Word Count: 12,792

"…He was really looking forward to finally getting the Demon Scythe killed for once after the meeting because he was so convinced that you all were going to capture him," Tsubaki explains to Maka as they stand off to the side, watching passively as Soul ducks when a chair whizzes by him, smashing to smithereens against the wall. "He was planning on jumping in on the meeting after he got captured and scaring him to death. Though, I doubt Soul's getting any sleep tonight with Black Star as a roommate."

Maka doesn't know how she's supposed to feel or what she's supposed to do in response to all this.

Laughing is a definite option. After all, watching Black Star go nuts because he's supposed to room with Soul now is fairly amusing, especially when it results in a nearly cartoonish tape division through the room they're to share from now on. But something tells her that Black Star's rage is not something to be trifled with, and laughing now would simply result in her waking up in the infirmary again.

Maka looks up at Tsu. "Aren't you going to stop him?" she asks, and to that, her friend shrugs.

"It's probably best to let him get it all out. He'll be over it in around a day or so, I'm guessing," she replies.

Watching them, Maka finds such a thing hard to believe.

Black Star yells, stars in his eyes, launching himself at the poor albino boy, who shoots her a pleading look before dashing down the hall to escape, his cool and elegant evasive maneuvers useless against an opponent this erratic and in a space this confined.

But at the same time, she's sure there's nothing they can't adjust to.

(There's a disturbingly loud crash, followed by a series of thumping that sound not unlike someone rolling down the stairs, a shatter, and the yowling of a cat. Black Star yells in triumph, but the girls can still hear the very faint moan of, "I'm okay…")

Eventually.

Flowers are happy…

Tsubaki stared out the window. It was a Saturday, so there was no class that day, which was good. She needed every excuse she could take to avoid people.

Somebody knocked on her door, and she mumbled, "Come in."

"Tsubaki." No response. "Tsubaki, you have to get up." Still none. "I want to go on another mission."

"No."

A frown. "It's been two weeks. We're going to need remedial lessons if we don't go on missions. You need to move on."

Apathy. She at least shifted in bed, but only to cover her head with more blanket.

Her partner "tch"ed in irritation. "I'm going to switch partners if you don't get up. It's not difficult paperwork."

A jolt of fear involuntarily ran through her at the mention of being abandoned, and she bolted upright in bed. No, no, no; she couldn't be abandoned, not when the only family, metaphorical or literal, she had left was her partner. Not when her blood relatives scorned her for what she had done, for killing the firstborn, for becoming a demonic weapon.

She looked up at her partner with fear in her eyes.

The frown flipped up into a strangely smug grin. "So you'll go out on a mission with me?"

She nodded, already filing away the incident of two weeks prior away into her memory, never to be thought of again.

It's almost like a cartoon, the sharp contrast between the two halves of the room as dictated by a simple line of duct tape. Maka finds herself staring into the two boys' room, casually observing and absorbing their personalities just by how their half is organized. But, the longer she stares, the more she realizes that Star and Soul are far more similar than they might like to care to admit.

Both are lazy and messy, though Black Star while seems more prone to keeping random junk strewn about on his half, Soul has a plethora of instruments and music posters lying about, but both have seemingly little regard for any sense of categorical organization.

Soul at least keeps his stuff to his side (or maybe Black Star fusses if it crosses the line), but she can tell that some of Star's stuff is leaking into the other side, if the star-shaped décor is anything to go by.

She hears footsteps coming up behind her, and she turns to see who it is. "Oh, Tsubaki. They're not still duking it out at the track, are they?"

"Well, yes and no."

"Explain."

"They're not at the track anymore."

To nobody's surprise, it turned out that Black Star is very adamant on killing Soul at least once before accepting the fact that they are no longer enemies, so much so that he'd been constantly ambushing the scythe at every opportunity he had that they were in any room (aside from their dorm) together for the last day or so.

Maka sighs. "Where are they, then?"

"Tearing up the gardens right outside. If you listen carefully, you could probably hear them yelling."

She does more than listen: she carefully steps into the boys' dorm in front of them, creeps across the room, and looks out their window to take in the sight described.

The sun is setting now, casting a lovely golden light upon all the land. The golden hour is upon them once again, just as it had been when they had first made truce with the Demon Scythe, and she hopes it is now that the day-long feud will come to an end.

She glances down upon the garden. Well, at least the flowers needed to get replaced soon anyways… she thinks, and notes that the two are wisely staying away from the rosebushes. "You know, it shouldn't be that surprising, but Soul's remarkably good at evasive maneuvers, as erratic as Black Star's attacks are."

Tsubaki hums in agreement. "Well, he has spent the last eternity in purgatory avoiding all of our attacks. It might be a while until they do become friends, but I get the feeling that's not quite true."

"Real—"

Thunk! The distinctive noise of a body hitting a door resounds through the air, and Maka again turns her attention out the window, craning her neck to see what had just transpired below them.

There, just beneath the window, Soul lies beside an opened door, killed from the blunt force trauma. Jackie steps out, takes a glance at her victim, and walks away as if nothing of note had happened.

Black Star whoops with joy, the swiftness of his mood swing a little disturbing.

"DING-DONG, THE DEMON'S DEAD!" he cries, spinning around just once. He looks up at the two girls staring out his room window and beams. "TSUBAKIII!" Aforementioned girl smiles and waves, receiving a blown kiss in return.

Maka decides she doesn't need to see this stuff and exits, wanting to make sure that Soul wakes up fine in the infirmary later.

…in the summer.

Raining and raining, but it was not a pretty thing for Black Star.

Caked in mud and stars flashing in his eyes, he adjusted his grip on his weapon. He stood before a team of seven students, all of them sporting some sort of cartoonish skull on their clothes, ready to fight atop the piles of bleeding corpses beneath their feet. He was the last one standing. He would defeat them; he would carry on the ways of his ancestors and their ancestors, storing up a vast vault of wealth.

With a spirited yell, he charged at them, but the older meister effortlessly knocked his weapon out of his hand with a single well-placed hit; meanwhile, another student tackled him, put him in a headlock, and managed to pin him to the ground.

He writhed and bit and scratched, but at the end of it all, it was all he could do to spit the mud from his mouth at the feet of a third and glare daggers.

There was some form of false pity on the third's face, causing Black Star to scowl in response. They spun their weapon around a few times and mused about how terribly pitiful it all was before all the world went black.

She's fascinated with the way the dying moonlight shines through the window and hits the Demon Scythe's messy, white hair just so, making it appear nearly translucent from her perspective, especially so since he's just barely three-quarters respawned in the infirmary bed.

Having never seen anyone respawn before, since no one that she particularly cared about ever died, the respawn process is just as fascinating to Maka as the subject of Soul's hair, and she lays her upper body upon the bed and rests her head on her arms, staring at him with curiosity as he slowly comes back to life before her eyes.

She's been waiting by his bedside all night for him to return, and it's through drowsy eyes that she watches him still, struggling to remain awake.

However, it's a fruitless struggle, and she has fallen asleep before the first pale grey rays of dawn break from over the horizon.

In autumn, they die and are blown away.

Whispers, whispers. It's what kids should be doing when talking in class, if talking at all, but Jackie wished that they would just shut up altogether. She knew they were talking about her. She knew she was the star of their gossip, of their rumors, of their little chats between classes.

"Dude, have you heard? Jackie's back in school. Can you believe the nerve she has, considering all that she did on her last mission?"

She was tired of correcting them, but her reputation was on the line. Well, not that it wasn't already soiled. Whatever. No one believed her anymore anyway.

"I hear that she knew the witch they fought beforehand and that that's why she wasn't killed along with the rest of them."

That's not true; she was saved by the arrival of an upperclassman, who chased the witch off.

"I'm pretty sure she arranged all of it. I mean, have you seen the way she acts like she's better than us? She must have gotten tired of dragging her teammates' grades up but was too lazy to do the paperwork to change teams."

She did not consider herself better than everyone—! She had pride in her grades, and the gist of her work ethic consisted of 'work before play is the only way to spend one's day', but she was far from having a superiority complex!

"The school should do something to get rid of her before she gets another partner. Who knows what might happen if she feels the same way again."

Her hand was shaking, causing her locker door to rattle slightly as she gripped it tightly. The urge to set them all on fire was powerful, but she had to control herself.

"Yeah, but just expulsion might not be enough. She's a murderer, remember? She killed her own teammates. How heartless is that?"

She did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not she did not

"Man, I want to shake the hand of the person who brought her back. I mean, subduing a murderer and a witch at the same time? They must be so cool."

It was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault it was not her fault

"Miss Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupré. Please report to Shinigami-sama's office."

If the rattling of her locker door and her intense stare didn't garner attention from all the students passing her by in the halls, the public call for her to the headmaster's office sure did. All eyes were on her as she lifted her head up to see the reaper's favorite weapon up on the announcement screen with a frown upon his face.

"I repeat: Miss Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupré, please report to Shinigami-sama's office."

She slammed her locker shut, storming down the hall. The crowd of students parted like the Red Sea before her as she headed off to face her fate.

She's awakened rudely just a few hours later by a certain blue-haired nuisance crashing into the infirmary, yelling his salutations at the top of his lungs. She's still just barely adjusting to her newfound consciousness as her roommate drags said nuisance away by the collar, halfheartedly chiding him for waking the two of them up when they so clearly had been having a moment. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she notices that Soul is also waking up, panicking slightly, in the cot before her.

"BRO," Black Star yells. "BRO, WE GOTTA—"

He never gets to finish his sentence because out of instinct, Maka snatches a book from the bedside table and lobs it square at his face, where its spine hits her target full on.

The cot is empty for just a few seconds as Soul picks himself up and out of it and Tsubaki drags her partner into it.

"…Black Star's an asshole," Maka tells him as her way of apologizing, but Soul just shrugs her off.

"He's not trying to kill me anymore, so that's at least an improvement."

Kid pokes his head into the room, and everyone turns to look at him. He opens his mouth to say something, but abruptly closes it, narrowing his eyes. Pointing at the book Maka had just thrown, he says, "That book is off center. Please return it to its original location before proceeding anywhere else."

"Well, hello to you too, Kid." Soul drawls, crossing his arms and sending a little glare his way.

"Don't you sass me."

"Yeah, whatever."

Dry and withered,

He had but one memory of the time before purgatory, and it was of his two young weapons, earth shamans that had followed him everywhere in life and yet were nowhere to be seen after it. Running his fingers through the loose soil of the freshly tilled garden plots, Kilik wondered if he would ever get to see them again.

He picked up a handful of dirt and gave in to the strange urge he had to pack it into shapes that vaguely resembled that of his weapons in life, and when he was finished, he blew life into them.

Mere instants after he finished doing so, the two little dolls made of earth came to life, blinking up at him with wide, blue eyes full of curiosity and confusion, perfect replicas of his old partners.

His heart leapt up to his throat, then dropped down into his stomach, choking him up with memories of a life gone by, with the realization that they had all died together because of him. Two innocent lives gone because of a mistake he made when he was alive.

A tear hit the dirt, and the two animated dolls disintegrated back into the dirt. No, no, no, no, no; he couldn't allow this, his memories of life were already fading into nothingness again, he couldn't let himself simply forget about all his sins—

He breathed life into them once more, but when he remembered who he used to be, he refrained from crying. Everything was all right. Fire and Thunder were right there beside him; they're all okay…

Maka realizes as she sits in a physics class, half listening and half staring out the window, that aside from Liz, Tsubaki, and Black Star, there's so much she doesn't know about the other members of the Anti-Demon Scythe Battalion, recently renamed to Spartoi, after the skeletal warriors of Greek mythology, to more accurately represent their organization's actions. Sure, she got a little bit out of Jackie the other day, but not enough to really understand why she is who she is today. She realizes that she wants to know the rest of the team better.

A rumpled-up ball of paper hits her on the side of her head, irritating her but still effectively getting her attention. She glares in the direction of whomever had thrown it and spies a certain rival of hers a few seats away pushing his glasses higher up upon his nose and showing off his near-perfect test score with a smug grin.

She looks down upon her own returned paper, and while she finds it isn't nearly up to par with her standards at only 76%, she also discovers that she doesn't particularly care. It's the afterlife. She doesn't have college to go to afterwards. It ain't infinity and beyond: it's anxiety at uncertainty.

So she balls up her returned test and beans Ox right on his nose.

(All the way across the room, Soul shoots her a grin and a thumbs up that she does not notice.)

The bell rings almost immediately afterwards, and as Maka packs up and subsequently leaves the room, her expression is as smug as can be.

their petals dance on the wind.

Your grades do not define you.

Ox knew that. He'd been hearing it all the time lately. But it doesn't make the sting of seeing that bright, red F on his paper any less biting or painful.

What happened to him?

It was a question he pondered himself standing before Death's door, called in for yet another chat about his less and less certain spot in Shibusen. As a child, before moving to Death City and enrolling as a meister, he'd been praised by all his teachers.

He's so smart. Such a bright boy.

Yet, there he was, barrelling down the track to dropout at terminal velocity. It was perplexing, a puzzle he could not solve, like a man without eyes, spying plums upon a tree, neither taking nor leaving plums. How could this be?

He could go wherever he wants when he grows up as long as he doesn't lose motivation. He's clearly going to be a very important person when he graduates college.

He was very near shaking as he entered the room and walked the long, long path marked by guillotines he swore would let loose and sever his head from his shoulder any given moment. Not that it hadn't already got a few loose screws, but he would rather like to keep his head where it belonged, thank you very much.

"Ah, Ox! Welcome, welcome. Do have a seat at the coffee table. Would you like some coffee? Or perhaps tea? I'm always sure to have a bit of both on hand, so how does that sound?"

"Shinigami-sama."

"Hmmmm?"

"Cut to the chase and tell me the truth. Why am I here?" (Control your shaking. Control your shaking.)

"Are you sure about that, Ox?"

The reaper's voice was not unkind, but in fact quite gentle. It was as if Ox were made of spun glass: something fragile but beautiful, yet ultimately useless.

"Yes."

There was a prolonged sigh that escaped from underneath the cartoonish skull mask the headmaster always had donned, its expression nearly regretful, nearly wistful— nearly.

"Due to prolonged poor grades and performance on missions, I have no choice but to expel you, Ox. You do not have to come to school tomorrow."

And just like that, it felt as though his vision had been shattered.

"Soul. Soul. Souuulll!"

"What, Maka."

"Would you please play piano for me again?"

It's been over a week since they've agreed to stop fighting Soul, and while the tensions have died somewhat, that's not what she cares about. What's currently bothering her is that she hasn't heard him play piano since, and she misses it.

She stares up at him, her eyes wide and hopeful that he will say yes this time. She misses his dark and moody music. He sighs, rubbing his temples as they stop in the middle of the hall, streams of NPCs swirling by them, a few giving them irritated looks. "I said, no."

She hardly has time to feel crestfallen. (She doesn't catch the guilt that flashes in his eyes.) The NPCs are already growing rude about their occupation and blockade of the middle of the hall.

"KISS, KISS, FALL IN LOVE, SUCKERS," one of them calls as yet another knocks into her, causing her to stumble forward. (Her face turns red.) "OR ELSE STOP CLOGGING THE HALLWAY."

She can't see who said it, and it didn't sound like anyone she knows, but before she can even feel crestfallen at his answer, in an instant she turns around and leaves the building with a scowl.

"Oh, Maka!" Emotions still roaring within her, Maka sharply pivots in the direction of the voice and is met with slightly shocked shocking blue eyes staring straight back at her. "I've been looking for you. We were going to go out with Jackie and listen to her practice guitar, remember?"

The blood rush dies down, and Maka shakes away the remaining clouds in her mind. "Oh yeah…" It's of slight comfort to her now that the disappointment of not being able to listen to Soul's piano playing has had the time to sink in. "They're starting a new piece today, huh?"

Liz nods. "Apparently, Tsugumi hasn't got quite the same quality of voice as Kim did, so while she can sing all the songs just fine, the filters aren't calibrated quite right and add a lot of noise, so until they can fine-tune that, they need to learn some songs in her actual range." She links arms with Maka and begins to pull her away with a smile. "Let's go!"

As they leave to Jackie's dormitory, Maka glances back at the building she had just left and watches as Soul slinks away to the music building. She juts her lower lip out just a bit. I wanted to listen to him practice…

Yet, she knows all the same to leave him be and faces forward, looking forward to a different practice session. (But a practice session all the same.)

Like little brown butterflies.

Hushed voices and furtive stares as he walked the hallowed halls of Shibusen. It could mean that his underclassmen respected him, were in awe of him, and simply revered his presence. Could.

He knew better than to think it actually was. Even through the strange lenses of his glasses, he could see the flashes of fear as they turned away when they thought he met their eyes. They were terrified of him, that much was true.

"You'd think that someone with a last name like Éclair would have a sweeter personality," he caught someone whispering.

"But does it matter?" the stranger's friend whispered back. "He's one of the elite weapons in the school. He gets the job done, regardless of whether he acts like a robot or not."

He turned his head towards the two kids just the slightest, and they instantly froze. The three remained like that for but half a second, though it felt like hours.

Harvar continued on to class, leaving his underclassmen trembling in their shoes.

He didn't care. This was all he'd ever wanted, wasn't it? To be seen, to be respected, and to be feared.

The door opens abruptly about half an hour into Jackie's practice session, and the agitated face of Soul pokes in through the doorway. "One of your E strings is flat, your G string is too sharp, and don't even get me started on how terribly boring those four chords are."

Maka blinks at him, understanding absolutely none of what he had just said. Jackie glares at him, folding her arms across from her chest. He ignores her and continues on:

"You're teaching that new girl how to sing, right? Because she has a couple problems. She puts a lot of H's in front of her vowels, she makes her vowels way too nasally, and she keeps switching down an octave when she can't hit the note with her chest voice. It's kinda gross. It's even worse 'cause her voice is so high pitched." He cocks his head slightly and observes Jackie, who is growing more and more irritated by the criticism. "While I'm here, I'd also like to point out that your drummer has a terrible sense of rhythm. She keeps dragging the bass, which makes the rest of the song sound terribly out of sync, and your pianist always looks and sounds like she's trying to attack the keys—"

Maka flinches. It's remarkable how much force Jackie put into the pillow she threw at Soul and how loud the resulting thwack! is.

"GET OUT!" yells Jackie, boiling with rage. "AND DON'T YOU DARE OBLITERATE ANY OF OUR OTHER MEMBERS, YOU DEMON."

"Hey, hey. Calm down, Ja—" Liz begins, but after a scowl and a bit of a glare from Soul to all three of them, she stops.

The door begins to close, but Maka, not wanting to remain in the same room as an emotional Jackie, jumps up, sparing only an apologetic glance for Liz as she follows him into the hall.

"Souuul," she calls, and however begrudgingly, he stops and waits the few seconds for her to catch up, though he still looks irritated.

She doesn't say anything more, though. They stand facing each other for a minute, but at long last he sighs and begins walking again. She follows, and together, they walk to the music building in silence.

"If you want to see what proper piano playing looks like," he grumbles as he opens a practice room door, "I suppose you can come and watch."

Her face lights up, and she hums as they walk inside. They squeeze onto the bench together, her heart full and happy just to be there in the room. Soul contemplates a piece for a few moments, but the music soon begins.

Maka will never grow tired of listening to him practice. Even when he has to nearly shout out the counting to get the rhythms right or play the same snippets over and over again, there's something wonderful about being by his side and listening to the music he creates.

"Soul," she says, "play that one song you played when I first came to the music building, on that first night in the wee hours of the morning."

"No," he answers, not missing a beat as he then continues counting under his breath.

"Why not?"

"Why do you want to hear it so damn much?"

"I liked it. I think it's nice. Kind of a shame you don't play it a whole lot," she says. "After all, what's the point of having a music box if you never hear its song?"

(She's not looking at him, so she misses the half second of surprise that flashes across his face, though his fingers continue playing automatically.)

"Are you calling me some kind of toy, to hear its song played on loop as long as you care to hear it, only to abandon it once you've grown bored of its sound?" he gruffly asks.

"No!" she says a little bit too loudly. Soul ceases his practicing and folds his hands on his lap. She quietly adds, "I just like listening to it. That's all. So would you play it again?"

He sighs—

"Please?"

—and puts his hands on the keys once again.

"All right, Maka. Because you like it."

He had no name for that piece in particular, but even then, he knew there was something about it that very much related to his soul, for even though he was but twelve years old, he had searched himself inside and out, drawing the notes out from even the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind and putting them to paper.

They told him when he arrived at Shibusen, a scared little boy hardly knowing how to transform into a scythe and back, that your partner had to be someone your soul could get along with with as little conflict as possible; to some degree, one's partner was like a soulmate.

But he was shy. He could hardly introduce himself to anyone, let alone see if their souls were compatible. How would he ever find a meister if he couldn't even find it in himself to say hello?

He had a song. One that was drawn from deep within himself, one that could sing what he wanted to say and allow whomsoever he chose, whether that be the world or just his future partner, know exactly who he was. He would speak without words the story that was his own. And hey!— nonverbal communication was invaluable between partners. It was the perfect plan.

A girl found him on one of the first days of school. She was petite, with honey-blonde ringlets done up in twin tails, bright blue eyes, and a mouth that seemed to be always pouting. She liked music and seemed to like him. It was the ideal situation.

Together, they went to the coffee shop around the corner. She remained a respectful distance away as he sat down, uncovered the keys, and began to play.

A shatter, a stop, and a bloodcurdling shriek. He was hardly even a few bars into the piece; his soul was not even in it yet. Panicking, he turned to look at her, and his hope withered and died at the sight of her horrified face. He hadn't even the chance to explain or even get any words in as she fled.

His heart sank. Slowly, he covered the keys again. He pushed the bench back beneath the piano, apologized to the owner (thanked his lucky stars the shop was otherwise empty), and trudged back to school. Alone.

Music boxes have a song locked within them all day long. Once they're opened up, you'll hear what's there.

But for a music box to be wanted, the music it makes must be beautiful and harmonious, not chaotic and discordant. No one in this life would want a broken music box, not if the good one was even worse.

Some boxes are left unopened.

Soul threw away the key.

The transformation is slow, gradual. With her eyes closed so that she can better listen, she doesn't even notice it until she feels the swishing of a skirt somewhere around her ankles. Curious as ever, Maka opens her eyes to find her clothes transformed into a long, black dress with heels she's almost scared to walk in; reaching up to her hair, she finds a fluffy, little, black wing by the base of each pigtail.

Soul seems not to have noticed, his gaze still transfixed to the keys, but he's changed as well. Gone is the leather jacket, the black denim jeans, the unkempt hair kept in place by a headband. Now wearing a black pinstriped suit and red tie, he looks nearly professional. (The gelled hair spiked in such a way that makes it look messy kills the professionalism.)

His face frightens her a bit. Scrunched up in furious concentration, she swears he looks like he's out to spite someone, but she can't look away.

The song comes to an abrupt halt, and she flinches at the way he crashes down on all the sour notes.

He looks at her, scrutinizing her expression, and grunts. "Knew you wouldn't like it."

Maka bristles. (She may have been startled and a little bit scared, but that doesn't instantly define her judgement!) "I did like it, though!"

Soul leans in until she can feel his breath upon her lips, never once breaking eye contact. "Prove it."

She doesn't back down. "Prove what?" she asks, daring him to say it out loud.

"That you liked my music. That you like me despite it."

That I like him despite it? she wonders. That's not something she'd been expecting. Her heart begins to pound and her palms get sweaty. There is exactly one way coming to her short-circuiting mind that will prove to him without a doubt that she likes him despite his dark and stormy music. She tells herself it's nothing as she leans forward and closes her eyes, though in truth it's something she's been dying to do for some time now.

Chaste and light, the kiss lasts no longer than a few seconds, if that even that at all, but to the both of them, it feels like it lasts forever and a day.

(In all honesty, she doesn't want the moment to end.)

She pulls away.

Their resonance fades away, transforming them back into their normal appearances, and she meets his gaze.

"I do like you."

Tsubaki notices something is different about her from the second she reenters their room.

"Maka," she says, watching curiously as the other girl crosses the room. "What happened?"

"Hmm?" Maka flops down upon her bed and lies with her head propped up on her elbows. "Nothing."

"This is not 'nothing'."

"Hey, Tsubaki, are you and Black Star a thing?"

Tsu chokes on air. "Don't change the subject like that!"

"No no no no, this is relevant, trust me."

Tsubaki very slowly puts her work down and turns to fully face Maka, who has a face that's half caught in a dream and half genuine curiosity. Pausing for just a little too long, she finally says, "Well, we're partners, yes."

Maka narrows her eyes just a bit, soiling the dreamlike quality of her expression. "You know what I mean, Tsu. Are you guys, like, a thing-thing."

"You mean dating?"

They stare at each other with abject shock for a good half minute. Tsubaki flushes pink.

"Are you?" Maka asks, sitting up on the bed, because well, yes, that is what she means, but the sudden sort-of-admittance surprises both girls. She's had her suspicions for a little while now, noting the strangeness of the fact that Tsu actually takes initiative to chide him rather than just leaving him be and the even stranger fact that Black Star genuinely respects her and her scoldings.

"Uhhh…" Tsu stalls, her gaze drifting over to the corkboard she keeps on the wall above her bed. It's devoid of any memorabilia, only there as a default decoration/personalization tool that shows up in all the dorm rooms. Maka stares intently, awaiting her answer.

"Yeah," her roommate finally says, her face far more flushed than just pink. "We're a thing."

Maka nods thoughtfully.

Tsu abruptly turns and bores into Maka. "Now it's your turn. Tell me what happened."

Suddenly, it's her turn to blush. Now that she's gotten her head out of the clouds, she has to actually address and talk about the events that had transpired in that practice room. And while they weren't doing necessarily weird and gross things (Damn Black Star and his damn gross jokes), talking about what they did is a different story.

"I, uh…" She fumbles with her words. Can't even look her in the eye, she sighs internally. "Can I whisper it in your ear again?"

With an amused smile (Dammit, she knows), Tsu nods and gets closer to Maka, turning her head so that she may whisper into her ear.

"We kissed," Maka breathes, expecting her roommate to respond sharply, to jerk abruptly away or something, but when all she receives instead is Tsubaki leaning away and giving her a little, knowing, half-smile, she pouts slightly. "What?"

Tsu laughs lightly. "I don't know," she replies. "It just doesn't seem like the kind of thing you would do, Maka. I mean, you avoided all the other boys like they had cooties or something to the point of ridiculosity. We're not twelve here."

"You sure about that?"

Both girls yelp and turn in the direction of the window, where Black Star's eyes just barely peek into the room.

"Because I'm pretty sure that if anyone's got 'em, it's that Demon Scythe," he continues, opening the window from the outside (somehow) and wriggling inside, landing with a plop upon Maka's bed.

"His name is Soul," Maka chides, but he ignores her.

"I mean, have you ever seen someone with a color scheme like his? That is not natural, he totally got that from a disease, and that disease is the cooties. You said you kissed him or some shit like that? You probably have like, three days before you turn white and red or whatever too." He pats her on the shoulder a little too roughly. "Good luck with that, M."

She vainly tries to push his hand off her shoulder with irritation, but knowing how strong he is, she gives up and sighs. "I don't know how you even heard that, but the cooties do not exist, and if they did, you would have them too because you've touched a girl. What are you even in here for?"

Black Star rolls off her bed to sit on the floor by Tsubaki and narrows his eyes at Maka. "You seem to have conveniently left out an explanation as to why his eyes are red and stuff, so I'm just going to have to ignore all your statements on the cooties if you do not provide me with any evidence disproving their existence, but other than that, good ol' Death the Kid has called us all in for a meeting in his office, so we're gonna have to go to that."

"You seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that the hypothetical cooties are simply caused and spread by touching someone of the other gender, but that's whatever," Maka says under her breath, resisting the urge to grab the book on her bedside table and hit him with it. "What's the meeting about?"

He shrugs. "Nooooo idea. Probably some lame-o thing about figuring out how we're gonna eat until the new girl manages to get everyone hyped enough to let us steal all their food. If you ask me, we should just mug 'em. That'll get us the good stuff without having to root through all the nasty things."

"Black Star, you remember how many of those NPCs turned out to be real people with souls; we can't be starving them for the sake of ourselves," Tsu tells him.

"Wouldn't we just respawn in the infirmary with all our needs reset if we starved?" Maka wonders aloud. "I mean, we can't die here. We just respawn. What is the point of eating here, aside from physical pleasure?"

"Too much time to respawn. We've got things to do! Places to be!"

"Classes to fail," Maka dryly notes.

"You ain't exactly the top of the class either, Miss Got-a-C-on-Her-Physics-Test."

"Seventy-six percent is seventy-six more percents than what you get on any of your assignments, tests or otherwise."

"Math is witchcraft and physics is just applied witchcraft, let's be real here."

"Guys, I think we should just go to the meeting," Tsubaki cuts in.

"Great idea, my queen!" Black Star shouts, and he jumps up and Naruto runs out of the room, crashing through the door while he's at it.

Tsu's expression becomes one of fondness and exasperation. She picks herself up off the floor and glances at Maka again.

"Let's go."

"So. You all might be wondering why I've called you all here today," Kid begins, not even noticing that he said 'you all' twice in the same sentence, and sitting in his desk chair with an air of professionalism that, if Maka were to speak frankly, is very out of place.

She sits upon a couch, her expression as pleasant as she can muster. One arm is wrapped around Soul's waist in a way that can almost be mistaken for protective and romantic, though in actuality, it's to keep him from bolting (he's bored, dammit!). Her partner is tense beside her, nervously switching his gaze between a Black Star only half restrained by the combined forces of Liz and Tsubaki, and Kid himself, who seems to not to care about the tension in the room.

Choruses of "No, not really," echo through the room amongst members not doing anything, and Black Star somehow manages to get out a, "Please, just one good noogie; that's all I need to give him, and then I'll be good." Impressive, considering how strangled he must be feeling.

Kid rolls his eyes ever so slightly. "Let's try this again, since you all seem to be assuming this is about food. You all might be wondering why I have gathered you here today if it is not concerning our next meal."

Crickets.

"Not really," Kilik says, causing Kid to facedesk.

"We're here to discuss obliteration," he snaps, then squints at one of the mirrors in the room. "And also that mirror is just eight-tenths of a centimeter too far to the left; I would appreciate it if someone moved it back for me," he adds as he sits up properly again, but this time, not even the crickets come out to meet him. Even Black Star calms down and actually sits down to listen.

"Yeah, what about it?" someone finally asks.

Kid opens a desk drawer, pulls out a massive tome of a book, and starts paging through it. "Well, I was doing a little bit of research when I stumbled upon some previous records of groups who had also been trapped here in this purgatory for extended periods of time. They were all here in this school at some point, but as we can clearly tell, they aren't here anymore. That's because everyone had been long obliterated before even I came here."

"But why?" Ox asks. "It's like dying again, except there's no guarantee of an after-after life. Why die if you can live on forever?"

"It doesn't sound like it says they chose to be obliterated, though," Maka argues, "just that they were."

Kid shakes his head. "There's actually a very detailed record book for one group that talks about each person's backstory and how they got obliterated. It seems the two are interconnected, though I can't pinpoint the exact reason why. But regardless, it doesn't seem like anyone forced them to move on."

Maka has never heard of obliteration referred to as 'moving on', and it intrigues her, since she'd previously associated the act of obliteration with a forced change of state. "Can we get an example?"

"Well, there's this one girl who had her house robbed when she was young," he reads. "She had a number of younger siblings that got brutally murdered during the time between the break-in and the police showing up, and the way she ended up getting obliterated was that she watched over her friends as they one by one got obliterated as well, and when she felt she had served her time as their guardian, she moved on."

"This is weird," Soul whispers to her; nearby, Patty bounces on the arm of the couch and giggles.

"Read mooore, Kiddo, mooore!"

"Before that, it talks about this other girl in a band, who did things not unlike the way we do it now with our Operation Kishins, though they got caught by the school authorities. In life, she dedicated her life to music, though she never managed to make a living out of it, and it says she got obliterated by singing the song she wanted to show the world the most when it mattered the most."

"I wonder who's writing all these things down," Ox comments, pushing his glasses up. Harvar silently nods in agreement. "I mean, if the guardian girl had truly been the last to be obliterated, then how would her record get recorded in that massive book? And why is it all compiled into one? If there truly were multiple organizations that stayed in this high school through the eons, then why would they bother to put it all in the same book? Why are they all in the same language, even? This seems very fishy, Kid; what are you up to?"

"All it said is that she felt her time as their guardian was up," Maka points out. "That doesn't necessarily mean that she was the last to be obliterated. There might have been someone else who had arrived to be her successor. He or she would have written down her story. And wouldn't it just be easier to have one book of information about how to get out of this place? I mean, we had no idea about anything in this world until pretty much just now when Kid found this book. I think the real question in this case would be why wouldn't they make one massive compilation? If it helped us, it probably helped the organizations before us."

"And also, English is more or less the standard language in the world. You'd know that if you watched Death Note," Kid adds.

"Kind of hard to do that when you're dead in a place without wi-fi or cable," Ox dryly snarks back.

"Anyway, is there anything we can really glean from this book? Or really learn about obliteration in general? Because I think I can see a pattern in here…"

"Obliteration is the natural passing of souls that have had their regrets or tragedies fulfilled," Soul suddenly says. Everyone in the room turns and looks at him. Maka loosens her grip on him so that she may better watch him explain himself. "I mean— just think about it! It sounds like those girls had something they wanted to do in life but never really got to do, but once they got to do it here, they accepted their redo and moved onto the next life."

"Explain Kim, then," Ox cuts in. "She was obliterated, but how does she fit into this neat little conjecture you've got there?"

Soul has no answer, but Maka knows it's only because he doesn't know Kim's backstory. She tries quickly to think of something that will satisfy Ox's question, but alas, she does not know the former witch's life well enough.

"She was accepted by everyone," Jackie says, explaining it all for her. "In life, she was ostracized for being a witch, and even before then, she couldn't do anything outside of the norm otherwise she'd be attacked. But when she went up that night and sang everyone that one song, the crowd still accepted and loved her despite it being different than normal just because it came from her. They liked her, not just her music. She got what she wanted. She moved on."

"So… let's get this all straight. People with tragic backstories come here after they die so that they can fulfill their regrets in life and live out a satisfying youth?"

"It seems so, yes," Kid replies, gently shutting the hefty volume before him.

"What do you want us to do about this?" Soul says, crossing his arms and staring at their leader with cynicism.

"I think it's time for us to move on."

Maka sits upon a bench in the gardens, equal parts watching Tsu work on the flowers, staring at the sunset, and staring into space, lost in thought. A book sits on her lap, still opened to the page she read last, though she has forgotten about it for now.

I think it's time for us to move on.

Everyone had had different reactions to Kid's statement, ranging from your standard breed of confusion, to unbridled rage, to eerie and uncharacteristic silence, along with everything in between.

"YAHOOOOO!" Soul sprints across her field of vision, but Black Star jumps off the roof with a spirited cry and tackles him, effectively killing him for the time being. Maka spares them both a look but turns away when Black Star starts kissing his biceps.

She herself finds herself unsure of how she feels. Having not witnessed firsthand the mess that had apparently been the obliteration of Crona, she can't really buy into the idea that leaving purgatory is inherently bad and terrifying. She remembers how happy Kim looked in the last moments before she left. Surely it can't be all that bad.

"Whoo boy, really got him there, huh, Black Star?" Patty cheers, having suddenly appeared at the scene of the crime, looming over Soul's body and poking his face with the toe of her shoe.

Black Star cackles. "HELL YEAH I DID! THAT WAS SO GREAT, BRO, LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"

It takes Maka a full second to realize he's not talking to Patty but, in fact, to Soul, whom he is not yet aware is currently out of commission.

She sighs and closes the book on her lap, laying it aside for later on the bench. She walks over to Patty and Black Star, still not quite understanding that they had accidentally killed Soul, and shoos them away. Tsubaki shoots her an apologetic look, but Maka smiles in return as she hefts him over her shoulder. She should definitely make sure that this doesn't happen again for a while…

She's in her dorm, lazily skimming the pages of a grammar book, Soul lying half faded on her bed, when she hears the knock on her door. Glancing up, she says, "Who is it?"

"It's Liz. May I come in?"

"Uhhhhh…" Maka leans way, way over and manages to unlock the door from where she's seated. "It's unlocked."

Liz cautiously pokes her head inside the room before stepping inside, closing the door behind her, and taking a seat on Tsu's bed. She peers at Soul for a moment before refocusing on Maka, who turns around in her chair to face her.

"You know, M, I've been thinking about the obliteration thing," she says. "And I talked about it with Kid before we even had that meeting, but even now, I can't really shake it as this terrible thing that really shouldn't be happening to us if we want to survive. I mean, I think part of what makes a satisfying life in this afterlife is the not getting obliterated bit. Kind of contradictory."

"So it is," Maka agrees.

"And, like… You know, all I really need to be happy with this obliteration thing would be following Patty even after we move on so that I can make sure that she's happy and well-cared for in the next life, if there is one. But I don't know if we can guarantee that. I doubt it."

Maka hums in agreement, not particularly sure where Liz came up with the idea to just ramble to her with as little context as possible but willing to roll with it anyway.

Liz flops backwards onto the bed and groans. "How is obliteration an even remotely good idea?"

Maka blinks and waits for more ranting, but when none comes, she speaks herself. "It's not good to dwell on the past, for one thing. But you never did explain to me what exactly happened to that Crona person when they got obliterated that made everyone so terrified of it happening to them as well."

Liz slides off the bed and sits on the floor, looking up at Maka. "Oh. Well, the short of it is that for some reason there were these great huge black things that just came up out of the ground, and whoever was swallowed by one got turned into an NPC. When there came to be too many of them, Crona rallied them all into one place, slayed as many as they could with their partner-thing-sword, and was eventually overtaken by the black things." She shivers at the thought. "Gone without a trace, but then again, same went for those black things. Haven't seen either Crona or them since."

Maka furrows her brow. "What happened to those people who got turned into NPCs?"

"Dunno, M'darling." Liz shrugs. "I know I saw a few of them around for a while after that, but one by one they vanished as well. I suppose the NPC thing wore off and it was just as if they had just arrived without memories and eventually got obliterated on their own."

The two (technically three, but Soul is already more than halfway out the room) sit in silence.

"You know, Maka, we should go pay a visit to Jackie."

Maka cocks her head at her friend. "Why though?"

"Because even if I don't want to get obliterated, you're right. It's not good for people to dwell on the past. And right now, there's no one in Spartoi more stuck in the past than Miss Lantern herself."

"Don't tell me she's having another one of her three hour naps," Liz groans after knocking on the door for the third time.

"Well, she has been taking an awful lot of them lately," Maka points out. "Maybe she's depressed. Depression napping is pretty common."

"All the more reason to help her," Liz says. "This can't be a healthy way of coping with losing Kim. It's been months."

Eventually, they just try the door to find that it's already unlocked. Peeking inside, they see a bean-shaped lump of blankets in the middle of one of the beds just barely moving in response to their entrance.

"Jackie?" Liz gently calls as she and Maka crouch by the bed.

Blanket bean curls up tighter.

Liz drops the Dealing With a Depressed Person voice and turns deadpan. "Jackie, please. You're being ridiculous."

"So what?" Jackie's muffled voice argues. "I'm allowed to be ridiculous. Everyone already thinks I'm crazy, antisocial, or both at this point so might as well take advantage."

Liz and Maka exchange confused looks.

"But… they don't?" Maka says. "They know you're just hurt and tired and are giving you some space."

Two bloodshot brown eyes peek through the blankets and glower at them. "You guys don't understand how I feel! You guys still have your partners and also don't have to kick out an obnoxious prick who keeps trying to sacrifice his hair and leaving said hair in a mess on the floor every single day! So leeme 'lone." With that, Jackie buries herself in the blankets again.

Liz sighs, exasperated. "Stop acting like you're twelve. You are not twelve and this is not healthy and you should probably talk about this."

"Chuuni," Maka mutters at the same time, unsure of where she got such a term but not really thinking about it.

Jackie sighs and throws all her blankets off of herself and onto the heads of Liz and Maka. She crosses her arms and glares at them both as the former yelps in startlement, but the latter simply sighs and pulls them off their heads. "Okay," Jackie curtly says, "I'm out of the cocoon. What's up?"

"Rude," Liz grumbles under her breath.

Maka peers curiously into Jackie's bloodshot eyes, wondering if perhaps she'd been crying or if she simply hasn't been sleeping. "You're not okay," she says, dumbly stating the obvious with the knowledge that asking if she were okay would be dumber.

"Wow. What a shocker. I, the girl who had just been crying, am not okay!" Dripping with sarcasm, Jackie's voice gets louder and louder until she's nearly yelling.

Well, that answers that question, is all Maka can find herself thinking in the face of it. Blinking twice, she looks back up at Jackie, whom she notices has tears brimming at the corners of her eyes.

Her lip juts out the moment she sees Maka staring. "See? Crazy. Now go away; I've talked already."

"No one here thinks you're crazy. We're not the same people that you went to school with. No one in this school is like that. Remember?"

Jackie stops and all the fire of her outburst dies, leaving nothing but the raw pain of loss in its stead. She stares down at her bedsheets, and there's nothing either Liz or Maka can do except watch as a tear streaks down her cheek and falls to the ground.

"You're right," she quietly says. Strangely, it does not waver, but Maka suspects that it would should she talk any louder. "They're not the same. I'd forgotten."

Maka smiles just a bit. Now they're making progress.

"Hah, what a scrub! What's that you've gotten on our latest English test? Eighty-three? You know, I used to think that you were an actual worthy opponent of my superior intellect, but it seems I was wrong! Don't get to hear me say that every day!"

Maka's eyebrow twitches with irritation. Why do I even bother to go to class anymore if all that's going to happen is zoning out to Ox's gloating?

"I mean, I may not be strong or even godlike—"

"And yet you still manage to sound exactly like Black Star except replacing talk about being 'big' with intellectual egomania," Maka dryly interrupts.

Ox peers down at her from his seat (on her desk! What the hell!) and pushes his glasses farther up his nose. "Oh, but Miss Albarn, I do believe that you are sorely mistaken in that manner. While Black Star can only justify his bragging through sheer brute force, which is hardly just to do in the first place, I, on the other hand—"

Faster than anything she's ever done in her life, previous or current, Maka is out of her seat, a textbook in hand, prepped and ready to hit him with, not the spine of the book (as per usual), but the opposite edges of the pages themselves (for anyone who has ever been hit by a book can vouch that it's getting hit with that end that stings so much more). And she would have hit him as he's frozen to the spot, caught mid-sentence in the way his mouth gapes at her, but someone catches her arm from behind.

"Calm down, Maka," a familiar voice gruffly tells her, slowly letting go. "He's just being obnoxious. You know, for someone as pitifully tiny as you are, you have quite the temper."

"It's just as short as the rest of me," she snips as she lowers her book and turns to face Soul. Tossing the textbook aside, she crosses her arms and glares up at him. (Ox scuttles away while he has the opportunity.) Many of the NPCs have ceased their chatter, opting instead to stare at the two of them. They're lucky the teacher has not yet come back.

With a sigh, Soul leaps over her desk and takes her by the hand. "Let's go. No use staying here if you're going to be like this."

With a yelp, she lurches to the side, pulled towards the door. "Like what?" she challenges.

"Cranky," he answers in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "Ready to kill someone at the drop of a dime."

"It's not like he wouldn't respawn anyway," she grumbles as he pulls them out the door. As they pass by Ox's desk, she notices the near-perfect red 98 on his paper and scowls. How dare he have something valid to back up his ego.

"And it's not like that's the point either," Soul says in return.

They escape into the halls, empty as expected, and they hardly slow down. He pulls her along as if leaving the class in the absence off a teacher were some kind of fatal sin worthy of capital punishment. And, she supposes, it kind of is. Minus the capital punishment thing, sort of. Heaven knows they can't even leave for a restroom break; the narcs'll be onto them faster than either of them can yell "Soul Resonance" if they knew.

It's when he slows down and silences his footsteps whilst also prompting her to the same that she realizes, as Black Star zooms by them, it's not the narcs they're avoiding.

He breathes a quiet sigh of relief and they continue walking (normally now) in pleasant silence.

Unfortunately, it hardly lasts long. And we were so close to the cafeteria toooooo~~~

"BRO!" Black Star comes zooming back into the picture, jumping between them and flinging his arms around their shoulders with great force. (Maka silently laments the loss of Soul's hand in her own.) "And of COURSE we have my favorite minion here, too." He gives them both a cheeky grin, and Tsubaki hurries in after him, somewhat out of breath. She mouths her apologies. Well, it's not like Maka can even hold it against her in the first place.

"Wouldn't Tsu be your favorite minion, since she's your partner and all?" Maka inquires, struggling to push Black Star's arm off of her shoulder. Not like it matters anyway, because said boy removes it himself to aid in his ultra-dramatic gasp of shock.

"Tsubaki is not a minion; she is a goddess!" he says. "And I suppose that is sort of like a minion to a god, but she is still far too good for such a title as minion like you people."

Maka throws a glance at Tsu, who simply gives her a sheepish shrug and says, "Hey, Black Star, I think you should let them go now. We're probably bothering them."

He blinks at her. "But what could they possibly be doi—" he cuts himself off to take a step back and squint at the both of them.

Soul leers back at him, baring just a few teeth.

"…Uhuh. I see. Well, Tsubaki, I suppose you are right. We should leave them to their business." Black Star gives them a smug half smile. "Whatever that may be."

"We're getting coffee," Maka snaps as he and Tsu begin to leave.

"For now."

Soul catches her hand before she can stomp after him and do anything rash. He shakes his head after her, and with one last dirty look at Black Star from Maka, they enter the cafeteria.

"I actually expected him to murder me right then and there, not call me 'bro'," he admits as they sit down. "My life kind of flashed before my eyes right then and there, if I'm being honest with you."

She peers at him curiously. "You've never actually told me all that much about your life. If anything at all, come to think of it."

"Neither have you, yours," he replies.

"I guess we're even in that sense." A pause. "Sooooo…"

"All right, all right. I guess I start. I came from a rich family."

"Uhuh."

"I had exactly one super obnoxious drama queen of an older brother."

"Lucky. I was an only child."

"Pffft. You're the lucky one. If he were here, he'd be following us around playing the wedding march on his violin or some other stupid crap like that. And if I ever told him to fuck off, he'd look at me with that one look of utter betrayal and say something along the lines of, 'but Souuul, this is the first opportunity you've ever had to hold a girl's haaaand! What if it never comes agaaaaiiin? You have to take advantage of this and marry her immediately!' " Soul rolls his eyes and gives Maka a pointed look.

She whistles. "You're right. I was the lucky one. My dad was already the opposite of that, and if I had a brother like yours…"

"So, what about your backstory, Pigtails?"

"Pigtails?" she indignantly cuts in.

"Cough up: what happened to you?"

"You haven't even finished telling me your backstory!"

Soul leans his chair dangerously back onto its hind legs and puts his elbows up in the standard anime don't-talk-to-me-I-have-my-elbows-up pose. "What more is there to tell?"

"Literally everything. How did you get to Shibusen, if you went there at all, which I'm assuming you did, considering the theme around here. How did you die. What's your tragedy, if that's separate. All I know about you is you had a brother."

"Ah, but what a gold mine of salt he could be.

" 'Gold mine of salt?' "

"Salt mine. Whatever."

"Still not enough."

Soul leans forward again with an exasperated sigh, letting the front legs of his chair hit the ground again. "Fine. I found out I could transform into a weapon, so I ran away from home to go to Shibusen so I could make my own mark on the world."

Maka rests her head on her elbows. "What kind of weapon?"

With a shark-toothed grin, Soul spreads out an arm and says, "a scythe."

Nothing happens to his arm, and after a few seconds, he sheepishly lowers it.

"That's usually when I would turn my arm into a scythe blade to show off, but I kind of forgot that's not how it works here."

"We could always, you know, resonate," Maka offers, somewhat shyly.

"You wanna?"

She says nothing, only bites her lower lip and nods. Wordlessly, he holds his hand out to her. She takes it, and they close their eyes.

For a few seconds, she can hear nothing but the pounding bloodrush in her own ears, but then—

"SOUL RESONANCE!"

She feels the transformation this time, for it is far more purposeful than the simple, passive thing they had when he was playing piano. She feels the wings sprout from between her shoulderblades, her dress skirt tumble passed her knees to her ankles, and something cool yet most definitely alive land in her hands.

Opening her eyes, she pauses to marvel at the large, feathery angel wings she's been given, but only for a moment. The red, black, and silver scythe in her hands— Soul, she realizes— grabs her attention.

Curious, she spins it around somewhat clumsily, like a new drum major just starting to adjust to the weight of an equally new baton. Though she doesn't quite get the hang of it, she decides to start jumping around on the empty building's dining tables anyway, loving the thrill and the swish the air makes as she cuts down imaginary enemies with her weapon partner, a thrill that grows a bit too distracting.

The shirtless, irritated image of Soul appears reflected in the scythe blade. At least, the part of the blade not half buried in the wall. "Can you not do that next time?" he says. "I would prefer to keep myself in one room or the other, not caught in between like some kind of indecisive schoolgirl."

"Sor-ry," she mutters as she frees his blade with a hefty tug. She holds it up to her face so that she may talk to him better, but whatever gripe she has dies on her tongue when she notices the long, jagged scar on his chest, extending out from one shoulder all the way over to his other hip. "What happened there?" she asks instead.

"Here?" Soul looks down at his chest. "Oh. That's where I… died."

There's a hefty pause.

"How?" Maka finally asks. Her voice is strangely hollow.

Soul hides his reflection. "Too much trust in my partner too soon into the relationship."

She abruptly begins parkouring around the room again.

"Oi, Maka! Watch where you're—"

She internally curses the heels as she slips off a bench and crashes to the floor, the two of them detransforming mid fall. Suffice to say, she is not pleased when just moments after her own fall, she breaks Soul's as he crashes down onto her.

They exchange glares as they begin to recover, but before any snark can be said, the cafeteria doors dramatically open as someone neither of them can see bursts in.

Crap, did the narcs catch us?

"Maka? Soul?" Oh, thank goodness. It's only Liz. "Are you guys here? I know you like having your coffee dates in here, so I'm pretty sure you're here. Kid's called an impromptu meeting in Kim and Jackie's old dorm.

"Jackie's been obliterated."

To the rest of the Battalion— Spartoi.

If you're reading this, then that means I have been obliterated.

I've been giving it a lot of thought for the last few days. I've been thinking about Kim's
obliteration and the book on the stuff a lot lately, and you know…

I've decided that there really is nothing for me to lose anymore. I've fulfilled what I
could not do in life. I know you all love and appreciate me. I'll miss you all, but if I'm going to
move on, then that means I'm ready. I truly hope that if Kid is right and being obliterated
really does mean we're ready to move on to the next life that it's just as pleasant and
not-terrible as he said it would be.

Signed,
Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupré

"So, what's your backstory?"

Kid motions to the letter after everyone has finished reading it. "Clearly, she wasn't thinking quite straight, since there are some passages that are a little convoluted and strangely worded, but I think we can still take it at face value."

Maka reads the letter again, not quite fully processing the fact that Jackie is gone now.

"…Well, I told you already I had a dad whose personality was the exact opposite of your brother's.

Meanwhile, Ox pushes his glasses farther up his nose and says, "So what do you want us to do about this?"

Maka puts the letter down and hands it to Tsubaki, who had been rereading it as well, just over Maka's shoulder.

"Only thing is, he was a womanizer, though somehow I was his only child. My mama up and left before I started Shibusen, and I wanted to be just like her. Only thing is, I didn't trust my weapon partners long enough to get me to my ultimate goal of making a death scythe out of them, so I put them under a lot of pressure to do well."

"I still think the same thing, that we should move on," replies Kid. "But aside from the letter from Jackie, I have other reason to be restating this.

"I've been reading more of the records and— aside from realizing that we should also be writing down our experiences for any future generations— well. I know many of you can recall the strange affair of Crona and Ragnarök's obliteration, a mystery never fully explained.

"You had multiple partners at once?"

"After digging through various tomes and whatnot, I found another recorded case of something similar happening to a group that came before us. According to them, the great, huge shadowy things that showed up and transformed our people into the soulless NPCs were the result of a program made to deter people from lingering too long in the afterlife. Should there be people who do stay for too long, the shadows will come, and people's souls will be taken one by one until someone gets obliterated.

"No, I went through five different partners during my time at Shibusen. They all ditched me at some point. Looking back, I can't even really blame them. I was really harsh."

"So it seems that it wasn't that Crona had been absorbed by the shadows, somehow taking them with them, but the fact that they chose to be sacrificed and the acceptance that they wouldn't be one of us anymore that got them obliterated, therefore eliminating the shadows. It was never really meant to be a bad or terrifying experience, obliteration. As quick and painless as dying."

When Kid's monologue is complete, all is quiet among the Spartoi members.

"…You know, it's kind of funny if you think about it. We had opposite problems in life— I trusted too much, you trusted too little— and yet, here we are, partners in the afterlife."

"I don't suppose there's anything any of you want to get off your chests?" he quietly asks them all.

No one even looks at him for a second. Maka finds herself staring at her skirt, picking at the hem to distract herself.

And then, someone speaks up.

"Funny how things work out sometimes."

"Fire and Thunder are fake," blurts Kilik.

A chorus of bewildered "What?"s echo through the group, and the boy swallows his pride and continues talking.

"You know how you can make anything out of dirt in this world, as long as you remember what it was and how it worked in life?" he asks everyone. Not everyone nods, but he continues anyway.

"Hey, Maka, I wanna tell you something."

"Well, that's why Fire and Thunder are the only children here. They can't have come with me to this afterlife. They didn't. I came here with only my memories of them, so I recreated them out of the earth. They were earth shamans, see, so it miraculously worked." Kilik looks down at the two children sitting on his lap with love. "But they're not real."

"How do you remember anything then?" asks Patty, bouncing up and down on a bed in the exact opposite fashion of the room's mood.

"What is it?"

"I guess they simply worked well enough," he replies. "Maybe I just don't have a partner that'll come into this afterlife. Who knows."

Everyone stares as he plants a kiss on each of the twins' heads and blows on their foreheads, transforming them back into dust. Dust that, fortunately enough, doesn't linger in the room but rather twinkles into nothingness.

Floodgates of confessions are opened after that.

"I—"

It's hard for Maka to keep track of them all, partially because she doesn't know enough people to care all that much, but mostly because her head is still spinning from all the events that have been transpiring as of late. Tsu notices her dazed expression and glazed eyes and pulls her in for a side hug.

"There's a lot going on, I know," she whispers. "There's a lot to take in, but we'll make it."

The pigtailed girl can only mutely nod in response.

"We're here," says Liz, motioning to the doorknob that leads into the room Kim and Jackie once shared, apparently now empty. Maka nods, and she opens the door for the three of them, not catching whatever it is that Soul has to say.

"—love you."

author's note iv. so i was at a tournament and i was telling me captain abt how i was writing a fic and i JUST BARELY got the two leads to kiss after 35k of just y'know stuff happening and he, being the forever alone he is, told me "you should have waited 100k before he even got a hug and then end it right there all like 'WILL HE GET ANOTHER HUG? ? ? ? WHO KNOWS! ! ! ! and then wait another 100k before he gets another hug."

y'know i had like ten million a/ns all scribbled down in this one place and i'm looking through them now and am just like "nope. nope. only relevant on ao3. nope" so. like. yeah. sometimes i like having a read between the lines style but now this a/n is just p much pointless and yeah. :c