Spirit transforms back to human form as soon as Stein steps through the ruin of the church door, flickering through the change even as Stein's voice in his head - just the same as it was when they were kids for all that Spirit couldn't have remembered the sound of it two minutes ago - sighs his name in resignation. Spirit.
He knows it's a foolish action. He's safer as a weapon, safer and more threatening and generally far more use as a razor-edged Death Scythe than a well-dressed human, but his instincts are roaring and he just wants to get between Maka and the Sword as quickly as possible, regardless of the actual effectiveness of his movement.
He can't see Maka's face but he knows how they must have looked, smashing through the church door in the nick of time like storybook heroes.
"Your papa has arrived," he offers benevolently. That's right Maka. Take a good look at how brave and selfless your father is. It doesn't matter what it takes, it doesn't matter if he has to fight off the Demon Sword and its meister barehanded, he will do whatever it takes to keep Maka safe.
The meister appears to be out for the count - Spirit felt the give of skin and flesh in weapon-form, thankfully somewhat distanced by the metallic cover to his senses, but the wound was unmistakably fatal nonetheless. He chances a glance back at Maka to see the glow in her eyes as she realizes who has just saved her.
She is not looking at him. Her whole body is turned sideways towards Stein as the meister pulls his coat up over the motionless form of Soul Eater Evans. "Professor Stein, is Soul alright?"
"The wound's very serious. If we don't get him treatment soon, he might not make it."
She's not even looking at me! Spirit's brain wails before he crushes it flat. There will be time to win Maka's attention later, when Soul is stabilized and they are all safe back in Death City where they belong. It definitely doesn't matter at all that she missed his grand entrance, definitely doesn't matter that she is watching Stein tend her fallen weapon instead of him. Spirit's eyes catch on the stitches along Stein's arms, exposed now with the loss of his white coat, and if he weren't still processing what appears to be a fully functional screw through Stein's head he would be alarmed that his partner's shirt appears to be actually sewn to his skin. As it is there's not room for much besides resignation and the renewed belief that Stein needs a keeper or possibly a straightjacket or ideally both.
"I gotta say though, it was an easier fight than I expected," Spirit starts to say, turning back to the sword-meister. He's not sure how the Sword was able to do so much damage to Soul, given how little resistance it offered him and Stein. Perhaps the surprise of their attack gave them enough advantage. He'll take what he can get without complaining, but the whole interaction was startlingly fast.
At first Spirit doesn't process the movement he is seeing, and then the meister stands up. He is moving strangely, jerky like a puppet at the edges but oddly fluid through the bones, like there isn't enough resistance to hold everything entirely solid. Dark liquid pours up from his shoulderblades, dripping into arms and a head and cartoonish white features.
"Do I get a thank you?" it demands of the meister. The boy cowers, cringes away from the thing protruding from his back, and manages a "Yeah, thank you."
"Thank you very much Are you gonna make me hurt you?"
"Thank you very much!"
Everything that Spirit has ever learned about weapons and meisters and the necessary separation between them rises up in his head and up his throat with burning bile. He thought he was over his combat-nausea, believed he had fought that down through force of will and the need to be strong in front of Kami, but this goes far beyond standard-issue enemies. The idea of a weapon and meister sharing a single body, of having a separate entity inside his blood demanding motion and attention is appalling and terrifying in equal amounts. It is like staring down off a cliff or into a chasm, the very idea cripplingly frightening even as it calls like a dark siren.
Maka's voice chimes from behind him, high with youth and curious with innocence, and he's suddenly and immensely relieved that she hasn't considered the ramifications of the creature in front of them. "Professor Stein? Who are those two? Or what are they? I've never seen anything like this."
"That is the reason the academy was created," and Spirit doesn't have to see Stein's face to know his expression is cold and focused, distance in his voice speaking to his distaste for the thing in front of him, and that helps too, as it always did. Stein goes calm in the face of horror, turns into a ground for Spirit's emotions, and Spirit can swallow back his fright with that at his back.
"The reason the academy was created?" Maka's voice is soft, damp at the back with tears, but her attention is held by the topic and Spirit silently thanks Stein for drawing her into the moment, if only temporarily. "So does that mean he's a kishin?"
"Technically not yet. But he's only one step away from it."
Spirit doesn't hear Stein stand so much as he can sense the meister's approach, somewhere between his head and his senses and his anticipation. He imagines he can feel Stein's presence prickling over his skin before the meister speaks, and when the voice comes, calm and focused with intent, it reminds Spirit of his childhood. "Alright then. Let's take care of this, shall we?"
When Spirit turns to look at him, Stein's mouth is taut with a repressed smile and his glasses are clear and his green eyes are bright with anticipation and Spirit can't remember the last time a situation felt so normal. He can't help grinning, Kishin-egg or no, and when he says "Yeah" Stein mirrors him, the two of them smiling at each other in the moment before Spirit transforms back into scythe-form, and it feel for a moment like the last fourteen years never happened at all.
Stein's hands close around the handle of Spirit's scythe-form and the meister blooms into Spirit's head and Spirit can feel the icy focus on the enemy in front of them and the forming ache in Stein's palms and the ready tension in his legs.
"Spirit." His name, his old name, crackles in the air and ripples through Spirit's head like music, like all his failures never happened at all, like all that matters anymore is the enemy in front of them and Stein's hands steady on his weapon form. "Can you stand against the Demon Sword?"
"Of course I can," Spirit scoffs, not bothering to keep his thoughts inside his head since no one else can hear them anyway. "What do you think I am, some sort of rusty old dagger?"
There is a trickle of amusement sparkling like laughter inside Stein's head, and for all that this feels so comfortable that Spirit is only just realizing how much he missed it, his memory is offering the last time he fought with Stein and it is so different now. Stein's thoughts are smooth, steady and calm and peaceful, entirely focused on the impending fight. There's none of the painful, crushing agony that he remembers from their last fight, none of the want or the anger or the desperation that dragged him down under the surface of consciousness, just clean, sharp-edged focus. Like the early days.
"Been a long time, hasn't it?" He's not even sure what he means, exactly, because it has been a long time for everything, since they spoke, since they saw each other, since they worked together, since Stein was so calm and Spirit was so relaxed. He tries to clarify the details but the words won't come, and he ends up falling back on the easiest change to quantify. "Since we teamed up like this?"
That comes out softer than he intended, gentle and affectionate with nostalgia, and Stein laughs, the sound bubbling out into the air between them, and the spontaneity of the reaction startles Spirit so badly he almost doesn't catch what Stein actually says into the space between them. "We're not as young as we used to be, that's for sure."
"Speak for yourself, I haven't aged a bit!" Spirit declares, although the difference in Stein's thoughts and the weight in his own backs up the truth, proves that something has changed. It would be easier if they could go back, though. Spirit wishes, very briefly but loudly enough that Stein must catch the thought, that it were possible, that they could go back to being teenagers again before everything fell apart. But then he thinks of Maka, curled over her hurt weapon partner by the door, and Spirit can't find it in him to wish that anything were different if it means Maka weren't here.
The sword-meister comes at them, wailing a response to something his weapon said while Spirit was distracted. It's not important. More interesting is his odd stance; he is leading with his shoulders, feet lagging far behind, and his balance is decent based on the weapon to which he is clinging, but the whole impression is that of a sword far too large for him, as if he is dragging the weight behind him rather than ready to use it. Spirit isn't sure he'll be able to swing the weapon at all.
Stein sets his feet, raises Spirit into a familiar two-handed grip, and when the meister does swing he blocks as smoothly as if all he has ever used is a scythe. He parries again, then once more, not flinching back or moving to attack, and it reads like utter competence but when did he learn this style of attack? Spirit has never fought defensively like this before, although it is easy to read Stein's movements and react accordingly, as easy as the first time they ever practiced together on the hillside outside Death City. The Sword catches on him and a mouth opens in it, shrieking in a frequency like fingernails against a chalkboard. It aches through Spirit's bones like a bass note too low to hear, but Stein takes part of the vibration and it dissipates to a tolerable buzz.
The meister draws back, swings again, but his body is canted precariously forward and Spirit swings under his thin body and pushes as Stein pulls. The boy's feet lift off the ground, suspended for a moment between Spirit and Stein both. He weighs almost nothing at all, all skin and bones and frightened eyes, and Stein flips him over and down without even bracing to take the extra weight. He has gotten strong in the intervening years. When Spirit last fought with him Stein had all his current height but was skinny with it, perpetually underfed from forgetfulness with angular wrists and cheekbones, and even though he wielded Spirit like he weighed nothing at all it took both his hands. Now he's blocking with Spirit in one hand and fighting with his other as if it's no great effort at all. He's not even breathing hard.
Stein drops to a knee and brings his left hand down hard into the meister's chest. Emotion statics through the presence that is Stein in Spirit's head, too-familiar guilt and carefully controlled violence and distant regret, and then Stein's hand crackles with tingling electricity. The sword-meister convulses under the forces, screams, and spits ink-black blood.
"Have another," Stein growls. The sound ripples out into recollection, flickering with tones from the years before, and Spirit can hear his first meister in the emotional overtone. It shivers through him, trailing mingled fear and nostalgia in its wake, and Spirit gasps for air like he's drowning.
The pain is distant but it breaks the moment, and Spirit is relieved in the breath before he realizes that it is Stein's pain he is feeling, the scream of nerve endings from broken skin. The violent pleasure evaporates from Stein's head, confusion sweeping in to take its place, and he twists to look at the cut along his ribcage, where a black spike has caught to tear through shirt and skin alike.
"What? That's the blood from the wound we gave him earlier." Stein's thoughts are speeding too fast for Spirit to follow, shuffling through possible explanations and discarding them as quickly as they appear. They settle for a moment, realization coiling around Stein's thoughts although Spirit doesn't follow what he has realized, and then the meister darts backward, as fast on his feet as Spirit remembers. His preternatural responses are the only thing that save them away from the burst of black spikes that perforate the air where they both were a moment ago.
"He's using every drop of his blood as a weapon." Spirit realizes, a step behind the thoughts flickering across the screen of Stein's mind. "But how is that even possible?"
"When souls are overhunted, a demon sword is created," Stein starts. It's his lecturing tone again, the explanation carefully loud for Maka's benefit. "We have to stop him here and now or he will definitely become a Kishin." He blinks behind his glasses and Spirit's weapon-form vision frosts with faint halos of borrowed sight from Stein's Soul Perception. "What's more, the balance of power between these two is uneven. The weapon's soul is clearly dominant. It rules over the meister's more introverted soul, confining it. For the moment, the meister still has some strength left to fight back against the weapon, but if he should be completely swallowed up, things will get dangerous."
They're not now? Spirit wonders, the tingle of pain from Stein's skin prickling over his own, but Stein is too focused to catch the half-repressed comment. His eyes narrow, staring at something too detailed for Spirit to glimpse.
"There's something else. I see a snake coiled around him, what's it doing there?"
Is he possessed? Spirit wonders. Stein doesn't answer exactly, but he flexes his fingers on the scythe handle, adjusting his grip in expectation of an attack, and his thoughts go still and silent.
The meister and the Sword are fighting again; Spirit doesn't need to see the wavelength to see which one is in charge. The meister looks like he's in some danger of getting taken over physically as well as mentally, and Spirit has a brief pang of sympathy for the kid. He really is just a kid, younger than Maka and looking like he could use a bowl of soup and a hug, and they're trying to kill him.
Not now, Spirit, Stein warns. Take revenge on the cause. Don't lose your focus out of pity.
You would say that, Spirit shoots back, stung because Stein is right, of course.
And you would pity him. It's affectionate with memory, the thought overlaid with so much emotion that Spirit only catches the top layer before it is gone. Stein physically shakes his head to clear the distraction of the conversation, and then he is bolting forward, crouched low to the ground and running on the balls of his feet, holding Spirit in front of him and leading with his left hand. There is a burst of black spikes in Spirit's periphery and Stein jerks away, pushes off the ground to shove them clear, and Spirit dips down to pull them both under another attack as they land.
The sword-meister is holding his weapon straight out in front of him like he's never used it before, arms visibly shaking with fear or the weight or both, and Stein sweeps Spirit up to shove the black blade to the left and away from them with a screech of metal-on-metal. The meister swings the weapon free, brings it back, and this time Stein blocks with the scythe-handle, the vibration of impact jolting through Spirit's not-bones like he's hitting a wall, but this is nothing compared to some fights, nothing at all with the steady calm of Stein's thoughts at the back of his head. Spirit feels like he's braced against his meister's wavelength, borrowing power from the confidence in Stein's stance and the angle of his shoulders and the support in his head, as if Stein is physically holding him steady with hands gripping his shoulders, and the momentum of the incoming attacks spends itself uselessly against the two of them. They aren't even struggling; Stein is holding Spirit one-handed, shifting as calmly as if he is walking rather than fighting, and Spirit is catching attacks as fast as the sword-meister offers them.
Spirit feels Stein's hand spark as clearly as if it's touching him, the electricity flickering across it warm instead of painful, and Stein growls "Soul Force" as his hand connects with the meister's chest. With Stein's full weight behind it the impact spins the boy around, and before he has time to fall to the ground the controlled burst of guilt and anger and hurt glows in Stein's head and shoves him backwards as hard as if Stein had thrown him bodily.
Another burst of black-blood-turned weapon spikes towards them and Stein dodges so fast Spirit's not sure they're really seeing so much as sensing now. Stein kicks off the last jump hard, swings forward with Spirit's scythe-weight to carry them down, and hits the ground hard with his left hand. A shove and their forward momentum brings them right-side up again, balanced together on Stein's feet.
"Time-lag attack,"Stein hisses, his voice stripped clear of new maturity and echoing clear down the years to childhood.
Spirit can't think of what to say when his old meister has apparently become a superhero in the intervening years. What has Stein been doing with himself?
"It's time to die, screw-head!" the Demon Sword screams, and Spirit notes that the weapon speaking directly to them is not at all a good sign for its meister's current mental state.
There is a jolt of pain from the original wound along Stein's side; he flinches, twists to glance at it, and that is when the attack comes, high and in front of them so Stein is turning into it when Spirit yells a wordless warning into his head. The meister ducks his head at the last minute, but there is a crackle of glass shattering and a splash of blood across the ground and for a moment Spirit's focus shatters in panicked concern.
There isn't even any pain coming from Stein. There is a heatbeat of silence, a drip of blood, and then a wave the raw bloodlust from their early fights together coupled with the deliberate decision to unleash it. Stein lifts his head and Spirit notes very distantly that he's okay, that he took the hit on his forehead and not his eyes, and then Stein grates out "I think I'd like to dissect you now."
Adult-Spirit cringes back, remembering the flood of violence filling his lungs with panic and the ache of faded scars and maturity screams "Danger," but child-Spirit recognizes that tone, flows towards it like water downhill, reaches out to turn the unleashed destruction towards a constructive route. An hour ago the present would have won out, the weight of those fourteen years as immovable as a wall, but Spirit's barriers are lost amid the shattered expectations of the stories he has been telling himself, and with nothing else to go on instinct wins out. The careless aggression demands attention, pulls him aware from his constant conscious awareness of his own personal failures. For the moment he is just Spirit, just Stein's weapon, and he has always been good at being that.