Neither student had ever ventured into the Shibusen catacombs before, but as they descended the endless steps further into darkness, the stone-bricked walls grew ever more familiar. Somewhere deep in the cavern, the Shewolf's soul burned brightly. Its wavelength was timid, perhaps even stressed, yet the vibes emanating from the beast's soul paled in comparison to the soul writhing beside it.
Whatever they were going to find down there, Medusa would be waiting for them.
Super strong soul perception was helpful because Mako already knew to expect the witch, but it did nothing to quell his nerves or fear. Several months ago, he felt more than ready to take down a witch and finally turn Soul into a deathscythe. It was only now that the gravity of fighting a full-grown, honest-to-Death witch really hit him. He could die doing this. Moreover, Soul could try to pull another heroic sacrifice à la Italy and get killed herself. That thought on its own was enough to make him turn on his heel and run in the other direction.
But he couldn't. Soul had said it herself-they were a team. They protected each other. This mission really was do or die.
"You slowing down?" Soul asked. Without answering his weapon, Mako launched into a sprint. Fear was hanging off him like a dozen weights, threatening to slow his feet and halt his pursuit. He couldn't afford second thoughts now.
The stairway came to an abrupt end, and at the bottom Mako almost tripped over his own feet as he skidded to a halt. The high-traction soles of his combat boots were both a blessing and a curse as they instantly gripped the floor and brought his momentum to a swift zero. Though he was somewhat rattled by the sudden drop in speed, it was what he found at the bottom of the stairs that threatened to stall his heart.
Two corridors extended before them. One was marked by a group of three strange eyes, staring at them from above with the judgment and terror of fallen seraphim. The other was swathed in impenetrable darkness, but otherwise unmarked. Mako looked back towards the first tunnel, and the uncontrollable shiver of a lost thought wracked his body.
"So what should we do?" Soul asked. She was communicating more with him now than they usually did in a fight, probably out of an effort to solidify their partnership. "Head down bizarre hallway number one or bizarre hallway number two?" The hieroglyphic trio of eyes bore down on them both, and while neither could doubt that something sinister and unspeakable lay down that hall, it was not yet time. Time for what, Mako couldn't say.
"Number two," he said with a shiver.
Though he knew Soul's weapon form was more or less incapable of movement, it almost felt like her handle physically relaxed in his hands. "Number two it is," she agreed. Swinging Soul back over his shoulder, Mako charged through the unmarked corridor, straight into the trickling darkness. He could hear nothing but his own footfalls, and his eyes were blind to all but the glowing green soul lying in wait.
As Mako's eyes adjusted to the lack of light, his keen eyes began to distinguish the outline of the walls and the markings on the floor. Nowhere did he see the three clustered eyes that sent so many chills through his core. Instead, strange arrows were drawn all over the floor, pointing in several directions. He saw the arrow-shaped tile long before he stepped on it, but it never occurred to Mako that stepping on one of the strange stones was a bad idea. The moment the steel toe of his shoe touched the ground, the arrow flung him to the left, sending the meister and weapon crashing against the stone wall. The sharp impact hit Mako squarely on his left shoulder, and he woozily sank to the ground while Soul clattered to the floor.
"Nothing like a vector plate to knock the stupid out of you," the weapon said wryly. Mako could practically hear the smirk growing on her smug face. The meister didn't question how Soul knew what vector plates were called, nor did he wonder who set that trap in the first place. After several days of deja vu rushing at them with the strength of a stampede, his senses had become in tune with their fluctuations. He had spent so long fighting and examining deja vu that he never considered letting it thrust him forward. With an open mind, deja vu could become as accurate a guide as soul perception. The pair just needed to stop it before it got out of control and stole what mattered most.
Vector plates were laid everywhere throughout the hall, each pointing towards nearby walls or each other. If Mako stepped on the wrong one, he and Soul would be hurled across the room and into another wall, or even thrown towards another vector arrow, trapping the pair in an endless cycle of bouncing between each until the end of time. Jumping to his feet, he looked towards his weapon, who patiently remained transformed while her meister got his bearings. Mako couldn't run into battle half-cocked and unarmed. He had to be smart about this, for both his and Soul's sakes. He retrieved Soul and whipped her around his head with a swift flourish before pressing onwards, vaulting over vector plates with practiced ease.
Just as suddenly as they became immersed in darkness, the corridor was flooded with green light. Despite the coolness of the catacombs, Mako's yellow sweater felt stifling, suffocating, and he could feel the sweat of adrenaline and fear soaking into the armpits of his white shirt. His hands still stung from their burns, but Soul's wrapping job did well to dull the pain. Because he was so focused on his heightened sight and unease, Mako failed to pay attention to soft serpentine sigh echoing off the walls, the sound of scaled flesh gracefully sliding on cobbled floor, or a long tongue flickering in and out of sinister jaws.
It was Soul who noticed its presence first, and the twang of alarm in her soul wavelength spurred Mako to whirl around and immediately block an oncoming attack. The fangs of an enormous black viper were deflected by Soul's long handle, and its canary-yellow eyes burned bright in the darkness. It had no soul that Mako could see, and while he doubted that it was a real snake in the sense that it was naturally born in the wild, it was just as fierce and tangible as any deadly creature.
It reared its arrow-shaped head high above the weapon/meister pair, and as the snake hissed and lunged and Mako guarded and attacked, he began to react faster, hit harder, think quicker. Years of experience and skill he still hadn't yet accrued crept into every movement, and Soul became lighter in his hands with each passing second. As his amateur clumsiness ran off him like rainwater, a resonance began to build between the two partners, rising and falling with a cadence as natural as breathing.
The arc of Soul's scythe was music in motion. Who would believe that up until less than an hour ago, partners that had never managed a viable witchhunter would suddenly gain such synchronicity? Hell, their wavelengths had been recently so out of sync that Mako could not even touch his weapon, let alone wield her with the power of a perfect storm.
The tight meshing of their souls allowed him to pick up fragments of Soul's thoughts, small bursts of emotion that seemed to alternate between anxiety and affection, most of it directed at him. Mako saw an opening and sank Soul's blade into the viper's neck, black-colored muck spurting from the wound and onto his sweater, and he felt elation and triumph roll off her soul in excited waves. He was still wrapping his head around his newfound adeptness, but she wasn't surprised at all.
You're amazing.
"Thanks," Mako panted aloud. The snake, skewered on Soul's blade, released a sharp death rattle before dissolving into black ink and grime. Definitely not a real snake. The scythe's curved blade was coated in the black goo, but if she was at all repulsed by the remains of the beast, her soul wavelength did not show it. In fact, she seemed immensely pleased with herself. Mako's boots and clothing also sported dark new stains. In a moment of completely inappropriate banality, the meister wondered if their laundry detergent was strong enough to get them out.
"Any sign of Medusa?"
Soul's voice brought Mako's thoughts back to the here and now. He whirled around, using his perception to look in every direction. Medusa's soul blinked into existence
"He's near," Mako said. "The Shewolf is somewhere beyond him, though."
"So to get to the werewolf, we first have to-"
"Right, get past him first." Though his soul was quivering with anticipation and nerves, Mako cracked his shoulders in a show of bravery. Guys usually cracked their knuckles and stuff before running into fights in the movies, and he hoped emulating them in this dire moment would somehow strengthen him, pump him up so he could fight his way to victory. In reality, it just made him feel ridiculous and woefully unprepared for what lay ahead.
"Killing this witch can't be that hard," Soul said. "We already did it once."
"Blair isn't a real witch."
"I don't mean Blair."
He looked at his weapon quizzically, and even though she was mired with black gunk, he was struck speechless by her shining, gilded beauty. Her blade hummed with power. Turning her over in his hands, it finally dawned on Mako what exactly had spurred her transformation.
His Soul Eater had become a deathscythe-or at least she did in the other reality. In spite of the terror he felt about facing a witch, Mako started beaming uncontrollably. They did it. They did it! In the midst of his consuming elation, there was really only one word he could bring himself to say.
"Neat."
"Please do not fanboy over me," Soul said, though judging by the purring satisfaction vibrating off her wavelength, she wanted to be fanboyed over a lot. Wielding a deathscythe was a confidence booster, but what Soul said next wiped the smile off the meister's face.
"Remember what I said about me choosing how, when, and for who I die?" Soul said. Frowning, Mako looked into Soul's scythe eye. Despite its new and improved design, it looked back at him with that same unyielding gaze he had known since they first partnered. "I meant it."
Though it made him unhappy, Mako nodded. "Gotcha," he said quietly. He had a lot to say on the subject, mostly in his loud and authoritative meister voice, but the time for quibbling over who was going to be dying for who had passed. They were stronger than they had ever been, they were facing their toughest opponent yet, and they couldn't afford any divisiveness now. He wondered if he should use this moment to unload all of his unsaid feelings, get it all out in the open before they walked straight into death's arms. Then again, that was exactly what deathbeds were for.
He did not run down the corridors this time. Walking slowly and deliberately, the meister used his perception to navigate the dark halls, a sense of impending doom weighing down his shoulders as he drew closer to Medusa's soul.
When they did find the witch, he was dressed differently than Mako pictured he would be. Dr. Medusa had always been the kind, soft-spoken school nurse, identifiable by his long, loose labcoat and pronged goatee. Now he was dressed entirely in black, and his arms were curiously bare. An itch of deja vu alerted the meister to the fact that the witch had no arm tattoos, not anymore. The inky stains on his sweater and scythe blade were enough to deduce where they had gone. The witch himself was sitting on top of an arrow-possibly a tail?-and looked decidedly bored.
"Finally," Medusa said. Mako opened his mouth to say something-didn't people usually talk a lot before entering combat?-but a dozen black arrows sprang from Medusa's body and shot towards him.
He tried to initiate resonance, but Soul failed to meet him halfway. Judging by the feedback from her wavelength, it wasn't that she was out of sync. She was...distracted. Occupied. He
"What exactly is it that you're trying to do?" Mako yelled, cutting down a wave of vector arrows.
Medusa's lip curled. "I want to live."
With a wave of his arm, another onslaught of vectors arrows hurtled towards the Shibusen students. "I have no use for a world I no longer exist in," Medusa said. "The Wolfman and I are going to erase it."
The witch's words caused Mako to pause, allowing a vector arrow to cut the sleeve of his sweater. He was becoming careless. Not only was Mako sorely out of his league, even with the added boon of deja vu, but he also shared a goal with someone who was undisputedly evil. What did that mean for him, for them? They traveled to the depths of Shibusen's catacombs to stop Medusa, but was that even what he wanted to do?
Mako dove behind a pillar, narrowly dodging half a dozen more vector arrows. He pressed his back to the old stone, panting, gripping Soul between clenched fists. He could feel a stinging cut on his cheek, two more on his upper arm, which meant that he wasn't as good at dodging the arrows at he thought he was. These were only minor flesh wounds, but how long could he keep this up until Medusa landed a fatal blow?
"Tactical retreat," Mako whispered to his weapon. "Let's not risk more than we have to. If we make it back down the hall, I bet he won't even bother following."
"Are you nuts?" was his weapon's indignant response. "Did you not hear all that stuff about replacing the old timeline with this one? We can't just let it happen!"
"Yes we can," Mako said fiercely. "We totally can. I mean, what's wrong with the universe we got now? I say we take the win, run for our lives, and find some backup. Maybe we can kill him later."
"Bullshit." Though she did not currently have any physical lungs, he heard his weapon sigh. "While you've been fighting, I've been thinking."
The impact of three vector arrows wracked the entire pillar, and Mako tightly retracted his elbows to avoid being pierced. "Oh, nice," he said through his teeth. "No wonder we're losing. I'm out there risking my neck and bleeding in three places, and you've been daydreaming this whole time. Fan-flipping-tastic."
Soul physically twisted her own scythe blade around to look at him, the metal of her handle groaning with resistance. "Well maybe you should stop talking and just listen to me for two fucking seconds!"
Despite being in the form of an inanimate object, she was yelling at him so fervently that she was almost jumping out of his hands. He heard the impact of two more vector arrows against the pillar. That no arrows tried to snake around and skewer them against the wall meant that Medusa's vectors didn't have unlimited reach. Or that the witch wanted to force them into the open so he could watch as the students were sliced to smithereens. One of those.
"Listen to yourself!" Mako said, tightening his grip on Soul. "Do you like being dead? Is that what you want? Becoming a deathscythe doesn't make you invincible."
"How am I a deathscythe if I'm supposed to be dead?"
The meister opened his mouth, but no reply came out. His throat felt too dry to speak, and the cogs in his mind began to slowly tick.
"I know there's an explanation for that," he finally said. "I just haven't thought of it yet."
The sound of a crash and crumbling rock thundered overhead, and Mako performed a forward roll away from the collapsing pillar. Medusa was definitely playing with them, and he was tired of his prey hiding. The adrenaline of escaping death and immediately spinning Soul to fend off vector arrows from multiple directions prevented the meister from thinking through what his weapon said. Both his soul and his mind was entirely focused on survival, nothing more. His weapon's soul meshed with his, showing that she, too, had her head in the game.
When he blamed Soul's lack of focus for their piss poor fighting, it was only because he needed to think of a good jab. Mako didn't truly believe what he said, but now that their souls slipped into a comfortable resonance and they adopted a laser-like focus on their opponent, it seemed that he was right. With every slash and deflection, they were getting better. Better yet, they were getting closer to the witch.
Mako heard the witch call out a spell, and a dozen vector plates materialized on the floor. He maneuvered around and over them with the skill and finesse of a practiced acrobat, even using a few to propel him forward. The meister began to feel the creeping of deja vu, numbing his limbs and disassociating his mind. It was him whirling his deathscythe, slicing through vectors, diving for the kill, but the tight cartwheels, the adept footwork, the rapid fire somersaults-that wasn't him at all.
The meister hardly registered Soul's blade transforming in a shining witchhunter, and he almost missed watching it slice through Medusa's abdomen. Killing a witch, it turned out, was more visually spectacular than he had read about. The moment his blade pierced Medusa's body, bursts of purple and red shot out of the wound, flying in every direction. Mako fell directly on his ass and watched in wonder as the red energy spewed out. Arrow-shaped tatters accumulated on the ground like molted feathers, and Medusa wheezed with pain before finally going limp.
Still on the floor, the two looked at Medusa's corpse for a moment, speechless. There was no soul to be found around the body. Based on what he knew from Stein's class, there was only one explanation for this.
"Can I eat it now?" Soul finally asked.
"There's nothing to eat!" Mako said in disbelief. "He exploded his own soul, just so we couldn't have it."
"You're kidding." she said, her voice caught between a despondent whimper and a curse. "What the hell, that isn't fair!"
Mako leaned on his scythe for support and hoisted himself off the ground. No, it wasn't fair for Medusa to have the last word by withholding his soul, but at least they weren't dead. Speaking of, there was a Shewolf-or a Wolfman, apparently-that they desperately needed to talk to.
He wasn't that far beyond the chamber where Mako and Soul had so unceremoniously ended Medusa. The witch had perhaps down them a favor by restraining the beast to the floor. Upon seeing the students, the wolfman immediately tried lurch upwards, only to be dragged back down by the magical chains sizzling against his fur.
"Listen," the werewolf said. "These chains hurt my wrists. If you get me out, I'll do what you want."
The wolfman's beady eyes stared into Mako's own. He was dangerous, evil even, but he didn't deserve to be bent to Medusa's will. Still, the meister needed some form of assurance. "You swear you'll fix everything and end your time-traveling villainy for good?"
The werewolf hacked a harsh laugh. "Are you kidding me? I'll gouge my eye out and go back to jail before I do this again," the werewolf said candidly. "This was the worst three days I've ever had, and I've had a lot of bad days. This was worse than 200 years in prison, worse than that time on London bridge, worse than the clusterfuck on the moo-" He suddenly shut his mouth as a thoughtful look crossed his face. "You know, maybe I should keep this stuff to myself."
The werewolf wasn't exactly the most trustworthy ally, but his soul was sincere. Without a word, Mako and Soul resonated and fired up witchhunter. It took only four clean, swift slices to free the beast. The meister sensed the prickling of recognition, yet there was something off about the werewolf. It was similar to the way Mako felt when he found his socks in his pants drawer, or he accidentally went through his morning routine in the opposite order. The werewolf was out of place, out of time. He didn't belong.
"I'm never gonna get used to this," the wolfman said with a wrinkled nose, gesturing between the weapon and meister. "This universe is weird and I don't like it."
The meister felt vaguely offended by this, though he wasn't sure why. "I don't care if you like it or not," Mako said. "You said you'd do what we tell you to so-" What was he going to tell the werewolf to do? It felt wrong to go along with Medusa's plan, but it felt even more unnatural to risk Soul's life as well. Then again-Mako frowned and pressed his lips into a thin line-it was possible that Soul wouldn't be so dead after all. Two realities were pressing into each other, combining into one, and instead of having weird visions of dying like he thought she would, Soul became a deathscythe. As disappointing and humiliating as it was to admit, he could have been wrong.
Mako felt the weight of Soul's scythe across his shoulders dissolve, and in a flash of light she rematerialized in human form by his side. The black stains and scuffs on her weapon form vanished now that she was human again, and she was easily the most pristine thing in the entire room.
"Wolfguy," Soul said quickly. "Before we do anything, I need to ask you something."
"Name's Free," the werewolf supplied.
"Right. So, am I dead?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.
Mako's hands flew to clutch his skull, because you didn't reveal your motives to a potential enemy ever, and Soul "Queen of the Poker Face" Eater Evans had just tipped their entire hand to an immortal time-traveling monster with a criminal record. "What are you doing?" he whispered to her.
She glanced at him sideways. "Getting a little confirmation. I'm done being Schrodinger's Cat."
Before Mako could ask whose cat, Free supplied an answer. "I know for a fact you ain't dead because, well," The werewolf chuckled and scuffed his feet on the ground. "I tried to kill you a couple times. It didn't work so well."
Soul turned to Mako, and after giving him a blank stare for five seconds the corners of her mouth began to inch upwards, rising and rising until she flashed him the most self-satisfied and smug expression that had ever graced her face.
"I think I can fix what I did," Free continued scratching his head. "Maybe even on the first try." The weapon and meister both shot the werewolf withered looks, to which he took immediate offense. "This is harder than it looks. Time isn't an exact science, you know."
"But," Mako started. Nothing was certain, not anymore. The fact that completing some universe-altering ritual was the only solution was scary as hell. Sure, Free said Soul was in the clear, but could they really trust him? "We have no idea what we're returning to. What if our lives are worse?"
A soft hand threaded into his own. He looked to his side and saw Soul, staring at him with a love and warmth he never thought he would ever find there.
"But what if they are better?" she asked. Mako had no ready answer, so he squeezed Soul's hand and relented. Squeezing his weapon's hand, Mako screwed his eyes shut and tensed his shoulders, bracing himself for whatever cataclysmic reshuffling that was about to commence.
The world changed without a shout or shudder. He remembered, absently, that he never asked Free about why he found their universe so strange in the first place, but like a child slowly drifting to sleep, the impulse to remain conscious melted away like clean snow.
Though he had been through a lot of weird stuff in his young life, Soul never thought he would pull a Benjamin Button and become fourteen and depressed again. Or that he would sprout boobs for a second time. At least this time around he got to keep his personality and wardrobe. Whatever the hell Free had done, it must have worked because Soul was back in his room, laying facedown on the floor.
As the scythe began to unscramble his thoughts and figure out what the hell exactly happened to him, he realized that he was still laying on top of his meister, who looked a little winded herself. The two made eye contact, and in a movement as fluid and natural as breathing, Soul closed his eyes and leaned towards his meister. The gap between them vanished, and he pressed his lips to hers with urgency and want.
"I feel like I've wanted to do that for years," he murmured.
Breathless, Maka nodded. "Ditto."
Hindsight was 20/20, and even though the partners couldn't help kicking themselves for being so dumb during the Deja Vu Debacle, they could at least agree that middle school was terrible no matter how many times you went through it. They were comparing notes and laughing around the kitchen table when their feline roommate, clad in more clothing than usual but less than was socially acceptable, casually mentioned that she had realized their genders were switched immediately. In her shock and indignation, Maka nearly regressed to a fourteen-year-old boy-again.
"You knew?" the meister accused. "You knew what had happened and you never told anyone?"
Blair shrugged and shot a pouty look at her roommate. "Nobody asked me. I'm just a poor, uneducated kitty cat. People look down on me, you know."
"But how?"
The cat rolled her amber eyes. "It was so obvious. Soul took ten minutes to put his bra on right, and you were acting all testosteroney. Plus everyone had double the amount of souls. It was so obvious, I thought everyone knew."
As Maka interrogated Blair, Soul pondered what it meant to have double souls. He assumed he had his original soul now, but where did the second one come from? And after they changed back, where did it go? If someone was dead in one universe, did that mean they only had one soul? While to was incredibly satisfying to know that he and Maka had the honors of offing Dude Medusa, they never got a chance to see how many souls he had when they cut him open. And Blair, she was down to seven souls now, so how many did she end up having as a dude? Having eaten both a cat and a witch soul, the scythe could not help but feel a little disappointed that all those two-for-one meals were gone for good.
"It's a shame that you lost all those extra souls," Soul mused aloud. "Just seems like a waste to destroy them all."
Blair's lips twitched and shifted into a perverse smile. "Destroyed?" she purred. "Now why would I do that when tomcat Blair still needed them?"
"…tomcat Blair?"
Soul was holding her breath, flinching for the deconstruction of her reality and the soul dissolution that would surely come with it. Mako squeezed her hand tightly and hummed to himself, similarly tense with anticipation. After a couple moments more, she cracked an eye open. There had been no amazing colors, no bright lights, and no shaking earth. The only sensation she felt, save for Mako's vice grip, was a fateful weight lifted from her chest.
Right when she thought it was finished, there was a brief, intense drain on her soul, sapping her of the strength of her deathscythe form. Oh well. She hadn't earned it anyway.
Free had disappeared, hopefully transported to his correct plane of existence.
"Is it over?" Mako asked, his eyes still squeezed shut. "Has it even started? I can't tell."
"I think so," Soul said. She thought the sudden absence of her deathscythe abilities would leave an aching absence in her soul, but the scythe had already forgotten what the invincibility and strength even felt like. "Free's gone."
"What!" Mako finally opened his eyes and let go of her hand. He searched the dark room, squinting and biting his lip as he stared at the wall. He, too, was discovering that his improved perception had dulled. He huffed. "That bastard never fessed up about what he did to our universe," he grumbled. "Now we'll never know."
Soul wanted to suggest maybe asking Professor Stein when they got back to Shibusen, but she knew Mako was too proud to just ask for the answers. "At least you were wrong about me being dead," Soul offered. "That has to be a silver lining."
"That's right!" He was immediately back at her side, and took both her hands in his. "When I convinced myself you were supposed to die, I didn't know what to do. I tried so hard to beat destiny that I almost pushed you away completely. I'm really sorry for being a jerk—"
"I was a moody jerk too," Soul added. She reminded herself to tell him all about Oni when they got out of here. The scythe didn't need déjà vu to know that Mako would stay by her side, regardless of what her inner demons threw at her.
"But you're right," the meister continued. "The real victory here is that we're both okay, and we're going to be okay for years and years, and thought of just us getting stronger together just kind of makes me—" The flood of words falling from his mouth stopped suddenly, and his green eyes grew intense. "I never thought I would be so glad to be so wrong, you know?"
Her chest ached, but not for lost or forgotten powers. "I know."
The scythe began to close her eyes and imperceptibly lean towards her meister. The gap between them shrank, but at the last moment they both froze like deer caught in the middle of traffic.
"What, what are you doing?" Mako blurted, dropping her hands.
Soul's eyes snapped open, and her body lurched backwards and she stared at him with sucked-in lips. What was she doing? "I dunno," she mumbled, wide-eyed. Their faces had been way too close for comfort. Her cheeks threatened to flush as crimson as her eyes; it was too uncool and embarrassing to bear. "Let's get out of here," the scythe said quickly. "This dank basement creeps me out."
He chuckled, nervousness palpable in his voice. "You're right. Let's go."
Though awkward and anxious, they filled the silence of the Shibusen catacombs with thoughts of bright, unknowable future. "You were badass as deathscythe. And so was I!" Mako's voice echoed down the hall. "It's too bad we lost all of our cool skills. But we can get stronger again, together."
"Yeah, yeah, back to the grind," Soul groaned. They disappeared up the stairs, returning to the light, once again free to cut their own path and forge their own destinies.
For several moments, nothing stirred in the now-empty chamber, stillness once again enveloping the catacombs. But then, from the darkness emerged a single strand of a soul, which slithered across the stone blocks with uncanny speed. It crept down the hall, following the meister and weapon pair up the stairs with stealth and simmering vengeance.
He lost to children, but he was still alive, and that was the important thing. And thanks to spoilers provided by that oafish dog, he was going to remain alive for a long time. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, he did not pursue the unaware children.
Armed with knowledge not even the gods knew, Medusa slunk away, free to live another day in another universe.
