Unfinished Fragments

By DarkAngel

Disclaimer: I don't own it. It all belongs to Atsushi Ohkubo. Let me reveal my mad inner fan girl to you all by saying that if I could marry the man, I would.


One of the first things they taught you when you enrolled at Shibusen was that wavelength compatibility and personal compatibility were not one and the same thing. A meister and weapon could be complete opposites in terms of personality, outlook on life, sexuality, or whatever other factors a person could name and still make excellent partners if their soul wavelengths synched to a certain degree.

This was the reason why Soul and Black Star, although best friends, couldn't work together as partners. It was also the reason Maka and Soul worked so well together. Where Maka was the bookish one whose hobbies included puzzles and reading, Soul preferred going for rides on his bike or playing b-ball in the afternoon. Where Maka could be stupidly reckless and (to Soul's resigned aggravation) hair-trigger impulsive, Soul was the more level headed of the two of them, preferring to use his observations of the things around him to judge how best to handle whatever situation he found himself in.

Needless to say, "opposites attract" wasn't just a pithy bit of fluff that one could find in your average greeting card. Not at Shibusen, anyway.

It took Soul some time to figure this out. When he'd first arrived at Shibusen, he hadn't been sure what to expect. His family and the world he lived in really hadn't prepared him for the life a human weapon might have to lead. Soul's knowledge of Shibusen and human weapons was peripheral, in the same way that most people knew that trash was disposed of every Tuesday and Thursday, but they had no idea where it went or what happened to it afterward.

So that left him scowling around him as he took in the sight before him: he was at one of Shibusen's mandatory (only if you didn't have a partner) meet and greets, and he felt that he might as well not have left home for all that the same claustrophobic feeling was crawling down his spine and making his suit feel as though it were choking him slowly.

The room was packed with people wearing fancy evening dress and those ridiculous name tags (Soul had refused to don his, shoving it deep into the pocket of his trousers). He had no idea how to go about finding a partner; nobody had told him what to do. The only life preserver (if, by life preserver, you meant something that you gratefully caught just as the sharks were circling, only to discover the damned thing had several holes in it) he'd been thrown had been by Death himself, who had jovially told them to make merry and let nature take its course. There was indeed a god in this world, and he apparently liked dance parties filled with buffet tables and crappy jazz.

He didn't last half an hour. Downing his glass of juice in one gulp, Soul left his hiding place on the balcony and found himself outside the great ballroom. He breathed a sigh of relief as the doors closed behind him, muffling the music and the sounds of happy people clicking together left right and centre. Click, click, click.

But now what? The whole point of attending this thing was to meet a partner. Soul grimaced. Had he really come all this way just to run away? This was so not cool. Running a frustrated hand through his hair, he looked around.

The corridor stretched off into the distance. The left side led back to the main entrance, and the right was unexplored territory. The lighting was dim, but it wasn't as though there was much to look at anyway. There were doors. And a stretch of wood-panelled corridor. And another door. It went on like that for a while, from the look of things.

Sighing, he stuck his hands in his pockets. The little plastic tag was smooth against his fingers, reminding him of why he was here in the first place. Walking along the corridors at night like a second-rate phantom wasn't it. Still, his footsteps took him from the room filled with people to… wherever his feet were taking him. Soul came to a stop in front of a set of double doors. The heavy polished wood gave nothing of the room's contents away, and the only clue he had as to what this room was used for was the hanging placard above his head. 'RECITAL HALL'. Well, Shibusen had just about everything, didn't it?

The door wasn't locked. A shaft of light from a candle out in the corridor illuminated the room and bounced off the glass of hundreds of picture frames. He could see a big black shadow dominating the room. He made a soft sound that sounded something like an amused cough.

A piano. A grand piano, at that. He smirked. There was no getting away from it, it seemed.

He didn't pay any of the pictures hanging on the walls any heed. His attention was focused only on the black instrument before him. He came to a stop at the bench, his hands still in his pockets. He made no move to sit down.

It wasn't as though he hated music; that wasn't the reason he'd left home. But… For the third time that evening, he sighed. Sliding himself in, he took a seat at the bench. His fingers grazed the cover of the instrument. Well, what next?

His fingers moved of their own accord, prying the cover open and pushing it back. Black and ivory keys.

He would play one song, he decided. One song, and then he would return to that ballroom filled with people and attempt to be civil. Civilised. Whatever.

One finger depressed a key. A clear note pierced the silent air of the room. He placed his hands across the keys and ran through a quick scale. Pitch perfect.

The moment he started playing, he lost himself. There was no Shibusen, he wasn't a weapon, there was no need to find a partner. He was just himself, just Soul. There was no family, no grand expectation. All he had to do was play for himself.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but when the last note had faded from the air, Soul became aware of another sound. Clapping. Turning around on the bench, his eyes fell on a girl. She was around his age.

She was wearing what was quite possibly the most ridiculous getup he'd seen so far tonight, and that was saying something.

She wasn't wearing a dress, like the others. Instead she was wearing what looked like a school uniform: a yellow v-necked vest over a white shirt and green and white-striped necktie. There was a red plaid skirt there too, and to top the whole ensemble off, was a long black coat. He wondered idly if to her, this was a formal outfit. He didn't want to think about what casual would look like to a girl who wore pigtails to a formal event.

"That was really nice," the girl said, sticking her hands behind her back. She titled her head. "What was it?"

He considered telling her, but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it had entered his head. It was no one she knew, that much he was sure of. He shrugged, about to turn back to his piano. He had no idea who this person was, but he wanted her to know that her interruption was not welcome; he had come here to be alone, not make nice with someone he didn't know from Eve.

"My name's Maka," she continued, as though he hadn't turned his back on her. "What's your name?" Then, "Are you a new student here?"

This was the fourth sigh of the night. Figuring she wasn't going to go away until she was satisfied, he answered. "I'm called Soul. And yes, I am new."

"Soul? That's a… unique name," the girl named Maka said. Soul bit down a retort about how 'Maka' wasn't exactly like Mary or Jane, either. At least she didn't ask him if his name was real.

"Aren't you supposed to be at the party?" Maka continued.

Exasperated, Soul turned his attention back to her. "Aren't you?"

"Well, yeah." Maka tilted her head slightly to the side. "But I heard the piano and I ended up here." She gave a laugh. "By the way, what are you?"

"Huh?" What was she on about? What was he? He was Soul. The expression on his face must have been clear even for her to read, because she had the good grace to look faintly embarrassed and rephrased her question.

"I meant, are you a weapon or a meister?" Maka pointed to the tag stuck to her chest. "I'm a meister."

Reluctantly, Soul replied. "Weapon." He still didn't like this idea, the idea of being wielded by someone. Not that he'd seen an actual weapon and meister pair in action, but somehow, the whole implied dynamic of the relationship seemed unfair to Soul. He didn't want to end up being someone's tool.

Then why the hell are you here? Soul gritted his teeth. It had been with reluctance that his mother and father had found the necessary contacts to bring him here. He could just imagine their faces if he came home again after all the drama.

"Do you have a partner already?" Maka looked around, as though she would be able to find whoever it was Soul was supposed to be with. The girl sure asked a lot of questions. He rolled his eyes.

"No."

She seemed completely unfazed by his flat-voiced negative. "What kind of weapon are you?"

He really wasn't going to get rid of her, it seemed. He slumped a little, slanting his eyes up at her. "A scythe." His voice was modulated to impress upon her the fact that the only reason he was deigning to answer her question was that he was bored. Not because he wanted her as his partner or anything.

The girl clapped her hands together. "Are you really? My Papa's a scythe, too!" Even in the dim light, he could see a gleam in her eye he wasn't sure he liked. "Soul, do you want to be my partner?" She stuck out her had. Soul could only stare at it with an emotion that he couldn't quite name but it was partly amazement at her boldness and annoyance that she had the gall to think it would be that easy.

The girl waited for several seconds. She titled her head. "No good?" Her voice wavered with just the slightest bit of disappointment.

Perhaps it was her reaction to his supposed rejection. Perhaps it was the fact that she had gone out of her way to approach him, despite all the 'keep out' signs he'd put up. Or perhaps he was feeling far too lazy to go back to that room and try to mingle with other people when there was somebody here, offering to be his partner. He tried and almost succeeded to ignore the part of his soul that was telling him that it was more than all of those things. After all, fate and destiny and girly stuff like that weren't cool.

Instead, he turned back to the piano. He set his fingers upon the keys once more. "This is the kind of person I am." The music was dark, in the minor key. There was dissonance, crashes of sound and underneath, notes of despair and barely checked insanity. He grinned. What better way to scare the girl off?

But at the end of it, she clapped. She smiled at him, and the look she gave him was sincere, without pretence. "I can't really say I know what it was about," she said, referring to his song, "but it was beautiful."

Beautiful? Hadn't she heard the part about the song being who he was? He looked at her dubiously, but she continued smiling at him as though nothing was the matter.

"It was twisted and weird, but I really liked it," she said again.

Okay. She was officially weird. But Soul found himself smiling at her. He was okay with weird.

"Your turn," he said lowly. She tipped her head in askance. He jerked his head at the piano. "I told you all about me."

"Oh!" She looked downright bashful, the way she rocked back on her heels, her arms tensing behind her back. She laughed. "Well, I can't express myself with music, but I like reading. And um…" She looked up at the ceiling, as though an answer might come floating down at her. She gave up and looked straight at Soul. "I'm really looking forward to starting classes here. I like the colour pink. And… I want to make a Death Scythe that will surpass my Papa."

She wasn't his type. Not in the girlfriend sense, because he certainly wasn't thinking of her in that way. But she was as different from him as night was from day. He didn't consider reading a hobby: it was something you did. Pink wasn't his colour. He was more partial to red and black. He wasn't sure about the classes here, but if they were anything like the lessons he'd had from his tutors, they would probably be nothing worth writing home about. And hell if he knew who her father was.

But something in his soul was telling him that partnering with this girl was the right thing to do. Two like-minded people can't possibly produce a sound as beautiful as this. He remembered being told this when he was younger. At the time he hadn't really understood it; even now he couldn't really say he'd gotten the entire gist. But he took the hand she was holding out to him and mouthed that word that would bring them together.

"Partners."


Author's Notes: Yes, I know the meet-and-greet between Soul and Maka has been done to the point where the horse has been beaten ten times over. I wanted to hammer my nail in on the Overused Fandom Idea coffin too. I hope you liked it.