Whaaaaat? Got home from work and just had to write more. Yarrrrrr second update today. Thanks again to those that are enjoying the journey!
Disclaimer: see part 1
They were running for what felt like forever.
More specifically, Maka was running while Soul weighed down her hands in his scythe form and hoped they hadn't lost the lizard man they had spooked out of the sewers. Those 'crocodile attacks' had been suspiciously specific to the same blond haired blue eyed women of a certain age, and yet no one but the Shibusen would connect it to magical interference. Serial killings of humans were not something found in nature.
Easy assignment. Right. This guy moved fast, and the tail he had gave him enough balance to turn on a dime. The temperature at night in this tiny Florida burb was nice as could be, but the unexpected humidity was making his hilt slip around in Maka's bare hands just enough to be uncomfortable for both of them. They hadn't been practicing together that long. He had told her she should wear the gloves, but she had insisted it was too hot.
He was so bored. Maka ran, the map of the small city memorized from earlier guiding her no doubt. She might be a fashion victim and a nerd, but this wasn't her first rodeo and Soul had every faith she'd catch up to this freak even on his home turf. So Soul let his mind wander to yesterday before they caught their flight…
"Soul Eater." He had been picking up the suitcase from headquarters with all of the prepared materials to study on the plane. Maka had taken the mission suddenly, sure she was ready for active duty even though he knew she secretly still woke up in a cold sweat nearly every night as part of the after effects of their delayed binding. She was fighting to get back to normal, and Soul wasn't about to tattle on her difficulties adjusting. Their resonance rates had been spot on.
"Nygus." The part-time nurse freaked him out. Arguably Soul was the most demon-like of all the demon weapons, but if he had met Nygus in a dark alley in the Infernal realm he would have run the hell away. Dreadlocks and piercing eyes seemed to strip him of his pretenses, and he needed those to feel normal.
Snapping the case shut he finally gave her his full attention, which she would silently wait for until civilization fell if need be. Sid was an expert in stealth, he understood, and with her patience matching his they must be a terrifying duo in the field.
"We've come to understand you have been asking questions." Ah, so she was using the royal 'we'. Here on official business then.
"Isn't that what a new weapon should do?" So what if he'd been poking around? Everyone else had gotten to learn the ropes since they were kids and here he was nearly fully grown and thrown into the madness that was Maka's life.
"Before you head out into the field and encounter agents from other branches, we felt like there needed to be clarification."
This was the most she had even spoken, he thought, because she took long pauses after each sentence as if needing to recharge before the next one began.
"On the record, Kami Albarn and Spirit have a partnership and no daughter. They are retired due to injury." She paused again, letting it sink in. Soul felt glee budding inside of him as the ammo he'd wanted from day one fell into his lap against the red-haired idiot that made his life hell for no reason other than his cohabitation with Maka. "While we are aware that in proximity to base Spirit takes liberties with emotional expression, you will never refer to Maka Albarn as 'Spirit's daughter'."
His conniving grin made his intentions too obvious.
"And if you value the life of yourself and your partner you will curtail your emotions for Maka Albarn."
That wiped the smile right off his face.
Are you always this slow? If Soul could yawn at that moment, he would have.
Maka zipped an irritated feeling his way through their connection before she turned down a dark corner that forked off into a cul de sac. Grim happiness marked her sense that she was closing in on her quarry. Soul wasn't sure how she knew where to go, but he was glad she was getting there. He hadn't had a proper meal in ages.
Your hands are sweaty and it's gross. You should have worn gloves. He was grumbling, unable to contribute any other way to the chase.
They both spied the flash of tail headed for a large drain. Hopefully it was too small to fit the murderous beast, and it would be forced to stand and fight. Maka was probably hoping the same, but he could feel her waffling apprehension.
Don't worry we got this guy. I'm amazing and you're a lot better than you started. That first time in the woods when she had caught him on all sorts of tree branches, even dropping him once on the way to the car, had been so traumatic he wasn't going to let her forget it. He had landed in mud. Smelly mud!
That at least got a smile from her, and Soul felt that warm feeling inside he'd been experiencing a lot around her recently. But then that just took him right back to his conversation with Nygus…
"Whatever. I don't have emotions for Maka. Whatever you think you see is probably just spillover from her sloppy resonance."
"We've considered that. However, there have been instances in which you've been given opportunities to end your association and you have not capitalized on them as logic and precedent would dictate."
Soul paced across the room, grabbing handfuls of his hair. "Are you saying I'm suspicious because I didn't murder my master?!" The leather jacket was creaking as he gesticulated in exasperation. It only reminded him further of the terrible (wonderful?) day when Maka nearly died at his hand. He still remembered how close to madness he had been, driven by his music harder and faster than ever before, only to be shocked back to sanity by what had been the equivalent of a cold shower applied to his soul when she had finished the binding.
The reason he knew she hardly slept at night was because he was already awake to hear her pacing outside his door. Her screams and convulsions from that day were just REM sleep away for him, and he hated that they disturbed him.
"If you were in my place, would you have killed Sid?"
"Yes." Her voice was steady and quick. Maybe he should have expected something like that. Nygus was the model of a demon weapon, all sharpness and no softness. "With no contract to fault on, and only a small soul penalty, it is the only smart choice to make in your situation. Your power would have increased a hundred fold and you would have been able to return to the Infernal realm a demon lord."
Soul closed his gaping mouth with a snap only to feel his teeth grind together in anger.
"Not everything is about seeking power." He said the first thing that came to him, immediately sensing his error.
"Then you will have to tell us what else defines your partnership. In time." Soul was dismissed. He could hear it in her tone, and she turned to walk away while he fumed. Anything else he said, regardless of his intentions, would only incriminate him further in the minds of the establishment. "You act as irregularly as Spirit. We can't afford another Kami Albarn."
Soul was left with a sour taste in his mouth as Nygus left him to finish taking inventory of the supplies. Being compared to Spirit was deeply uncool.
"I don't usually go for green eyes, but I'll make an exception for you little girl." The beast smiled with what looked like three sets of teeth in a jaw that only wanted to accommodate one. On closer examination Soul felt like his were sharper. Ugh, and cleaner.
"I'd offer you mercy, but that would be a lie." Maka only spoke to circle around to the left and give herself better positioning for the reaping motion Soul needed to be most effective. They weren't well practiced enough for fancy moves, but this creature didn't seem to have any tricks if you had reach on it.
"I wish all the girls were so willing to play. Mostly they just screamed as I pealed the muscle from their bones…"
Maka wasn't even listening to him, as she swept across and up with Soul gleefully arcing through the air. The lizard man put down one heavily armored forearm, expecting to stop her in mid-swipe. Normal metal would never have pierced his reinforcements but demon steel was otherworldly and the creature was cleft in two as easily as the old couch Soul had hated.
The screech it gave as its innards spilled on the ground and it's soul condensed into a tightly spinning red ball obviously hurt Maka's ears because she crinkled up her face against it. To her credit she never lost her hold on Soul, but the choice was taken from her as he transformed so quickly he stumbled and landed hard on his hip.
The soul was delicious as he chewed it into its basic energy essence and let it nourish parts of him that were impossible to liken to any digestive system humans diagramed. Maybe it was more like being a rechargeable battery, only the more energy he put in the larger the battery got, in time. Soul felt amazing, he wanted to pick Maka up and twirl her around, but he thought again of Nygus and put a hard stop on that impulse.
Maka had her hands on her knees, still trying to get her breath back entirely from the long run she'd been subjected to before the extremely short battle.
"We have to go, Soul. No time for clean up. See those lights that came on after the scream? Cops'll be here soon, or worse—neighborhood watch. Scared people with guns and not much training… There's a reason Killik won't take jobs in Florida."
"Need help?" He said with a smirk playing on his lips. Soul felt like he could bench press a building and run a marathon with the abomination's soul singing in his body.
Maka snorted and put a hand on her side where she no doubt had a stitch. "First one back to the hotel gets a hot shower!"
As he gave her a slight head start he realized with a frown that while she had memorized the city map he had barely glanced at it. He took off at speed to catch her before she was out of visual range even as the red and blue lights passed them by to go evaluate the grisly scene they had abandoned.
Soul was in such a good mood he didn't even feel a scrap of offense as she set her wards around her single mattress in the crappy hotel room they were sharing. His own similarly lumpy single was just an arms length away, but he knew spiritually the distance was much farther. Hadn't he proved he wasn't going to kill her on a whim? Maybe the way Nygus thought was the norm and he was just a freak. Maybe all scythes really were imbalanced.
"Hey Maka, what's up with your parents?"
She was brushing out her wet hair, letting it air dry for once. Even though Soul had beaten her back to the hotel he had let her have the first shower anyway, and she had been ready for bed before he had gotten done with his own cool shower. It was so late it was early, but Soul was too wound up from getting his first proper meal since being dumped on this mortal plane to even think about sleep.
The sigh she gave seemed to come from somewhere deep. "I wondered when you were going to ask me."
"What?"
"Everyone warned me you were poking around. I kind of hoped you'd just forget about it…"
"What the hell, you just let me make an ass of myself with everyone I know? What the hell kind of partner are you?" Soul grumbled and shook his head so that his wet hair sprayed everything around him including Maka.
"Oh very mature!" She wrinkled her nose in his direction, sitting cross legged on the bed in her sleeping shorts and shirt. Soul stared at her a second longer than he meant to and then crossed the room quickly to turn up the AC a little more. When she protested him freezing them out, he mumbled something about humidity.
It was hard to let go of the parent thing, though, and his brain was buzzing with fresh energy and deep confusion over Nygus' accusations. Every few minutes, while Maka tried to fall asleep with a book in hand, he kept prodding her for an answer. Eventually, he figured, she had to crack.
"AUGH. I don't like talking about them ok? It's not like you're exactly gushing about your family either. I'll talk about mine if you talk about yours."
He could work with that. "Deal! Now spill."
The tables had turned on her so quickly, and Maka was so tired that it took her a moment to process what had happened. "Uh. Oh. Ok. Um. Yeah. Where do I start…?" She set her book down on the end table, carefully marking her place with the slip of paper the library had issued her with the due date printed on it. As Soul waited as patiently as he was able, she fluffed her pillow and put it behind her back again. Her eyes were drooping, so he knew he was running out of time to get answers.
"Is Spirit your dad? I mean, like really really?"
"You know that's hardly possible. If demons and people could have children so easily there would be a lot more business for witch hunters…"
"Tell me the story, Maka, you're stalling."
Maka was holding herself rigid on her bed, mouth drawn into a tight line. Soul didn't like putting her under pressure for answers, but he needed to know what was so terrible that everyone knew about but no one wanted to let him in on.
"My mama, Kami, and my papa, Spirit… they fell in love." She said it as if it were some terrible revelation.
"Ok." When Soul didn't react it seemed to take a lot of the energy out of Maka and she sank into her words. They were monotone, like she was trying to divorce them from any sort of emotion inside of her.
"You have to understand, my mama got her weapon a little later than other witch hunters. When papa appeared he was like the answer to a prayer, and they got so powerful so quickly… I think it was just a really intense experience for both of them." Maka was pulling in on herself, holding her knees to her chest defensively. "So when my mama wanted a baby… well as you know demons and humans are hardly compatible…" Clearing her throat, Maka skipped over the biology lesson she no doubt wondered if she needed to give him. He'd let her sweat that one out on her own. Soul knew about sex even if he hadn't experienced it with a human. Black Star's porn collection was impressive. It sounded plenty curious, and looked a lot less dangerous than the demon version.
"She scouted out a suitably athletic and anonymous partner and, well, I was the product of that. It broke papa's heart. They stopped being able to resonate as soon as she told him she was pregnant. He started to drink and throw himself at other women…" Maka's voice had been shrinking until he could barely hear it over the AC. "They destroyed each other, really. I was in grade school when mama finally broke their contract,"
A weapon and a master falling in love hadn't struck Soul as particularly scandalous, but the idea of breaking a contract touched something at his core and he shivered in revulsion. Having no contract was one thing, but breaking one was impossible to consider.
"As per the forfeit clause." Maka had to stare at the ceiling to pull herself together. "Papa, Spirit, he gained half of her soul."
There wasn't anything else to say. Magically, it was possible to fissure a soul, but it would ravage a person's mind. That Maka's mother was still alive and mostly herself was testament to her strength. No wonder Kami wasn't on active duty.
"You might say Spirit is as much my mama as my actual mama…" It was a lame joke but she made it anyway to lighten the mood. It was too close to a painful truth. Soul let his mouth quirk up, but he didn't feel like laughing at all. That's what everyone was afraid of for them—that Maka and Soul would turn out just like Kami and Spirit and cripple their fighting force yet again because of something as silly as personal issues.
He examined the lines of pain around Maka's mouth as she busily stuffed down her leaking emotions. They didn't need resonance for Soul to see that she blamed herself for the tragedy her parents had enacted. He wanted to comfort her, to wrap himself around her, but more than just the wards she had set stopped him. Terror at his own weakness and fear that Nygus was right were more effective than any ward she could have set.
"Lucky for me, I'm a weird looking jerk. No chance of a repeat of that bullshit!" Soul bared his teeth at her, making a purposefully ugly face. He was rewarded with a huff of amusement from her.
"Your turn." She said, cocking her head to the side and facing him more completely. Her defensive posture eased now that her work was done.
"What?"
"It's your turn to tell me about your parents."
Soul laid down on the lumpy mattress and threw his arm over his face. "Pssh. You didn't say when I had to talk about mine. Good thing you didn't draw up a contract for me, you suck at negotiation."
He heard the angry noise, but he didn't count on her accurate and vicious aim at his groin with what turned out to be a very hard hotel pillow. Maka flipped off the light and fell asleep to the sound of Soul cursing her in demonic.