Noun; The opposite of serendipity, making unhappy, unlucky and unexpected discoveries occurring by design.


Stein is a scientist for the DWMA, not a clairvoyant like Azusa or Marie so Soul knows he can't see him, but the man certainly has an uncanny way of staring exactly where he sits in the truck. Next to him, Maka scowls at Stein. "Wasn't there any other way you could have announced yourself other than giving me a heart attack?"

"It doesn't suit my style," Stein replies. He makes a half-hearted flourish with his arm. "Are you going to stay in the car or are we going inside?"

Maka glances down at her watch. "We have three hours before I have to start driving home."

"Duly noted," Stein says, stepping to the side as Maka opens the door.

Music from a couple blocks over thuds in the distance as Stein leads them to the storefront Maka parked in front of, which is locked tight with a steel padlock. Instead of stopping to unlock the door, Stein continues to walk forward, passing straight through the door.

Maka stops dead in her tracks. "How did he do that?"

"One of our psychics creates very good illusions," Stein calls from behind the not-door. "She works in human resources so it's always a struggle to find her office when someone wants to file a complaint."

Slowly, Maka climbs up the store's steps and stops just before the door, eyeing it carefully before glancing at Soul.

He shrugs. "You know I'd go through either way."

"Right." She looks back to the door, tenses and sucks in a breath right as she shoots forward, plunging through the door.

Soul follows and nearly collides into Maka as she comes to an abrupt halt. He veers wildly to the left and opens his eyes to find himself in the middle of a wall. Shaking his head, Soul floats back into the room to see Maka still standing in the same place.

He drifts over to her. "What are you looking at?" When she doesn't answer, he follows her gaze and feels his own eyes widen.

"Aura mirrors," Stein says, coming to a stop beside the two. He regards his indigo, faceless reflection in the giant mirror that lines the room, which resembles a hotel lobby. "It's not very specific but it's useful as a preliminary test for psychic abilities."

Maka lifts a hand and the green, vaguely human-shaped blob in the mirror raises its arm as well. While Stein's aura is a uniform shade of indigo, a black-green diamond lies in the center of Maka's, the rest of it a mix of greens that range from the deepest emerald to a soft spring green.

"Why are there cracks in the middle?" Maka steps closer to the mirror, finger tracing the small, rootlike cracks that spread across the diamond in her aura.

"I have no idea," Stein says. "I've seen it before so it's either a good thing or a bad thing."

She raises an eyebrow. "That tells me nothing."

"Science is like that, on occasion." He shrugs. "Truthfully, it's up to you. It's your aura."

His gaze moves to Soul's aura, curiosity stirring in his eyes. "Though an aura like that isn't something I've seen before."

His aura is shaped nothing like a person. The black thorns weaving themselves through his aura resemble a web, bleeding darkness. Where his aura isn't covered in black, it burns a dull blue, fading down to near grey.

An invisible weight grows in Soul's chest the longer he looks at the thorns. There's nowhere to hide from Stein and Maka's stares so he deflects instead. "And how can you even see my aura if you can't see me?"

He waits for Stein's reply but it doesn't come. Maka coughs awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to another before speaking to Stein. "Soul wants to know how you can see his aura but not him."

"Soul perception." Stein's eyes move from the mirror to nearly exactly where Soul hovers. "Just a heightened sense of perception, really. It's not worth being classified as a psychic ability when anyone can train themselves to do it, but the DWMA insists."

A sharp ringing coming from the tattered lab coat Stein wears halts the conversation. From a pocket inside the coat, Stein extracts a phone that looks more like a small brick. He flips open the phone. "Excuse me."

Soul drifts closer to Maka, ignoring the growing whispers inside of him as he does. "What do you think?"

"There's not much to tell." Maka's gaze slides over to where Stein paces as he talks to whoever is on the other end of the line. "He's still as eccentric as he was five years ago."

He turns his laugh into a dry snort. "Do you think he's telling the truth about not seeing me?"

"Yes," Maka says immediately, though she frowns at her own answer. "I don't know, there was something about his aura. I don't think he can see you, no matter how hard he tried."

"You're right in that."

For the second time that night, Stein makes them jump without looking even vaguely sorry about it. "People with psychic abilities don't usually have human-shaped auras."

Maka's frown deepens. "Why?"

"Your abilities pull outwards into the world, into the supernatural," Stein answers, gesturing to Maka's aura. "Naturally, it affects your aura. The stronger your ability, the more your aura pulls to Abeyance and the afterlife."

"To where ?"

"We'll get into that once everyone is present." He gestures to a door Soul hadn't noticed in the corner of the room. "Shall we?"

Soul's eyes trail back to his reflection. In life, he had never shown any sign of psychic abilities and death wasn't enough to rend his aura into the ruin it is. He can't stop his gaze from flicking to Maka or embracing the warmth that flows into his hand from her end of their connection. Even with the whispers crawling down his ears, their connection soothes the nerves brought to life by his aura. With a slight nod to her, he follows Stein.

He stays behind Maka as they follow Stein to the door. It takes Soul a moment to adjust to the darkness stretching out in front of him to make out the hallway; its walls are painted ebony and the floors are a checkered pattern of black and white tiles. Lights spaced too far apart make the hallway appear much longer than the length of the building.

"Why is it so dark?" Maka stays at the mouth of the door as Stein strides forward.

"Ghosts and poltergeists are attracted to people with psychic abilities, their aura draws them in." Stein's voice echoes oddly in the hallway, like he's on the opposite end of a football field rather than ten feet away. "The DWMA uses darkness to hide auras, especially one like yours."

She still doesn't move. "Poltergeists like the darkness."

"Not when it's cast by an exorcist."

The doubtful expression on Maka's face remains.

"I'll go first." Soul doesn't miss the way Maka watches as he edges around her to be between her and the hallway. "It'll be like last time, except you can leave your eyes open."

She cracks a small smile at that. "I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or not."

"You get to see me." He means to be light and teasing but the way Maka's expression changes makes Soul feel like blushing, if that were possible.

It disappears before he can make any sense of it. Maka takes a step forward, hooking her her hair behind her ear. "Your hair is a bit like a Christmas light so it might help," she says, a wry smile playing on her lips. "All of it is white now."

"It's more of a silver."

"White with a silvery tint," she corrects as she moves forward another step.

"Same difference."

She laughs once. "I'll take that as your way of saying I'm right."

Soul rolls his eyes. "And I'll let you believe that."

She laughs again, the sound echoing slightly as it fades and quiet falls between them. There's only the sound of the gentle rhythm of Maka's breathing as they walk down the hallway, moving in sync. The silence between them is almost comfortable, and despite the constant niggling of the whispers, it's the most peace Soul has felt since Halloween.

"It feels like years ago." It's hard to make Maka out, little more than an outline in the dark. "The poltergeists." Her pace quickens slightly, enough she's close enough to see the green of her eyes peeking out in the darkness. There's an eager hopefulness in them. "Maybe Stein or Marie can tell us why you were able to talk with them."

The whispers curl in Soul's throat and climb down into his chest. He lets his hand drop and he shifts away so her eyes disappear into the dark again. "Maybe."

It turns quiet again but the tranquility in the air is gone. Soul's hands twitch, as if he could rip out the murmurs inside of him. While his subconscious has other ideas when he daydreams, Soul doesn't choose to remember the night he led Maka down an alleyway full of poltergeists often. Finding he could not only understand the garbled language of the decomposing shadows, but speak it too, was enough to rattle the demons inside his head, and he'd used it as the reason for his odd behavior when Maka had found him out on the roof later that night.

But there had been something else he'd discovered that night, a feeling, a thought . It had lasted only an instant but it had etched itself so thoroughly into his mind that Soul wonders how he had ever managed to convince himself that it was something else.

Feed.

Looking back on it, the whispers hadn't been nearly as strong as they are now, the barest echo of a suggestion. But back then, it had been a searing flash against his soul, the feeling so ridiculous ( so impossible, he remembered thinking) that he tricked himself into believing he never could have felt it at all.

"That's when your eye color started turning," Maka says abruptly. She moves closer and her eyes trace over his. "I remember thinking they looked different."

"No." The word comes out more sharply than he means it to and he winces at how it echoes. He clears his throat. "They didn't start changing till a while after that, from what I remember."

There's a slight pause before Maka answers. "Well, you'd remember that best," she says with an artificial lightness. Several beats of silence fall in between them before she speaks again. "I think it's kind of fitting."

He frowns. "You mean my eyes?"

"Yeah." Maka is close enough that he can make out the little shrug she gives. "The hair too. They suit someone named Soul."

A snort escapes him, despite himself. "Solomon, technically."

"Can I start calling you that?"

"Absolutely not."

Her reply is cut off by an overwhelming brightness that emerges out of nowhere. Soul blinks against it on instinct, squinting until he adjusts to the sharp sting of the light. They've stepped into the middle of a giant desert with a bright blue sky overhead, though further inspection shows they're actually in a giant room even as the fluffy clouds drift across the sky. Beyond them is a field of crosses, haphazardly placed, with some bent at weird angles.

"They're not poltergeists." It takes Soul a moment to place Stein, standing on top of a mound of sand. He follows Stein's gaze down to his feet where several large and strangely cat-like shadows sniff and paw at him and Maka. One of them stops in front of Soul and peers up at him, glittering onyx eyes the only feature on its face.

"What are they then?" Maka looks down uneasily, shifting her feet away from where one of the creatures attempts to swipe at her shoelace.

"Demon sniffers." Stein watches the creature staring up at Soul, who ignores the rest of its companions as they disappear off into shadows rippling on the walls. "It does exactly what its name says, though it can distinguish between poltergeists and...other things."

Flinching, Soul moves away but the sniffer's gaze follows him. There is something keen and knowing in its eyes and it fills him with a growing discomfort.

"Do you always take so many precautions for a pair of teenagers?" she asks.

"While we have caught a few supernatural infiltrators over the past few decades, it's more of what could be following you that we're worried about." Stein pushes up his glasses and moves his eyes away from the sniffer eyeing Soul. It seems to act like a signal because the sniffer suddenly rises and disappears into the shadows with the rest of its companions.

"And this place?" Maka scrambles up the hill to join Stein, Soul close on her heels for once as the lingering stare of the sniffer pricks at him from the walls.

"The headquarters of the DWMA." Sand gives way to grey as Stein leads them onto a stone pathway.

The same curiosity that stirs to life in Maka's eyes when she comes across an interesting new fact is present now. "Where is that exactly?"

"Nowhere, therefore it's everywhere," he replies with a halfhearted flourish of his hand. "Think of it as Schrodinger's Law come to life."

"There is someone else better who can answer how," Stein says as Maka opens her mouth again. "Though he'll be joining us later."

"This reminds me of one of those episodes from that show you watch with your dad," Soul mutters, even though Stein has no way of hearing him. "The Midnight Zone."

Maka coughs back a laugh. "You mean the Twilight Zone?"

"Same difference."

"There will be very little in the way of the Twilight Zone that you'll be seeing tonight," Stein says from ahead of them. As he speaks, they round an invisible bend in the room, which seems to stretch on forever. Red arches built like guillotines complete with blades hanging precariously lead to the end of the stone path; it opens up to a slab of obsidian, where two figures sitting at the table resting neatly in the middle of the slab wait.

"Hello." Marie greets them as Stein settles in the seat next to her, Azusa calmly sipping from a cup of steaming tea on her other side. Unlike Marie, there is no smile on her face as her gaze moves to Soul.

Marie holds up a silver teapot, smile faltering slightly when her eyes turn to Soul. "Tea?" she asks, already beginning to pour it without waiting for Maka's answer.

To Stein, she says, "You took your time."

"You said not to rush them through the hallway," Stein answers mildly, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes from a pocket inside his lab coat. Instead of lighting it, he places it behind his ear. "Trying to break the habit," he says at the look on Maka's face. "I can have one if the world is ending."

"Which won't happen, if we do our jobs right," Marie says, pouring tea into a cup she produced out of nowhere. She slides the cup towards Maka and rests her hands on the table, intertwining her fingers. "We have a lot to talk about and a limited amount of time to do it in."

Maka frowns. "We got here right at seven."

"Getting to the Death Room takes longer than it looks." Azusa speaks for the first time since they arrived, setting down her cup. There's something eerily reminiscent of the sniffer in her stare's steeliness, which still hasn't moved from Soul. "It's nearly half past eight."

"That's-" Maka breaks off as she looks down at her watch. Her brow furrows. "How?"

"It goes back to the founding of the DWMA." Although Azusa is the more unsettling out of the two, there is an empyrean lilt to Marie's voice that is more disquieting than comforting to Soul. Her eyes, which appeared a warm golden-brown when he first met Marie, have an odd glow to them, like dying embers.

Meanwhile, Maka's patience has dried up. "And what is the DWMA?"

Marie looks to Azusa, who gives a slight nod of her head, before continuing. "Two hundred years ago, the Debunking Wraiths and Mysteries Analysts was established by a group of people with psychic abilities to serve as a front for our real purpose. While there are organizations similar to ours all over the world and we keep connected, we're the only agency on this continent." She pauses. "Well, officially, at least."

Marie turns to Stein, who hands her a manila folder Soul hadn't noticed before."There are two goals of the DWMA," she says as she opens the folder and spreads a series of photographs across the table. "Part of the first is documenting areas and hotspots of supernatural activity."

Soul and Maka lean forward in unison. The photograph closest to Soul is of an elderly woman sitting on a couch, who appears completely normal except for the fact that he can see the couch print through her. He moves his eyes to the other photographs and feels Maka recoil as she does the same, the rotting faceless shadows of the poltergeists stark against the faded background. They're no less disturbing in the photo than in person, somehow leering up at Soul even without eyes.

He represses a shudder and moves to the last photograph and feels an even bigger wave of revulsion sweep through him. The person standing in front of the aura mirror in the photograph has a strangely blank expression on their face, but it's their reflection that really draws his attention.

Their aura is nothing but a twisted spiral of black, cracks of bone white through it. There is a dark heaviness wafting from the photograph, and Soul looks away while Maka pulls the photo closer to her. "What is this?"

"Someone possessed by a demon, who somehow made it past the front door," says Stein. He looks vaguely reminiscent, rather than discomfited by the picture. "It was a rather eventful Tuesday."

Marie takes back the photo and tucks it back into the folder. "Eventful isn't how I'd describe nearly being cursed with damned souls for eternity."

"Which is why I said rather eventful."

Marie looks back to Soul and Maka. "While we do identify and record supernatural activity, the other things we do run along those lines of-" Her eyes dart to Soul and back and she clears her throats nervously. "While it might not be the most pleasant thing to hear for some of those pres-"

"We reap the souls of those who don't belong here and send them to the afterlife," Azusa interrupts. She finally turns away from Soul to look at Maka, although her eyes briefly flick back towards him. "And exorcise the ones who are not human."

In his ears, the whispers swell.

"Neither of which is the case here," Marie says quickly in response to the way Maka tenses, though her tone is uncertain. "Souls bonded to living souls are unique."

Maka blinks, straightening and glancing at Soul. "Is that why we can't be apart from each other?"

"Not exactly." A frown forms on Marie's lip and she glances at Azusa. "Is it?"

Azusa doesn't respond immediately, but instead looks between Soul and Maka, as if she can see the bond between them. Everything about her appearance is made up of sharp angles and edges, Soul notices, as she pushes up her glasses with nails that are too pointed to be normal.

"It's not something that has ever been observed in our reapers," Azusa answers slowly after a moment. The iron in her gaze is replaced by an inscrutable impassiveness. "But it's not outside the realm of possibility."

"So your reapers are ghost hunters?" Maka asks. She sweeps a look between Azusa and Marie. "You're both reapers?"

"While Azusa and I work closely with the reapers, we cannot reap souls like they do, a bond with a ghost is needed for that," Marie says. "The ghost needs the right kind of soul as well." She taps the side of her cup restlessly. "Azusa can banish poltergeists, however."

"Banishment requires destroying the soul along with the body, however." Azusa's words are matter-of-fact, but a hint of distaste crosses her face. "No chance of afterlife or anything else."

"Which is why it's only used as a last resort," Marie interjects in a falsely smooth voice. "Mostly, we help ghosts stuck on Earth move on, but in the cases of poltergeists, Azusa ensures the area is clear after the reapers and I purify the area."

Soul shifts away from the subtle peeks Marie keeps giving him as Maka digests this information in the same way she analyzes a difficult math problem: furrowed brow and nose scrunched as she thinks before she finally gives a slow nod. "What is the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist?" she asks.

"Ghosts are souls that died and remained on Earth," answers Azusa, leaning forward to tap the picture of the ghost on the couch. "Generally, they retain their appearance as it was when they died. Over time, they can lose sense of their identity and become malevolent but, since they cannot interact with the world, they are no danger to the living."

"If you're not able to see them, at least." Maka's eyes trail to the photographs with the poltergeists; her body is stiff and angled away from them, as if she's trying to be as far as possible from them. "So what's a poltergeist?"

"A dead person who was trapped in Abeyance and then crossed back into Earth."

Maka looks up from the pictures. "You said that word before," she says, addressing Stein. "What is it?"

Instead of answering her, Stein takes the photograph of the demon, studying it as if it could speak to him. "The cat familiar you mentioned, Blair," he says. "Did she give any details about the day the witches disappeared?"

"She only said that one morning she woke up and they were all gone," Maka answers. Her eyes flick up from the paper. "So, she was telling the truth about the witches?" She glances at Soul. "About gathering souls?"

"Accounts throughout history are heavily disjointed and the witches disappeared thousands of years ago, so it's impossible to say what the truth was," Stein says. There is a glare from the Death Room's harsh light that reflects off his glasses, making his eyes impossible to see. "However, what the familiar told you fits in with the narrative we've pieced together."

Soul exchanges a look with Maka-they'd debated how much stock they could put into the cat's words after she disappeared without notice. Maka looks back at the scientist. "And that is?"

"Witches were the apex predators before humans, but they vanished so long ago that the only memories the human race has of them have been garbled by superstition and time," Stein replies. "How their particular diet and abilities evolved remains a mystery, but the existence of poltergeists and accounts from the more rational poltergeists proves witches continue to survive, albeit in another dimension."

He places the demon's photograph facedown and withdraws a pen from his lab coat, drawing a line down the middle and pointing to the right side of the photo. "If we say that this side is life and the other side is the afterlife or whatever comes after, then the line is-"

"Death," Maka finishes for him.

"Which is a one-way trip, generally speaking," Stein says, drawing an arrow across the page. "If a person dies and is unable to move on, they become a ghost but they never cross into the afterlife. Unnatural, but there are glitches in any system, especially in one as vast as life and death."

"And here I thought I was just unusually lucky," mutters Soul to Maka, who has to stifle her smile.

Stein draws a series of dotted lines in front of the solid line. "Something happened the day the witches disappeared, although we have no idea what. It moved them into the space between life and death." He taps the narrow sliver of space between the two lines. "That is what Abeyance is."

"How is that possible?" Maka studies the paper. "If life and the afterlife are next to each other?"

"We've barely scratched the surface on interdimensional physics, let alone the physics of death," Stein says, shrugging. "And I've never died so I couldn't tell you how long a journey death is."

Soul is acutely aware of the three pairs of eyes on him. He speaks quickly, before he can be questioned. "All I remember is the pain disappearing."

Maka cringes, though both Marie and Azusa's expressions don't change.

"No," Azusa says to Stein, who Soul belatedly realizes didn't hear their exchange.

Stein resumes as if nothing happened. "When the witches left, they also created what we call the rift, though those with a flair for purple prose have called it the veil between worlds in recent decades," he says dryly. He slides his finger down the dotted line, to the gaps between the lines. "It's not entirely inaccurate, considering the rift can become worn down with supernatural activity like rips in a veil. From we've observed, witches can't cross it but other things can."

"Is that what that place in the swamp was?" Maka asks with a sidelong glance to Soul. "A rip in the rift?"

"It wasn't quite a rip, but an area where the rift had been thinned," Azusa answers. "Giriko lived on its boundary, which is why he was able to remain hidden except when he went out to gather souls. Gathering souls takes a large amount of energy, which is likely why he chose Halloween as his day to lure people to him."

Maka's eyebrows knit together like when she immediately spots a problem in someone's argument. She says nothing, but the concentrated look doesn't leave her face as Stein continues.

"Most souls move through the rift without a problem." He draws arrows that stop in the space between the two lines. "But there are some that become trapped. Or are purposely sent to Abeyance from this world." His gaze flickers towards Soul as he adds more arrows, though these bounce back from the rift and into the living side of the paper. "Sometimes, they cross back across the rift and return to Earth."

"So that's what makes them a poltergeist," Maka says, straightening up. "Coming back."

"Yes." Marie's fingers begin to thrum against her cup again. "Souls were never meant to cross back and forth from life and death," she says. "It takes some time after they return to Earth but, sooner or later, the soul begins to decay."

Maka stiffens. "Decay?"

Marie hesitates before answering, sliding a pointed look towards Azusa. "It's only a theory but we think returning to Earth creates a weight on the soul they cannot bear. The soul starts to deteriorate and break apart. The effects vary from soul to soul, but the end result is always the same."

Soul pretends not to notice the uneasy glance Maka gives him. "And what is that?"

"Certain things begin to...change." Marie's words have a careful nervousness about them. "Their appearance begins to warp as well as other things."

"That doesn't answer my question." Soul recognizes the short and muted way Maka bites off her words as the tone she adopts when she's trying and failing to hide her impatience. "What other things?"

A highly discomfited look replaces the nervous expression on Marie's face. "Eventually, their soul decays to the point where it can no longer stay intact and they transform into this." She gestures to a picture of a poltergeist, who is only a mangled twist of rotted flesh and darkness. "After that, it's not long till their soul disintegrates entirely." A shadow crosses her face, eyes briefly clouded with memories before she gives her head a shake. "We have yet to determine when a poltergeist is too far gone to save their soul, which is why we reap poltergeists as soon as we find them."

"You're the first person to bond with a ghost from Abeyance but bonds such as yours give stability, which is why we believe that the poltergeist conversion won't happen to Soul." Azusa nods to Soul before he or Maka can speak. "In addition to reaping ghosts and poltergeists, we monitor tears in the rift and mend them in order to minimize the number of souls that cross back and keep the witches from returning."

Soul's mind is oddly clear as everything sinks in. Marie's words are almost relieving in a way-it's the explanation to the hell inside his head, even if the answer is that he's not meant to exist.

Meanwhile, Maka's hands clench tightly. "If it's your job to guard the rift, then why didn't the DWMA catch Giriko a long time ago? Don't you know how many people he's killed?"

"The DWMA has only ever had a thousand psychics working within the organization, at maximum," Azusa replies coolly. "Of those, less than a quarter were reapers. Currently, the DWMA only has around eighty reapers in service." She shifts forward, interlocking her fingers. "It may be blunt but to assign a reaper an area of no significance would be a poor use of our resources."

"There are places all over the continent where the rift is worn like the one in Orcus Hollow," Marie adds as Maka opens her mouth. "It's not that we don't want to monitor every area where the rift can open up, but our numbers are barely enough to guard the active rips in the rift."

Soul watches as Maka's irritation battles with the logic of Marie and Azusa's statements. She settles for crossing her arms with a slight huff and changing the subject. "So what made us significant?" She gestures to herself and Soul. "What do you want with us?"

"Originally, nothing," Azusa says. "We knew that you could see ghosts the moment we met you five years ago. Your bond with the family of ghosts was surprisingly stable for someone so young, but it didn't appear that your abilities extended to much else."

The tension in Maka's shoulders goes lax. "Bond?"

"I'm sure you felt it," Azusa says, raising an eyebrow. "The way that they seemed to appear right when you needed someone the most?"

An odd dazed feeling blooms in Soul's mind, and the thought that he's not as okay with Marie's news as he believed crosses his mind as he turns to look at Maka when she doesn't answer. The feeling dissipates slightly when he sees the way Maka has frozen, eyes turned glassy with memory.

Then she blinks and the fog in her eyes disappears. "They protected me from poltergeists when I was little," she says in the rapid mutter that accompanies recalling painful times. "After that, they were always with me." Her fingers are digging tightly into her jacket sleeves and her gaze is focused on the table. "They protected me from a demon, I think. And then they were gone."

She looks up, shifting restlessly in her chair before she speaks. "Do you know what happened to them?"

A heavy silence follows. Azusa is finally the one to answer, leaning forward and setting her hands on the table. "Come with me." She rises but, instead of walking off onto the stone path, she strides towards the fields of crooked crosses.

"Go on," Marie says at Maka's hesitation. "We'll wait here."

Maka stands up, looking at Soul, before following Azusa.

They trail behind in silence. A thousand thoughts bounce and rattle around in Soul's head, each one of them too loud for his mind; the only good thing about them is the way they drown out the whispers, although he knows they will still be there when the buzz of his thoughts fades.

That he is not meant to be here is the thought that latches onto Soul, intensifying when he peeks at Maka from the corner of his eye. His appearance has already begun to warp (he continues to draw his mind in circles around the cesspit that are his whispers) and he has no idea whether their bond will halt the other effects of crossing back. What will it do to her to be bonded to something that shouldn't exist?

"Is this anything you were expecting?" Maka's voice breaks him away from the growing eddy of his thoughts.

His laugh is humorless. "Not in the slightest."

She nods-the look in her eyes says she is still somewhere else. "Sounds about right."

They reach the edge of the fields then. Azusa links her hands behind her back and inclines her head towards Maka. Up close, Soul can see her eyes aren't the dark grey that he thought they were, but a dark blue instead.

"When the DWMA was established, one of the founders with a particularly powerful ability for automatic writing created this field of crosses to keep track of the souls that passed onto the afterlife." At Maka's confused face, she says. "Automatic writing is done without a pencil or person. We use it to record the names of those who move onto the afterlife on this continent."

The clairvoyant looks back to the field and watches as one of the shadows on the ground separates and approaches her, the shape of the sniffer coming into being and solidifying as it gets closer. "My demon sniffers mainly detect malevolent spirits and poltergeists after a reaping, but we keep them in the Death Room because they are exceptionally good finders in general."

There is a pause from Maka as she weighs Azusa's words-faint shadows underneath her eyes that Soul hadn't noticed make themselves apparent in the bright light of the Death Room. "So that means they're able to find names?" she asks finally.

A smile ghosts Azusa's lips. "If they're here, yes."

The sniffer pads over to sit in front of Maka, who looks uncertainly at Azusa before kneeling down to be face-to-face with the sniffer. The creature's ears prick up as Maka lists a series of names that Soul has heard her occasionally mutter in her sleep.

It doesn't move after Maka finishes, ears continuing to twitch. Then, it rises up and bounds away soundlessly, fading into the distance in a matter of seconds.

"Is that good?" Maka asks as she stands, brushing the dirt from her knees.

"It's something," Azusa replies. "Wait and see."

Soul moves to be next to Maka; there is a brittle tension twisted in her shoulders, the kind that stems from holding onto an old pain. She says nothing as they wait, fingers fidgeting anxiously at her sides.

It takes several minutes for the sniffer to return, holding a cross in its mouth as it lopes into view, trailed by five other sniffers also carrying crosses. Fluidly, it deposits the cross at Maka's feet and trots over to Azusa as its companions do the same, wagging its tail once and disappearing back into the field at the nod she gives it.

Maka bends down and picks up the crosses one by one. They're made out of strange, jet black metal that clinks together and echoes resonantly as Maka gathers them up. She doesn't appear to be breathing as she stares down at the names etched on the crosses.

Soul waits for another moment before peering over her shoulder. "Is it them?"

Maka breathes out finally and a tiny sigh escapes with it. She pulls the crosses close to her. "Yes, it is."

She turns to Azusa. Her voice wobbles slightly as she speaks. "I had thought the demon destroyed them when I was younger."

"Demons can turn a soul rotten. Consume it, even," Azusa says. Her words send a wave of nausea through Soul. "But complete destruction is outside of a demon's powers."

Azusa steps closer. "The demon that attacked you then was the same one that you defeated a few weeks ago," she says. Her gaze slides to Soul. "How did that happen?" There is no question in her voice as she asks, tilting her head to one side.

Reality takes on a bizarre and intense surrealness as he tries to focus. "I'm not sure what happened exactly," he starts, attempting to gather his thoughts. "We were cornered and then-" Soul breaks off. There was a certain kind of exhilaration bordering too closely on hunger when he possessed Maka that he doesn't care to let his mind linger on. "It was like we merged minds," he mumbles quickly. "When we touched the demon, we became unconscious. The demon was gone when we woke up."

"Possession," Azusa says, and he reluctantly nods. "Dangerous when it's direct like that," she says.

"Neither of us knew we could do that," he says defensively.

"Possession puts a strain on the bond between you two, but it isn't inherently bad." Blue or not, Azusa's gaze pierces him like a knife. "It was the thing that saved you, in this case. And it confirms what I've believed since I saw you come out of that forest."

Maka frowns. "And what does it mean?"

"It means many things," a quiet voice answers.

Soul and Maka turn in unison-it is hard to see the face of the person approaching them due to the hood of their cloak, except for their eyes, which burn a brilliant shade of gold. They come to a stop about ten feet away from the three, their cloak billowing out in front of them as they lower their hood. "Constant sleep deprivation since poltergeists have no regard for sleep schedules, for one."

The young man pulls off the black gloves from his hands and stows them in his cloak in one fluid movement. His skin is so translucent that Soul can make out the veins in his hands. "A shortened lifespan, most likely."

The bone white streaks running through one side of his hair matches the tiny skull pinned at his neck, catching the light as he draws closer, gaze moving between Soul and Maka. There is something ancient about his eyes that doesn't fit with the rest of his appearance. "But the main thing it means is that you're a reaper."