Noun; a battle against an imaginary enemy

Maka wakes up in the morning with her headache mostly gone, although a mild throbbing remains when she lifts her head. Remnants of her dreams stick to her like strands of silk, which she thinks she can taste in her mouth; it takes a moment to make certain that she's still in her bed and not trapped on giant spider web.

"It's nearly nine." The sunlight filtering through the window makes Soul hard to find but it's soothing when she does, further proof that her dream was only that. "Feeling better from yesterday?"

"Yes and no." She sits up, rubbing her face with both hands. There's a coolness in the one that held Soul's hand in Abeyance but she can't tell if it's pleasant or the beginning of a deeper chill. "I dreamed I was dead again."

"Not fun."

"It was just as terrible as the time I was really dead."

She raises her face from her hands. "Is that insensitive?"

He shrugs. "About the same as calling life a bottomless pit of disappointment."

A corner of her mouth pulls upward. "Fair enough."

"It was so real," she says after a brief pause. "You weren't there."

She looks up at Soul; his eyes are a lighter shade of crimson, different than the maroon shade they take when he's distant. "Well, I'm definitely here, as promised," he says. "Not in the flesh, exactly, but in spirit, yes."

Her aim with her pillow is spectacularly off-target. "If I become a ghost when I die, I pray I never make half as many ghost puns."

"Not everyone recognizes genius."

Spirit is in the living room when Maka comes downstairs, engrossed in the house of cards he's constructing on the coffee table. "Hey, sweetie."

"Hey." She heads into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, taking out the pitcher of orange juice Spirit makes on the weekends."You going out to bowling practice today?"

"Can't let the fire fighters beat us for the third year in the row," says Spirit as he carefully places another card on the growing tower and waits to see if it will fall or not. "I'm meeting the team in a bit."

She notices the open folder next to him. "Another missing dog report?"

"Another acid victim," he answers, running his thumb across the card in his hand. "Another person was found with the same injuries as the unusual death case from last month, though the body was found near the woods on the border of here and Moricio."

"So it's no longer an unusual death case now," she says.

"It's a murder investigation," Spirit agrees ruefully. "First one we've had in six years."

He looks up at Maka. "You're still going over to see Tsubaki with Black Star?"

She nods as she finishes the glass of orange juice and moves back into the kitchen to put it in the sink. "We're going to be over for lunch and dinner probably."

"I don't think it's a good idea to be driving out after dark with everything that's happened." Spirit frowns, lying down the rest of the cards in his hand. "And especially after almost hitting that deer yesterday."

It takes Maka a moment to remember the story she told Spirit to explain why she was so quiet at dinner. "I have an extra set of eyes with me this time and I know self-defense," she says, omitting the fact that she won't be the one driving. "It'll be fine."

His frown doesn't go away. "Black Star only has a driving permit."

"Doesn't mean he can't keep an eye out for stray deer."

Spirit makes a noise that can be interpreted as reluctant agreement. He picks up a card and leans forward again, oblivious to Soul who hovers above the card tower, fingers not quite touching the top card.

Maka grabs her backpack, stored with Tsubaki's card and gifts, and walks into the living room to where Spirit sits to give him a one-armed hug. He keeps the silver threading through his hair well-hidden but there's no way to hide it up close. "I'll let you know when I get there and when I'm coming back."

He pats her shoulder. "Could you get the mail on your way out?"

"Sure." She straightens and gives Soul a look as his hand grazes the tower.

Spirit follows her gaze. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing." She takes the card from Spirit's hand and balances it on the top of the card tower, giving Spirit a triumphant look when it doesn't fall over.

"Impressive," he says as she gives his arm a squeeze and moves away to the front door.

"I learned from the best," she answers, tugging her hat on before she opens the door. "Have fun bowling."

The promise of snow hangs in the blast of cold air that buffets Maka as soon as she opens the door; she dances in place as she opens the mailbox that's nailed next to their front door and peers in.

"Have you ever thought about telling him again?" Soul asks as she takes out the mail and begins to sort through it. "About seeing ghosts?"

She lets out something halfway to a laugh. "Given how well that went the first time, I generally ignore thinking about that. And things are finally settled for once," she says. She stops looking through the mail and lets the sorted mail fall back in the pile. It's mostly ads anyway, things that she knows Spirit won't mind her throwing away. "I don't want to ruin it."

As she's opening the recycling can at the end of the driveway, something wedged between the ads falls out and she bends down to pick up a postcard with a picture of a forest with mountains in the background. It only takes a single glance at the handwriting on the back of the card to know where it's from.

Maka runs her thumb over the place where her mother wrote her name. She hadn't heard from her since the phone call last month and she's similarly avoided thinking about it too much.

"Is it?"

She nods once to Soul's question. There's not much written on the postcard other than a generic greeting and a couple lines about where she has traveled over the years. It ends with her mother wishing her well, and in it, Maka sees the not-so-subtle question.

She rereads the postcard again, and then again, until Soul speaks again. "Are you going to answer her?"

"I still don't know." Maka throws the pile of mail in the trash and swings the lid shut.

When she gets into the truck, she tucks the postcard in the front pocket of her backpack.

Tsubaki sweeps Maka and Black Star into a brief hug at her dorm's doorway before releasing them quickly. "Don't judge."

Stepping back, she lets them into the room, which resembles an upended library that hasn't been cleaned in days. Tsubaki usually wears exhaustion gracefully, but the five empty coffee mugs lying on her desk speak otherwise as Maka and Black Star enter, Soul following above overhead.

"My roommate left a few days ago, so I have our whole room to myself." She flits around the room, snatching books and clothes off the floor. Her hair is tied back in a messy bun, and there is the faint smell of fish that sticks to her clothes as she hauls away a pile of sweaters from a pair of bean bag chairs and lays it on her bed. "Which means the mess is mine."

"You're in college, which also means messy is a fashion style," Maka says, taking a look around the room. Tsubaki's half of the room is marked by the bulletin board over her desk; it's mostly covered in pictures of Tsubaki with her family or of her hanging out with Maka and Black Star. All of her family photos are from the last few years, although Maka catches a glimpse of a faded family picture peeking from behind the calendar pinned on the left side of the board.

There is a false edge to Tsubaki's laugh as she perches on the edge of her bed. "I'd rather not become a stereotype." She gestures to the bean bags and the bed. "You can sit."

Maka takes a seat next to her while Black Star picks up an open notebook from her desk before falling back on one of the bean bags. He flips it around, showing the anatomical sketch on the page. "Looks like your time at the fish lab is going well."

"That's the brain of a squid, actually," Tsubaki says. "One of the grad students in the lab asked me to help out with a project of theirs."

Black Star raises an eyebrow. "I hope you're getting credit for all of these projects you're helping out with."

"Being a lab assistant means doing all of the work while expecting none of the credit." Tsubaki moves aside some of her books to scoot back further on the bed. "But my research professor looks for new projects to take on in the spring, which is why I stayed over break to start on my proposal."

Maka peeks at the spines of the books near her, all of which have a multitude of colorful sticky notes poking out of them. "It looks like you're writing a thesis instead of a proposal," she says. "Do you sleep?"

"I'm making efficient use of my time." Tsubaki's tone is light, but there is a distracted agitation in her words that's obvious now that she's not moving. "Occasionally that includes sleeping."

"Well, now is the time for gifts," declares Black Star. He pulls out the card that Maka made last night while she unzips her backpack to bring out the basket she and Black Star had arranged and wrapped before they began their drive.

Tsubaki protests as she's given the card and basket. "I thought we agreed on a no-gift policy this year."

"Exceptions are made for swamped biotechnology majors," Black Star replies.

She gives him a look but opens the basket, eyes lighting up at the portable charger and scarf Maka knitted. "My phone's battery always dies before my classes end and my face freezes when I go across campus," she says as she pulls Maka into a hug and holds out an arm for Black Star, holding them tightly. "Thank you, I love it."

"You might want to hold off on saying that until you see Maka's card," Black Star says in a muffled voice against Tsubaki's shoulder.

"Hey." Maka lifts her head, scowling. "I spent a lot of time on those candy canes."

"And they still look like miniature barber poles."

She levels a veiled glare from Black Star to Soul, who laughs from the other side of the room. "You were the one who asked me to make the card."

"Because I knew it'd be hilarious," he answers casually as he leans back.

"And I'm sure I'll love it either way," Tsubaki interjects.

Maka digs in her backpack, tossing a small package to Black Star. "Your card is computer-generated."

Black Star stares down at the package for a moment. "Well, now I feel like an asshole."

She arches an eyebrow. "For making fun of my art skills?"

"For listening to you when you said not to get you a gift!"

"It's only a pair of earmuffs," she says. "I didn't think that a hat would fit with your hairstyle choices."

He jumps to his feet. "I'm going to the campus store."

"I don't think it's open," Tsubaki calls as he shoots out of the door.

"He'll be back with something either way," Maka says, giving her eyes a roll as Tsubaki stares after him in mild exasperation.

"That's what I'm worried about."

Maka rises to stretch her feet and twists around to face Tsubaki. Now that she can get a proper look at Tsubaki, she can see the strain behind her smile, along with the fading shadows underneath her eyes. "How are you handling the first year stress?"

"I think you mean how is the stress handling me." Tsubaki seems to deflate, shoulders sagging. "I don't know, it's nothing." She rubs her eyes. "It's probably just the pressure of taking five courses, being a lab assistant, and trying to have a social life."

"That can happen," Maka says cautiously. Tsubaki doesn't hold onto hurt as tightly as she does, the result of being born with a stubborn softness, but it leaves its impression and she processes the impact quietly. "So long as you're taking care of yourself too."

"And you?" Tsubaki asks. "How has life been?"

She doesn't miss how Tsubaki avoids the question but she doesn't press. "School is school, so normal as usual," Maka says as last night replays in her head. Not being able to be fully honest is a dull ache she has yet to get used to. "Black Star almost burnt down the chemistry lab last week."

Tsubaki shakes her head. "He told me it was an accident."

"To be fair, the chemistry club was giving a hands-on demonstration about how chemicals burn different colors." She drifts over to the desk-there aren't many pictures of Tsubaki on campus yet.

"And your dad?"

"More responsibility, but he seems to be handling it well." Her eyes fall back on the picture behind the calendar-the person holding Tsubaki in their arms is hidden, but given the wheelchair in the background, she can guess who it is. She drums her fingers against the desk, measuring the words in her mind before she speaks them aloud. "I got a postcard from my mom."

Tsubaki's eyes widen. "Today?"

"A whole five years later."

"What did it say?"

"I have it, actually." Maka's heart thrums rapidly in her chest as she goes to her backpack and digs for the postcard. The meeting at the DWMA and its aftermath had entirely driven her mother's call out of her mind, and when she had remembered, she hadn't resisted the instinct to bury the memory.

She brings it out now, along with the postcard. "A few weeks ago, I got a call from her."

Tsubaki takes the card, studies the front for a few moments, and then flips it over to the back. "She's in France," she says as she reads.

"And she's been to Venice and Tokyo too." Maka tries and fails to keep the simmering anger out of her tone as she sits back down next to Tsubaki.

"Did you answer her call?" she asks, holding out the card.

"Nope." She takes back the card and puts it away. "She's tried a couple more times but I didn't answer then, either."

"Do you want to answer?"

It frustrates her that her answer doesn't change, no matter who asks. "I don't know."

"Have you asked yourself if you want to?"

She's quiet for a minute. "Not particularly."

"That's probably where you should start." Tsubaki is gentle, even when she's smashing the truth over her head. "Though I know that's hard to do."

"Yeah." Maka holds back a sigh. "It is."

"And if you need to talk to someone about it, I'm generally up till the early hours of the morning," Tsubaki says, neatly closing the subject. "My coherency gets lost sometime around two, however."

She huffs something close to a laugh. "You're overworking yourself."

"I'm aware."

The seriousness in Tsubaki's voice is uncharacteristic. "The teas from Black Star should help," Maka suggests after a moment. "Both with the stress and the sleep."

She shakes her head. "Getting to sleep isn't the problem." Tsubaki's words sound forced and almost unwilling.

Maka frowns. "Then what is?"

Tsubaki unclips her hair, shakes it out and bunches it in one hand. Her gaze is unfocused as she stares at the floor. "I've been dreaming about him again."

Maka doesn't need to ask who she means-Masamune is the only hurt that Tsubaki refuses to let go of. Although Tsubaki was four years younger, the rare blood disorder her brother had been born with had forced her to grow up quickly at a young age. She took and felt more responsibility than she had to, and when Masamune's kidneys started failing and she wasn't a match, she had blamed herself when he died a few months later.

Maka glances at Soul, and then she looks at Tsubaki. "What kind of dreams?"

"They change often," she says. "Sometimes we're kids again, sometimes we're somewhere we've never been before." Tsubaki hesitates. "But it always comes down to the same thing. Choosing between me or him." She lets go of her hair, hands dropping to her lap. "I always choose myself."

"It's easier to focus on all of this," she says, gesturing to the textbooks, "And everything else than to be in my head."

"Tsu-"

"I know what it means," she says, waving it away. "I've been to the university's counseling center. Misplaced guilt and delayed grieving."

Maka fumbles for a moment; she prefers troubleshooting to comforting, and right now, she has no idea which Tsubaki needs. "Did it help?"

Tsubaki's mouth splits into a smile too harsh to be sincere. "I got a prescription for antidepressants."

"Is that why you don't want to go home?" she asks. "So your parents don't find out?"

"There's nothing to find out." Tsubaki says, shaking her head. "I haven't filled it."

Maka weighs her words carefully. "Do you want to?"

She answers with a shrug.

"Have you asked yourself if you want to?"

Tsubaki rolls her eyes. "That's very clever."

"But still sincere."

For a long moment, Tsubaki is quiet. "I think I need to be home to think about that."

"That's a fair answer."

She looks at Maka. "Is it okay if I hitch a ride?"

Maka nudges her shoulder with her own. "No need to ask questions you know the answer to."

At that moment, Black Star chooses to make his entrance with a loud bang. "The campus store was open."

He strides in and presents Maka with a tiny potted cactus. "I know you hate dead things so I got you something that you only have to water it once a week."

"Wonderful," she says, accepting the cactus as Soul laughs in the background.

Dusk is beginning to touch down by the time they leave Tsubaki's dorm. Soul feels slightly useless as he watches Maka and Black Star help Tsubaki load her things in Maka's truck, something he tells Maka when she makes a detour to the vending machine in front of the dormitory halls.

"Considering your help would get the school investigated by Ghost Hunters , it's probably best if you reserved it for organizing my bookshelf or helping me clean the kitchen," she says, bending down to retrieve the bottle of water from the machine.

"Or watering your cactus once a week," he adds. "Since you hate dead things."

"It was a defining characteristic when I was younger," she says as a light blush appears on her face. "Obviously, it's changed."

"Pretty recently, it seems."

"About a year and half in the making," she says, taking a sip of water. "Hopefully my gift makes up for some of the middle months."

He blinks. "A gift?"

"It's on the top shelf of my closet, which is why I haven't let you go in there for the past month." She turns her gaze to her water bottle, blush deepening. "It's not a gift exactly, but it's the closest word for it."

Death, Soul finds, does not keep the somersault feeling from springing to life in his stomach. "What is it?"

She hesitates "I should keep it a secret but-" Her eyes move back to Soul's. "I traced Wes' life through the newspapers and some TV interviews he gave about you and made it into a kind of scrapbook."

"It's not the same as actually being there," Maka says quickly in response to his silence. "But I thought it would help fill in some of the gap."

'"It will." He finds his voice. "It's hard to remember what he looked like sometimes or what his voice sounded like or even imagine him alive-" He's on the edge of rambling so he cuts himself off. "Thank you."

The dying light paints the sky in a rainbow of iridescence, but it is Maka's smile that is mesmerizing. "I would have brought it along but it would have been hard to give to you."

"Giving a dead person a gift is difficult," he agrees before pausing. "How do you think she's going to do?"

"Tsubaki is strong," Maka says as they head towards the doors to the dorms. "It'll be tough, however, I-"

The doors open as she reaches for the handle, and Black Star stares at Maka curiously, arms full with a box full of books Tsubaki rented. "Who are you talking to?"

Maka hides her jump with a scowl. "Myself."

He raises his eyebrows at that but doesn't comment. "We're ready to go after this," he says. "Tsubaki is already waiting by the truck."

"I hope you know that I'll be the one driving home," she says as they head out to the parking lot.

"But driving in the dark would be good practice," he protests.

"Good practice at getting my license revoked."

They argue all the way back to the truck, but Maka wins out in the end. Soul takes a spot in the truck bed; becoming accustomed to the pain inflicted by the whispers had lulled him into a false sense of security that his ride with Maka and Black Star in the morning had shattered.

Soul can feel the whispers waiting to expand into a thousand needlepoints to pull apart his mind, but it's dim enough that he can tilt his head back and watch the stars get eaten up and spat back out by the storm clouds crawling across the sky.

The muffled sound of Maka's laugh is what makes him lift his head; he begins to drift closer so he can catch the conversersation thread that made her laugh before he realizes what he's doing.

He moves back to his spot and stares at the empty spaces between the stars, hands curling in his lap. Promising Maka to be here in the aftermath of Giriko's ambush and then again last night was simple to promise and easy to fulfill with their bond, but it is increasingly clear that he is not enough in so many ways other than what the whispers plant in his head, starting with the fact that he is dead.

It does little good to dwell on since there's no option other than to stay (and even if he did, he thinks he likes being around her too much to want to leave) but it doesn't keep the thoughts from twisting like a knife into his head.

These thoughts keep him preoccupied until they reach the shelled remains of old Orcus Hollow, and he hears rather than feels the truck hit something very hard in the middle of the road. The truck swerves, riding alongside the edge of the road, which drops off sharply into a ditch.

Soul braces himself on instinct and the truck abruptly stops, momentum causing it to tip forward dangerously before righting itself.

There's a flurry of voices from the cab of the truck, and then Maka, Black Star and Tsubaki exit from the truck. Black Star sports a bloody nose and Tsubaki's face is nearly the same shade as his hair. "I thought we were going to drive off the road," she says, peering over to where the tire on the passenger side hangs off the asphalt. "What did we hit?"

"Whatever it was, it was very sharp," Black Star says thickly through his nosebleed, pointing to the rear tire. Not only is it completely deflated, but pieces of the rubber still clinging on are shredded like something tore threw them.

Soul looks at Maka, who has remained silent. She doesn't appear hurt but there's a horrified kind of clarity frozen on her face that tells him she saw what hit the truck. Blinking rapidly, she comes back to life, eyeing the flat tire. "I have a spare tire in the truck bed."

"I'm going to find some tissues for Black Star first," says Tsubaki. "He can't do anything with that nosebleed."

"Yes, I can!" Black Star takes his hand from his nose, which results in fresh rivulets of blood running down his face.

Tsubaki tugs on his arm. "No, you're not."

"I'll get started and you can help when the bleeding stops." Maka strides for the truck bed, pulling down the bed's door.

Soul joins her. "What happened?"

Maka opens the tool compartment and hauls out the box inside. "I saw something right before we hit."

"Was it that thing from last night?"

"No, but-" She shakes her head. "I must have seen wrong."

He frowns. "What did you see wrong?"

Black Star and Tsubaki appear then, Black Star with several tissues stuffed up his nose. "Here," Maka says quickly, handing him the toolbox, before turning back to the truck. "Tsubaki and I can carry-"

She trails off as the compartment door swings open, completely empty.

"Where's the spare?" asks Black Star, peering over Tsubaki's shoulder.

"Obviously not here," Maka snaps. There's an edge of panic in her voice. She pushes her hair out of her face, taking a deep breath. "My dad said he was going to check the air pressure on all the spares a while ago so he must have forgot to put it back."

"A lot of good it does us now," grumbles Black Star.

"What does help us is calling for help," Tsubaki says before Maka can respond, pulling out her phone from her pocket. "Although a signal would also help."

Maka takes out her phone as well. "I don't have a signal either."

They all look at Black Star, who shugs sheepishly. "It might be on my nightstand in my room."

"A lot of good it does us now," Maka says pointedly. She sighs. "We shouldn't stay in the middle of the road."

"There's some houses that aren't too burned out up ahead." Black Star points across the road. "And occasionally, you can get a good signal."

Tsubaki eyes the burned out houses in the distance. "So long as we don't go into any of the houses since they might be unstable."

Soul glances at Maka; he's sure that she feels the soft murmurs coming from the old town too.

He can't read the look on her face as she stares at the town's corpse. She moves finally, starting for the town. "We go back to the truck after we call for help."

"Yes, yes," Black Star says, tentatively pulling a tissue from his nose as he follows. "We all know how much you hate the old ghost town."

An odd kind of nostalgia sweeps through Soul as they enter Orcus Hollow; the hushed murmurs of the dead pause at their entry, but he doesn't dare to look at any of the ghosts that might be peering out of the windows.

The remains of the town carry a hollow loneliness that screams louder than anything Soul has ever heard. Overgrown plants and weeds throttle what Soul recognizes as the main road that used to split the town in two, the burned out hulls of buildings looming over them like the rotting bodies of giants, although there are a few buildings that seemed to have survived the brunt of the fire.

"There's the building I set fire to on Halloween." Black Star peels off towards a large two-story store that still has fresh burn marks. "I got a signal there."

Tsubaki twists to Maka, eyebrows raised. "Still a no-questions favor?"

"Very much so," she says. "Though I maintain I asked for a distraction, not arson."

Soul keeps his voice low as they makes their way to the store, even though Tsubaki nor Black Star can hear him. "You okay?"

They're far away enough that Maka can look at him. "Alright enough."

Black Star leaps onto the porch when they reach the store and spins to face them, floorboards creaking ominously under him. "Any luck?"

Tsubaki glances at her phone. "Nothing yet."

"Same here," Maka says with a sigh.

"I was on the second floor when I got your call," says Black Star. He pushes past the tape barrier put up by the fire department and opens .

"What did I say about going into buildings?" Tsubaki hisses, although she follows him in anyway.

Soul turns in the doorway when he doesn't sense Maka behind him and sees her pausing on the front steps. "Something wrong?"

She gives her head a shake, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets as she heads up the steps. "I have a bad feeling, but that's how I feel about everything at the moment."

Soul feels his eyes widen as he trails after Maka and looks around; the outside was too burned for him to remember it, but the glass counter at the far end of the store and the black and white tiles of the floor are instantly recognizable.

"This was the confectionary I would go to with Wes on the weekends," he says, drifting forward to examine the counter. The bronze pole where the owner would hang freshly made batches of lollipops is still there, albeit melted and tarnished, and for a moment, he can see the store come to life again, hear the music on the vinyl record in the corner as Wes waits for him to choose which candy to buy.

"There's nothing." Tsubaki's voice breaks the illusion, and the store is empty and gutted again. She looks up from her phone, leaning on the railing of the staircase that led to the confectionary's supply room.

"We're going to head up," Black Star says, already tapping his foot against the first stair. "You coming?"

"I'm going to stay on the first floor," Maka answers with a discreet glance to Soul. "See if I could find a signal someplace here or nearby."

Tsubaki frowns. "Shouldn't we stick together?"

"This isn't a horror movie." Maka edges closer to Soul. "And you're only one floor away."

"Yet you insist like sounding like you're in one," Tsubaki sighs. "Don't wander too far," she warns. "Yell if you need anything."

"I will." Maka moves to the glass counter by Soul but she doesn't speak until Black Star and Tsubaki are out of earshot. "Are you okay being here?"

He nods, even though he's not sure he should. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's the place where you lived." She walks behind the counter, peering in the empty racks that would hold the candy. "It doesn't bother you to see it like this?"

He shrugs, heading for the back room behind the counter. "It's people that mattered, not the place," he says, finding that he means it. "And they're gone now."

Maka follows him, opening the door and looking down at her phone. "But the mem-" She freezes as her eyes lock with something in the corner in the room.

Soul traces her gaze across the room to the the woman crouched below the window. The woman takes no notice of either of them as she stares down at the ground with a hollow look in her eyes, fingers dragging against the floor in a rote, mindless motion. Moonlight streams through her as easily as the glass above and she has her face half-hidden in her hair as she mumbles something to herself over and over.

Soul glances at Maka, who looks horrified, gripping the door knob tightly. "Is she a poltergeist?"

"Look at the other side of her face," she whispers.

He looks back at the woman. Her head moves back and forth a little as she scrapes her nails across the floor, and Soul tilts forward, not wanting to move any closer. It takes a few moments to register the strands of coiling and uncoiling shadow that make up the other half of her face.

"It's wrong." The poltergeist speaks up for the first time. Her voice is slow and garbled. "I don't want to be here."

Maka starts but she doesn't back away. "What do we do?"

He gestures to the door. "Leave. Shut the door tightly."

She scoffs. '"And hope she just stays put?"

Soul nods. "Exactly, let's go."

The poltergeist speaks again. Her fingers scrabble against the floor more desperately. "It's wrong."

He makes the mistake of looking over at the poltergeist again. The side where her face is consumed by shadow is rotting, but not in the way dead things do; her collarbone is caved in and crumbling away, bleached a sickly white while threads of shadow slowly inch through and take over.

Maka glares at him. "You remember what Marie said happens to the poltergeists. What if that's happening right now?"

He matches her glare. "There's nothing we can do."

"There is one thing we can do," she says stiffly. "But you won't agree to it."

He fights to make himself heard over the moans of the poltergeist. "Direct possession is dangerous."

"Not when it's only done a few times," she says in a fierce whisper. "We just have to touch her."

He shakes his head. "I still don't agree with it."

Maka bursts. "Why?"

He throws his hands up in the air. "I'm trying to protect you!"

The poltergeist lets out a harsh rattle, a noise that claws at Soul's ears, and they both turn in time to see the wings from last night silently enter through the tiny gap between the glass and the window sill. They wrap around the poltergeist like chains, pausing before they jerk the poltergeist through the wall.

A low, familiar clicking fills the air before either of them can react, and Soul catches a glimpse of the spider's reflection in the window right as it drops down onto the floor.

Maka does not scream when the spider lands in front of her and Soul, pincers dripping with a clear venom that makes the wood blacken as it drips onto the floor. Its body isn't yet covered in steely chitin and it's smaller than the other spiders she saw in Abeyance, but it still stands well over six feet tall.

There is a part of Maka's brain that recognizes the spider as real and not an illusion produced by nightmares, but a far greater part of her is frozen, stuck on a giant web in Abeyance again. She dimly registers the spider stirring to life, a small voice in her mind wondering why it hasn't killed her yet when Soul's face swims in her vision. "Move!"

His voice breaks her trance and she finds her feet, staggering back. She claps a hand over her mouth as she collides into the counter-it's unlikely that Black Star or Tsubaki will be able to see the spider, but she doesn't think that'll keep them from being cut in half by the spider's pincers.

She doesn't wait to see if the spider will follow, grabbing a misshapen pole from the floor as she runs as quietly as possible out of the confectionary. Instead of heading into one of the other buildings in the old town, Maka veers into the forest lining the remnants of Orcus Hollow, the roar of her heartbeat drowning everything else out.

The light from the moon overhead guides her path as Maka sprints between the trees; she can no longer hear the spider's clicking, but she knows it won't take long for it to find her. An exposed root sends her sprawling face-first into a tree, knocking the pole out of her hand. She tastes blood and feels something warm dripping down her knee, fingers blindly scrabbling against the tree truck as she shoves herself to her feet.

Soul is right in front of her. "What are you doing? A forest is the kind of place that thing thrives in!"

Maka meets his eyes, digging her heels into the ground. "I'm sorry."

"What-" Soul's sentence is cut off as Maka reaches out and pushes her hand into his.

Although she braced herself, she still shudders-there's nothing that could've prepared her for the wave of disorientation as Soul's thoughts surface in her mind. They shutter closed almost immediately, but his feelings don't; confusion mixed with almost-elation and a rush of nausea that's not hers sweep through them. "Are you okay?"

Maybe. A vague upsetness mixes in with the rest of his feelings. A warning would have been nice.

Guilt pricks at the back of their neck. "I know, I-"

A sudden series of clicks cause them to straighten; the clicks echo, seeming to come from everywhere, and they scramble to find the pole and swing around, back against the tree trunk. Silence envelopes the forest and stretches out tautly as they wait.

After a minute of nothing, Soul is the first to break the silence in their mind. Do we move or go?

They look down at the pole in their hand; it's misshapen from being partially melted in the fire and the end where it got broken off is only a dull point. "This won't kill it."

Soul is incredulous. We're trying to kill it? There is little other than his responses that flow from his side of their mind to hers now. I thought we were getting away.

"Do you think it's going to leave us alone because we run?" The panic she's held back in their mind trickles into their voice. "And what about that thing from last night?"

From above, a low click accompanied by a hiss sounds in their ears; they dive out of the way in time to avoid being crushed by the spider, rolling onto their back to find four pairs of scarlet eyes locked on them.

They use the pole to propel themselves to their feet, pushing themselves into a sprint. The sound of snapping pincers and branches breaking as the spider chases them is all that they hear, the rush of their heartbeat and the increasing slipperiness of the pole in their hand all that they feel.

Even with their increased strength and energy, the ache from running eventually sprouts in their calves, traveling up to their lungs.

Soul points it out first. We can't run forever.

I'm aware.

A yell escapes from them as they trip over something in the dark and nearly impale themselves on the pole; they roll on their back and catch a glimpse of bloody eyes and gnashing pincers. They shove the pole upwards on instinct, and feel it strike home.

The spider lets out an enraged hiss, and they have to scramble on their hands and knees to avoid being run through by one of the spider's legs. Pale blue blood runs from its pincers where the pole hangs precariously as it continues to hiss.

They push themselves to their feet, eyes fixed on the pole that refuses to dislodge itself from the spider, no matter how much it shakes its head.

Do you know what I'm thinking?

Soul's reply is resigned. Unfortunately.

They hesitate for another moment before plunging forward as the spider finally stops thrashing and faces them; the handle of the pole is too slick with the spider's blood to get a good grip and they narrowly avoid having their head snapped off by diving underneath the spider's belly.

They're immediately enfolded in a foul rotting odor, and they gag as they try to follow the wild circles the spider makes to chase them out from under it. They inch towards the head of the spider, arm straining as they try to grab the pole, although Soul balks from his side of their mind. No offense, but this is the exact definition of going from bad to worse.

If you have better ideas, I am all ears.

Abruptly, the spider stops moving, and there is an ominous silence for all of one second before they realize what it's going to do and lunge out of the way as the spider slams its belly on the ground.

Their ears ring as they crawl forward frantically on their knees; the pole lies less than ten feet away from them, the impact of the spider's strike having knocked it loose. Behind them is the sound of the spider rising as it recovers, a low hiss filling their ears as they reach the pole and twist around just as the spider pounces.

There's a sharp crunching noise and then the feeling of the pole traveling through something thick and glutinous. It takes a minute for them to look beyond the length of the pole and to the spider.

Its face is completely mangled, save for one eye that stares lifelessly at them, the result of the pole being driven through its pincers. The spider sags to one side, one of its legs twitching involuntarily.

They fall back from where they're kneeling, but their hands stay locked around the pole, still pushing it inwards.

You can let go.

On her side of their mind, Maka realizes that she's the one forcing them to hold on, and she eases her grip. The wall in their mind shifts, supporting her rather than shutting her out, and they rise slowly. The sound of Tsubaki and Black Star calling Maka's name echoes in the distance as they steady themselves.

Soul leaves Maka's mind, although she senses a certain reluctance in it, and her composure fractures.

"I'm sorry, I should have asked if it was okay," she whispers.

"It's fine-"

Her mind is a screaming cacophony of memory, and she moves, not away from the spider, but closer to it. "I panicked," she says in a louder voice, staring into the spider's eye. Her hands ball into fists and she aims a kicks at its body. "I thought it was going to take us back-"

"Maka, it's okay-"

She drives another kick at the spider. " What was it even doing here-"

"Maka." Soul comes close enough to touch, and she breathes finally. "It's going to be okay."

She meets his gaze. "How?"

Soul is quiet for a long moment before he speaks.

"Because we're going to join the DWMA."