9: Sophia

"You can't catch me boys!" Maka's daemon alter-ego, Sophia, laughs from a spire of Shibusen academy. Soul and Kid stare up at her figure from the floor.

"You have to concentrate harder Soul." Kid pants; they had been running after her for quite some time.

"Can't you just do it for now?" Soul whines between breaths.

"You must be able to do this."

"I know, I know."

A ball of flame throttles through the air, the two boys desperately jump out of the way as the fire scorches the paving stones between them. Sophia laughs at the pair, then stretches out her black crooked wings and falls down to their level.

"Stop playing about now please Sophia." Kid says in a firm tone as if addressing a child.

"Sure, I'll come quietly..." she beams. The boys approach her, and Soul readies himself to resonate with the meister quarter of her soul, forcing Sophia to leave and Maka to return. Soul steadies his breathing. "Psych!" Sophia heckles as she takes back off into the air. The boys sigh.

"This isn't cool at all. Kid?"

"I got it." Kid confirms as he takes of onto his board following Sophia. Soul takes a moment of peace to compose himself, when a sword pierces the ground inches in front of his toes. He regards the butterfly sword fondly.

"Glad you're back." Soul smiles into the blade that isn't plunged into the stone. "You do a good Excalabur impression."

Maka's face appears on the etched blade, "That was no fun..." Kid lands easily next to the weapon, wraps a confident hand around the grip lying between the blades and pulls it out of the ground, Maka transforms back with a sigh. "Do we have to go again straight away?" she asks with a hand placed over her tired soul.

"Let's relax for a moment, shall we?" Kid says taking a seat on the steps of the school. The pair joins him, fixing their gazes out into the city.

"I'm not very good at this am I?" Soul sighs.

"You'll get it." Kid says confidently. "It's hard to get a good connection with the underlying wavelengths. That's why you can resonate so easily with her soul when the dominating wavelength is her Meister quarter, but when it's hidden under a different dominating wavelength, especially the daemon one, her Meister wavelength gets... drowned out. You just have to search for it harder."

"It's got to be harder to do without soul perception." Maka adds.

"I guess so." Kid sighs. The trio fall into silence momentarily, too tired to make conversation.

"So how did you figure you could do it?" Soul asks Kid.


"Maka! Maka! Please. Please come back!" A young Death the Kid runs through the city's dark streets, following a shadow through the narrow lanes. Tears sting his eyes, and he clutches his left arm, which is burned, raw and bloody. "Please Maka!" Kid pleads his voice cracking. He halts at a junction, not knowing which way to go. But then, he senses a soul and immediately runs towards it.

Kid has always been very familiar with his city, but the lanes where narrowing, and he is no longer sure where he is, panic bubbles inside of him but he ignores it and forces himself to run on. "For Death sake! Maka!" He runs past a turning, stops and returns to it, seeing a soul dwelling within it's darkest corner. "Maka..." he whispers.

"Go away!" A pained voice echoes from the alley.

"No." the young boy says firmly.

"Please?" the voice begs.

"No, Maka. I'm not going." Kid takes a step towards the voice.

"Kid I can't control it. You have to leave."

"Is she coming?" he asks, unable to hide his nervousness. There is no answer. "I'll take that as a yes then..." Kid steps into a defensive stance. "Sophia. S-stop this." he stutters. The alley vibrates with a dark laugh. "Sophia. I'm telling you." he tries to hide his fear under authority.

"You're telling me what Kiddo?" Maka's small and innocent voice now filled with spite, the sound of which makes Kid's heart race with fear.

"I'm telling you, let Maka back out!" a whip of wind circles around the young boy, making the disturbed dust sting his eyes. He senses the Daemon soul is now behind him, and he spins on his heals to be greeted with a strong hit to his chest, sending the unprepared Kid, hurtling into a rubbish bin. Sophia laughs, being lit only by the moon, as Kid stumbles onto his feet. "Please..." the child cries, rubbing his eyes with the back of his sleeves. "...you've done enough damage for today Sophia, just..." he sniffs. "...just let's be done with this now." He lifts his head to look and the child daemon in the eye. She smiles. Kid clenches his fists.

"I disagree Kiddo." her smile widens. "There's so much more damage I could do."


"It just happened, Soul." Kid says, unable to cover the tinge of something bitter in his tone, he rises and walks back to their temporary battle ground, "Shall we continue?"

Maka places a hand on Soul's knee, "It's a bit of a soar story right now." smiling regretfully she pulls herself up to follow Kid. Soul passes his gaze over the still sleepy city and lets out a long breath before joining his meister.

"Anything you could think of that could help me?" he asks dryly. Maka shrugs in response.

"You know me Soul, guess you just have to find me."

"Ready?" Kid asks, already getting on his board as if expecting Soul's failure. Maka allows the Daemon quarter of her miss-matched soul to take hold of her. Immediately, her posture, expression and eye colour changes to ones that no longer seam to fit her body. Her smile spreads across her face into one that is evil and provocative and she again stretches her twisted wings and takes off around the spires of the academy, laughing like a toddler. Soul sighs and closes his eyes.


"You know what they're going to do to you don't you?" Kid cries. "If you carry on hurting people..."

"I don't care." the flames grow.

"They'll lock you up. Tie you down. Those flames will be useless."

"Maka can deal with that." She replies.

"They'll punish you if you hurt me." Kid's voice trembles.

"Punish me?" She almost laughs.

"Yes!" Kid takes hold of his fear. "If Maka can't control you they will!"

"I'm so scared!" she mocks. She lifts her hand and compressed fire flies from the surrounding flames towards Kid. He dodges the attack. He looks back to see the alley scorched. Sophia giggles. "This is too easy, I'm toying with you. You're not even armed."

"I can't arm myself, you're still Maka."

Sophia groans, "Don't remind me." She aims more flaming projectiles at the small boy, he moves out of the path feeling the air move as the bullets pass.

"This is not a game Sophia." Kid spits.

"I disagree..." She smiles casually flinging another attack in his direction. Kid sprints from the attack further into the alley. He stops at the gnarled old wall too high to escape from. He takes in a sharp breath of cool air before turning to face Sophia's twisted smile. Kid widens his stance and braces himself.

"No where to run Kiddo." Sophia smiles building new flame projectiles.

"True." he confirms shutting his eyes.

"Aw, you're not even trying anymore." she whines, twisting the tip of her foot on the dirty street.

"I'm very much trying." Kid replies, kick starting his soul perception but burning spheres of fire fly towards him, through the thick air...


"If you can't control Sophia, Soul, we will have no other choice but to turn to more extreme methods of dealing with her outbursts. So if you don't want that outcome; you better put your heart and soul into this attempt." Kid calls from his board.

"Heart and soul..." Soul whispers to himself, using his weapon gene to search the air for Maka's wavelength. "I'll put my soul into it."


Hurtling though the ally's air, the compressed fire ammunition cools as quickly as it is created. Scorched dust floats to the stoney floor and Kid breaths a sigh of relief. Now the danger is over the pain from his burnt arm throbs and he feels faint.

"K-Kid?" a small voice beckones.

"Maka?" the young Reaper with wide eyes looks though the raised dust and smoke twisting in the space between him and his friend.

"Where am I?" a confused and helpless voice bounces around the walls. Kid sees a hunched silhouette stumbling though the haze.

"You've done it Maka, you can control it!" Kid takes a few shaky steps towards her. "Do you remember what happened?" clutching his arm he finds his way though the dirty air to her trembling figure. He places both of his hands on her shoulders, flinching through the pain. "Maka, you've done it." He bends to her hight and peers at her face. "Maka, are you ok?"

His heart sinks.

The wide smile once again spreds across Makas' lips.

Kid stepps back, "So you're playing like this?"

"K-Kid? Where am I?" Sophia mocks, stepping towards him.

"You're twisted." Kid spits stepping back.

"Kid. Help me! It hurts Kid." she say in Maka's innocent voice.

Kid tightens his fists, "Don't."

"Why can't you help me Kid?" Sophia continues.

"Please stop." Kid beggs.

"You're a Reaper. Save me!"

"I'm trying Maka." Kid replies, caught up in Sophias' evil game.

"A Reaper who is as weak and helpless as a human." The innocence is tinged with Sophia's harsh tone.

"You're right." Kid turnes away his face. "I'm worthless." Sophia grows flames from her limbs. Kid turns back to take in her twisted, un-symmetrical grin. "But you're worse."

The flames grow like an aura, and with a smooth gesture, Sophia aimes for Kid to deliver a finishing blow. Then as if a sudden wind blows out a candle the flames are extinguished. Sophia is frozen with shocked eyes.

"Soul Resonance."

Sophia's form brakes down revealing her gleaming weapon form.

"I guess finding a weapon I am compatible with would help improve my abilities." Kid states cooly taking hold of the grip in the center of the butterfly blades. On touch the blades glow and grow. "Turns out I'm pretty compatible with you." Maka appears in one of the blades.

"Kid! Please tell me you're not hurt!" She has tears in her eyes and Kid to this day can't bare to tell her the truth of his burns that day.

"I'm fine Maka."

"Is this..?"

"The resonance of souls? Yes." Kid lets out a sigh. "It turns out, I can help you control her Maka and I need you to help me too."


Deep within his soul, the Weapon plays a chord -as if his fingers lay on the keys a piano- the chord is in G, the same key as his meister's soul wavelength, the wavelength of this chord is identical to Maka's meister's soul frequency, and with in the mess of colours, shapes and sounds that are being created by the Daemon soul within Maka, Soul can hear the chord of G echoing back at him. It is faint in comparison but it is there. He resonates with the tiny wavelength, as he does it amplifies and grows, becoming louder and stronger, until it over powers other once dominating tones, and then finally...

She screams.

"Maka!" Soul re-opens his eyes. She hurtles through the air. Her meister quarter doesn't allow her the wings the Daemon quarter does, and she falls. Soul runs helplessly to her aid, acting on instinct, knowing that his efforts will just render himself dead on impact too. Kid flies through the air to try and catch her but she is falling too fast and his board won't get to her in time. Maka shuts her eyes; refusing to see the approaching stone paving, she steals a moment of concentration and activates the Divine quarter of her soul, and in a single fluid motion new, clean, white wings unfold from her soul and she curves away from the ground. Soul's shoulders slump in relief, and Kid allows himself a chuckle as he watches his friend happily spiral in the breeze back up to the spires of Shibusen.

"That's not funny Maka! No one is laughing! Come back down so I can kick your butt! Not cool, not cool at all!" Soul shouts to the sky stamping his feet and flailing his fists. Kid rides over to his side, Soul immediately ceases his tantrum and shoves his balled up fists into his pockets, trying to regain his cool.

"Good work." Kid places his hand on Soul's shoulder.

"Thanks."


I'm sooo rubbish! Sorry. But I have updated finnally... and its not even a good chapter. But I'll be better I promise! xx

I have loved my past reviews! Thank you so much :) xx