. "Shini-kun are you alright?"

"Hmm?" Kid murmured as he sluggishly turned to face the pinkette. "What did you say?"

"I asked if you're alright, you don't look so good." Kid shook his head and leaned against the wall behind them, and almost missing the stone.

"No, before that." He mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"Umm-"

"You called me something." His eye lids drooped as he fought sleep.

"Oh, that!" Crona exclaimed, "Maka said that when people know each other a long time, they call each other by their first name and since we've been working together I thought it was O.K. to call you by your first name-" Kid's head lolled to the side and rested on her shoulder.

"I don't mind." He said softly, his eyes fell closed. Crona sat ridged, face flushed, and looked down to the dark haired boy. She sighed and slowly relaxed under the weight. She brushed some stray hairs from his face. It was strange to see him completely calm like this. His breath tickled at her neck and she couldn't help but let out a little smile.

"Poor Shini-kun," She sighed. "You've been working so hard." Moaning softly, Kid shifted to curl up closer to her. Drowsy herself, Crona leaned gently against Kid.

"You know, it's dangerous to trust a shinigami like this." Ragnarok warned. Crona curled closer to Kid.

"I know." She murmured. Ragnarok sighed and pulled the sheet off of the bed. He shook his head as he draped the cotton around the two.

"Just don't get yourself hurt." He said and receded into her back.