Whispers

Chapter 9

Monster

"Im only a man with a chamber who's got me

Im taking a stand to escape what's inside me

A monster, a monster

I've turned into a monster

A monster, a monster

And it keeps getting stronger"


Scream Resonance. He had learned that a long time ago, so long that he could barely remember it. It had been unexpected... his first resonance with Ragnarok. Being stuck together didn't mean that they were actually compatible, as a weapon-meister relationship should be. Having the obnoxious bully inside of him used to be quite painful, and just the action of summoning him in the form of a sword would cause excruciating pain. His right arm got sore just by the sheer pain wielding him would always cause. Sometimes it was so bad that the only way to ease the pain would be digging his nails in his own skin until it dripped blood.

Scream Resonance. He had learned that a long time ago, and yet the feeling got sticked to him, like a lifeboat he'll cling to, just to survive. It had been unexpected... his first resonance with Ragnarok. The first time they shared a common feeling, the first time they understood each other, despite the abysmal differences between them: fear and pain. They were brothers of blood and pain, joined together by the magic of a witch, and working together by the sheer power only fear could cause. Even when driven by a crazed state, Ragnarok was the impulse of blind reckless courage Crona needed so badly, and the swordsman was the brake to stop the demon sword from taking over his own fragile soul.

Scream Resonance. No one could ever understand the demon sword Ragnarok, better than his own meister, the demon swordsman Crona.

"Scream Resonance!" Crona roared, wielding his weapon partner up high in front of him. A high screech resonated in the huge dark forest, while the thin young man's arms started shaking, trying to keep his hold on the painful vibrating sword.

"PYYYYGGEEEEEEE!" Ragnarok's screech traveled through the air, his huge sword form being masterfully swinged, cutting through rock and giant logs that were being thrown at them. Not so far away, the elegant form of a women sitting in a broom flew away from their reach.

"Disrespectful stupid boy! How dare you!" The woman snarled, her red snake-like eyes glaring at the young man wearing an old worn-out black robe. His uneven and long pink hair covering part of his face.

"Kill her! Kill her Crona!" The black sword roared, his huge red lips growling in anger.

The young man frowned at the woman, remaining silent.

"You are nothing but a male witch! You are cattle! Destinated to serve our purpose!" The woman was enraged, floating in the air above the swordsman, who stood there with his tense arms holding his weapon.

"I-I know..." The pink-haired boy whispered, his blue eyes staring at the woman who was wearing a black and green long dress. She had horns on her leather helm atop her head as part of her attire, and a long black dress she was dragging around.

His words seemed to ease the woman, who allowed herself a smirk despite the obvious tension in the air.

"If you know, why then you keep on denying it?" The black haired woman asked, slowly returning back to the ground. Her small feet touched the ground, noticing the slight flinch Crona made at her proximity.

The young man didn't answer. He could still feel Ragnarok's anger running through his veins, how the demon was trying to push him into murder. Crona held his right arm with his left hand, digging into his own skin in an iron grip,

"You are here, all alone... when you could be part of something much bigger... " the witch whispered in a low almost seductive tone. Her red eyes were like rubies, shinning, trying to attract him in the same way a snake enchanter would do it with a cobra.

Crona tried to stand still, not moving an inch, forcing himself to stay in his place. Fear and anger dwelled inside of him, bubbling into a madness inducing concoction. It only grew worse when the woman stood right in front of him, with a grin on her face.

"Crona Gorgon... The last of the Gorgon Witches lineage, such power runs through your veins..." She whispered, raising her slender hand to touch his face. Crona stepped back, flinching from her. "Arachne, Medusa, Shaula... The Gorgons always were one of the most powerful lineages, and now they only have you to carry on their bloodline... Such a shame"

The pink-haired man said nothing, staring at the woman in front of him. Her slender long figure, as tall as himself, just a mere meter away from him.

"You are a male witch, your only purpose in life is to pass your magic to a witch..."

"My cursed lineage will die with me" Crona interrupted her, without a stutter in his voice, determination filling his eyes.

"Oh..." The witch musited, staring at him with a fake sad smile, quickly grinning at him. She laughed "well then... It seems I dont have any use for you"

The attack was unexpected.

"LOOK OUT!" Ragnarok screeched, leaving his weapon form to turn into a pair of giant black wings, shielding his meister from the attack. Vines of thorns rammed against Crona's wings, pushing him back. The pitch black wings opened in mid-air, allowing the swordsman to land safely and away from the witch, unharmed. "Watch out you idiot!"

Crona said nothing, staring at the witch who now was surrounded by a green fire escaping her black dress.

"Such a waste of good genes, but if it is your wish... I'll grant it!"

"Bring it you bitch!" Ragnarok yelled from inside of Crona, raising the black wings up high. His meister stood his ground, focusing on the woman in front of him.

"No you'll deal with me! And with all the powers of hell!" Then it happened. The fire engulfed the witch, and she started to change.

The green fire around her turned into a huge bonfire which only grew larger into the air, soon revealing a giant black dragon. The thing was massive, with dense smoke coming out of her jaws. Green unnatural eyes stared back at him, hissing in challenge. They were the eyes of a reptile... like a snake. Crona didn't like those eyes, not one bit.

Taking a shaky breath, he raised his hand in front of him, ordering with that motion to his weapon partner to materialize, His palm closed in Ragnarok's hilt, holding him tightly.

"In Lord Death's name, I order you to surrender... or I'll deal with you"

"Deal wih this!" The dragon screeched, slashing against the swordsman fiercefully. Her claw swinged at the pinkette, who jumped away from her reach. Falling back, Crona barely had time to recover when the dragon witch opened her jaws, unleashing a green flamethrower straight at him.

"Screech Beta!" The pinkette screamed, swinging his sword forward, summoning a black and purple wall of his own wavelenght that crashed like a shield against the green flames, barely stopping the attack.

"Be careful! I cant protect us against fire!" Ragnarok warned inside of him. Crona knew that... Black blood could boil and evaporize, it could also be incinerated and reduced to ashes. He was hoping that, he was hoping for the flames of that witch to be as powerful as he had heard.

The witch jumped into air, opening her black wings batting angrily at the ground. The dust flew towards Crona, slapping him in the face.

"Crona!" Ragnarok roared, noticing how his meister was blind in the whirlwind of dust. The swordsman tried to cover his eyes, but he was already incapacitated.

"C-cant see!" He said, rubbing his right eye trying to recover some vision. Thats when he felt the push. The dragon witch bullheaded him, throwing his body all the way to the nearest tree, crushing him against it. Crona gasped, feeling the wave of pain due to the impact, but nothing else.

The witch had expected to hear his bones breaking, but seeing the swordsman trying to push her back just enraged her further. Pushing even more, she started to ram her head against Crona over and over again. The tree behind him started to crack, bending over until the dragon managed to break it like a toothpick, with Crona in the middle. The witch stepped back, with a stripe of red blood running down her forehead... It had been like headbutting metal.

The blunt attack had taken Crona's breath, but nothing more. His thin body seemed unhurt, except for his old robe that now was ripped just below his ribs at his right side, exposing his pale skin. The swordsman fell to the ground on his hands, gasping for air, feeling still the unbearable pain throbbing in his ribcage. That attack would have broken every bone of any person, but he wasn't just any person... and his blood was black.

But she didn't know... Did she?

"Get up you idiot! That attack was nothing!" It certainly was nothing. He had trained with Black Star enough, back at home, to really know what a hard punch really meant. It really surprised him to discover that... Ragnarok never really punched him as hard as he could.

That dragon's attack had been barely as strong as one of Black Star's big waves, but not even close as painful. It just meant one thing: this enemy wouldn't be able to destroy him either.

Crona stared at the huge dragon with disapointment.

"Why are you looking at me like that!?" The dragon witch roared, batting her wings angrily.

"You cant kill me..." He said with a sign, wielding his weapon once again in front of him "I came here because I heard about a very powerful witch... But you can't kill me... So I have no use for you anymore"

"You little rat!" The dragon witch roared, exhaling a huge fire wave towards the swordsman, green fire crashing against him. The dragon continued her attack until she ran out of breath, chuckling slightly while the smoke disipated.

Only to find out he was gone.

Surprised, the dragon witch looked around, her huge body making the ground tremble beneath her feet. Right there, a large purple wave crashed against her body, punching her like a giant mace, throwing her out of balance and straight to the ground. It had been so strong, that her inmense body rolled a couple of times before stopping.

Crona was walking out of the woods, carrying a massive sword glowing a spectral purple light. This was a higher bond than his usual scream resonance... This was a Soul Resonance. His shy gentle soul's wavelength was traveling inside of Ragnarok, getting mixed with the angered cruel soul of his weapon partner, and returned to him in form of pure unrestrained power. They had eaten 99 very powerful Kishin eggs before finding this witch... they were strong.

And the witch noticed that now, watching his thin frame slowly walking towards her. She shuddered.

"Are you scared?" Crona asked in a monotonous tone, his blue eyes staring at her blankly. The way he stared at her and moved, the boy wasn't scared of her at all, as if he knew something she didn't... and she couldn't tolerate that.

But once Crona was close enough, the witch started to laugh. Crona frowned, not getting the joke... until he felt it. Thorns, climbing up his legs and under his robe, painfully digging into his skin, dripping his blood. Thorned vines left the ground to ram against him like arrows, piercing his body, pining him down in place. They weren't ready for such an attack, so they couldn't harden the blood for protection.

The witch watched how Crona puked a light amount of blood from his mouth. Maybe it was because of the darkness?... His blood seemed black.

"Are you scared?" The witch mocked him with a grin, noticing how the swordsman tried to remove the thorns from his body with no avail. She roared, swinging her tail trying to give him the final blow.

Just then, the slender body of the swordsman recieved the full impact of her tail, getting a massive hit on his right side. The dragon grinned, trying to remove her tail from his limp form... soon she noticed she couldn't do it. Crona's arm was firmly grabbing her tail, and he wouldn't let go.

How can such a small man have all that strenght?... Why he wasn't dead yet?... Why he wasn't bleeding out from the wounds?

"... Did you know my blood is black?" Crona asked with a mad grin, cutting his own wrist with one of the thorns that were holding him in place. What happened was completely unexpected.

Out of Crona's arm, a black scythe edge materialized... Then it happened. Crona striked against her tail, slicing it off the rest of her body. Red blood splattered everywhere like a warm rain, staining his ragged black robe. The dragon witch roared in pain, her focus now long gone to keep summoning the vines.

Crona unleashed himself from the thorny prison, falling to the ground with just cuts and bruises that already started healing. Even the nasty hole on his stomach made by one of them was already closing. The dragon witch could only stare at her mangled tail, then back at Crona... Then quickly understood that she wouldn't survive this if she stayed.

Without a word, and still bleeding, the dragon witch flew away.

"Ragnarok..." Crona growled while taking a deep sigh, getting ready for it. With the meister's order, Crona's back started to hunch and his bones to crunch, sending waves of horrid pain down his body. He screamed, holding his throbbing head with his hands, pulling his hair in fistfuls.

His back exploded, as if his own blood was too much to hold inside his body. Like a volcano, his blood spluttered tall before taking shape. A mass of black blood twisted and turned on top of Crona, quickly taking form. The vile thing had a long neck, a body of its own and a pair of inmense black wings.

He was the Demon Swordsman, but Death himself had gave him another name: The Black Dragon.

Jumping into air, Crona ordered his weapon to fly, following the witch with amazing speed. Not so far away, the witch was trying to stay in the sky, her wings struggling to keep her giant body in midair. Why? Just... This wasn't making any sense! He was just a boy! How could he... Do all that!? He wasn't normal, he wasn't just some male witch.

Soon enough, she couldn't keep flying for long, the bloodloss was important... She started to grow weak, flying slower, confident that she had lost him.

Then she felt it, a pair of feet standing on her back. When she looked back, her eyes stared in uther horror.

A massive... Thing... Resembling a dragon, coming out from the boy, grinning at her. Crona stared blankly at her, saying nothing. With a grin, Ragnarok disipated in thin air, just to reappear in Crona's hand as a giant sword. The green eyes of the dragon witch were pools of sheer horror.

"For having the powers of hell... you look as if you had never seen a demon before..." Crona mumbled, his void blue eyes staring at her as if she were just a photograph with no meaning, instead of a living being he was about to kill.

The witch quickly understood, and despite the fear... she grinned.

"I see now..." She said in mid-air, as she watched the demon swordsman wield his sword down as an executioner "You are no demon... and you are no man..."

As the sword fell down her neck, separating her head from her body, her last words resonated all over the forest.

"You are just a monster"

"Can I eat it?" Ragnarok asked for the forth time, his giant eyes staring at the purple witch soul floating near them, held by a string on a tree branch.

"No" Crona answered for the forth time, shivering on top of a large and thick tree branch in the middle of the forest. His pale torso bare, showing no signs of wounds from his fight with the dragon witch. In the thick dark, only a black scar could be seen above his stomach and behind his back, quite an old one.

The swordsman was struggling, trying to sew the new wholes in his now ragged robe. It looked in terrible shape, specially because his skills for sewing were close to non-existant. Yet, he did his best effort to improve, just so he could still use it a little longer...

"Im going to rip off that thing as soon as you try to put it on again" Ragnarok growled, his now small form giving him a light punch on the head "Ey! The people in town said they would pay a reward for the witch's head! Lets bring them the soul and recover the reward! We can buy decent clothes for your sorry ass"

"We dont need the money" Crona mumbled, quite distracted in achieving the most decent patching he could for his black robe.

"We dont need th-... Just look at you!" Ragnarok roared, pulling his meister's pink hair in an outrage. Crona whined, dropping his robe so he could grab Ragnarok's wrists and stop the abuse.

"S-stop it Ragnarok! It hurts!"

"We are in the middle of nowhere! Sitting on a tree with our asses freezing! Covered in blood and starving!" Ragnarok shrieked, now with his fists up in the air in a full tantrum "I want decent food! I want a warm bed! I want a hot shower! AND I WANT TO EAT THAT SOUL!"

"I told you! We dont know what effect could it have on us!" Crona tried to explain again, now staring at the witch's soul that silently was floating right in front of him.

"Bullshit! You are just afraid of me becoming awesome!"

"I fear for you!" Crona snapped, silencing the whining of his weapon partner "... You have seen it, Ragnarok. These souls we have hunted... They changed us. You now can turn big or small at will..."

"Why is that bad, smartass? If you want me to destroy your ass everytime I pop out, you just need to tell me!"

"Ragnarok, Im serious!" The swordsman growled, looking up straight to his partner's eyes "the kishin eggs made us stronger... But consuming a witch is different..."

"What I've felt is that this kishin hunting just made you more tolerable! Barely! I dont even know how I havent kicked your ass for not giving me that freaking soul!"

"What if you change after you eat... That thing?" Crona musited, looking down to the ground below them "99 kishin souls and a witch's soul is required to create a death scythe... The weapon makes the magic from the witch's soul his own..."

"... So?"

"You are attached to me, Ragnarok... I already have magic inside me, even if I cant use it... Its in my blood, in you... What if it becomes too much to handle?"

"Bullshit! What is the worse that can happen? For us to go batshit crazy for power and destroy mankind? Hahahahaha!" Ragnarok roared in laugher, his ball like hands ruffling the hair of his partner in amusement.

"R-ragnarok!"

"I can see it now! Crona the woobie, destroyer of worlds!" Ragnarok laughed more, enjoying his meister's frustrated face "We'll travel around with a megaphone, reciting your poetry, killing everyone from a depressive overdose! A true weapon of massive destruction! Just walk around and watch everyone hang themselves!"

Crona sighed, folding his arms against his chest, shuddering slightly from cold. Ragnarok stopped laughing, leaning down to his meister, ruffling his pink hair.

"One day Crona, you will understand that you are Cursed with Awesome"

The swordsman said nothing, looking away.

"Alright alright... Lets asume the worst, lets say that indeed we both hear voices that tell us to destroy the freaking universe and build a Death Star with a whole dark empire! We'll change our name to "The Dark Lord" and build ourselves a bionic arm and legs, and..."

"I shouldn't have let you watch those movies..." Crona interrupted his partner, sighing in defeat.

"The point here is... Would anyone care?" Ragnarok's words silenced Crona, who sit there no saying a word. "Stripes would hunt us down like a rabid dog, the world would keep spinning... And she wont come back"

She wouldn't come back...

"She wont even care... Shes too busy in her perfect married life... And you are here, alone, shivering in the cold. We can be so much more, Crona... We can be a Death Scythe. No one will dare to touch us!"

At the end... Why was all the fuss about? Maybe that little soul in front of them would make any difference in his life? Maybe it would push him into madness, yet again... He had been dancing at the edge of madness for a couple of months from now...

Would anyone care if he just... Lost it?

Ragnarok smile widened when Crona's hand closed on the round soft purple soul, waiting anxiously.

"This will change us..."

In one movement, the demon swordsman throwed the soul at his partner's mouth, who swallowed it whole.

"And no one will care..."


"I-Im seeing her..." Crona's voice sttutered, shivering in his place. He was sitting in a sewed chair inside of a warm comfortable room, with a hot cup of tea atop a wooden table. In front of him, a tall man with a stern look in his face stared at him almost blankly.

The doctor stood unphazed, taking out of his lab coat a cigarette and holding it between his lips. As if tasting the bitter taste of the paper, he toyed with the small rolled joint with his lips before lighting it up. Taking a long suck, he slowly released the smoke through his nose, followed by a deep aigh.

"How often?" He finally asked, staring at the shaking boy in front of him. Crona was looking down, his eyes covered by his uneven pink hair.

"... All day..." Stein frowned, taking the cigarette off his lips "in the kitchen... The living room... My room... Even when I walk down the streets... She is everywhere"

Crona glanced up, daring to stare at the doctor's eyes. The teenager's face was demacrated, showing clear signs of malnutrition and insomnia. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his face looked even more thin than usual. His hands, holding his clean black robe in fistfuls, were almost nothing but skin and bones.

Crona had vanished from school a couple weeks after Maka's departure, secluding himself from the world in that tiny apartment. It took everyone's effort to take him out of his self-imprisonment, and for many months it seemed they had managed to help him to overcome his depression. Now, at that moment, Steing figured out that... They never really helped him, they just forced him to hide it.

Crona couldn't hide it anymore, not when his shaking voice and his starving body were screaming the truth. He had been in nursery a whole week, with every doctor in school available trying to save his life. If Blair hadn't found out, Crona would had succeed in starving himself to death.

Clever boy, finding out the only way to beat his almost immortality.

"... I'll need to lock you up, you know that, right?" Stein asked, noticing how Crona's eyes glanced away. It wouldn't work, both knew that... that wouldn't stop his allucinations, that wouldn't convince him to eat or let Ragnarok eat.

Yet, Stein had an idea... or, actually, Marie had an idea.

"You'll stay with us, Marie has already prepared a bed in Victor's room"

"W-w-what?... W-why?... W-w-why w-would y-you..." Crona stuttered, his face showing shock and fear, shuddering.

"Because I am your doctor, Marie loves you, and you are a brother to my son" He said matter-of-factly. "This is not an act of kindness, this is our last effort to save your life, not because of kindness, but because we care"

Crona said nothing, his face still in awe, his shaky blue eyes staring deeply at the tall professor in front of him.

"Spirit wont take long to come over with your belongings..."


"Yes?" A voice called through a mirror.

"Good night, lord death" Crona greeted with a little smile.

"Ohhh! Crona! I was starting to worry! That is, until I heard of what you did last night" The dark shadow greeted, leaning closer to the mirror just to have a better look. He was wearing a very well known skull mask.

"Cronaaaaa!" Patty yelled, pushing Kid just to wave vigorously through the mirror. The swordsman kept his smile, raising his hand to wave back. Not so far, Liz smiled at him.

"Ey" a bossy voice was heard, and the mirror moved so a redhead grown up man was occupying the whole view. "Are you a Death Scythe now?"

The swordsman smile twitched, still feeling a little intimidated by Spirit Albarn, the so called "Death Scythe". A mere second later, out of his back a little demon bursted out of his back, sitting atop his head.

"Hell yes I am! And I am million times better than you, you old creep!" Ragnarok roared, noticing with delight how a couple of veins popped out of Spirit's forehead.

"You wish, you little nuisance" the redhead growled, fixing his black tie trying not to get mad at Ragnarok. The demon was just being, well... himself. Rather, Spirit smiled a bit after looking at the thin swordsman through the mirror. He looked worn out and beaten, but... In better shape than how he had been a year ago. "How are you boy?"

Crona held his right arm, but just nodded almost shyly. At first Crona didn't have Spirit in very good lights, mostly because of what he did to Maka and her mother. But, after certain events, Crona could say that he wasn't that bad...

"Just what the hell are you wearing?" The feminine voice of Liz was heard behind Spirit, just before the redhead got thrown away so the gun could look straight at the mirror. "What in the name of Death is that!?"

The swordsman bowed his head, noticing his attire. The old black robe had lost its regenerative powers a long time ago, and during his trip it had ben ripped, shreded, burnt and sewed back up over and over again. Its look was deplorable, to say the least.

"You look like a bum!" Patty laughed behind her sister, pointing at the blushing swordsman.

"This is serious Patty" Liz said to her small sister, staring back at the ashamed pinkette "How can you go around helping comunities in the name of Shibusen while wearing that?"

Crona pouted, but said nothing against that. His robe didnt look that bad before his fight with the witch... He had to agree, though, that his robe had seen better days.

"Liz, let him breathe" Kid sighed, watching his weapon having a fashion breakdown.

"Hell no! This is a crime to fashion! A bitchslap to every hour I've spent teaching him what to wear!" Liz roared, his eyes filled with murder intent "where are you Crona?"

"I-in poland!" The swordsman flinched, quickly answering to his friend's demands.

"Im sending you an outfit right away, so you better wait for it!... And you WILL use it, am I clear?" Liz threatened. Behind her, Patty was laughing almost histerically.

"Y-yes ma'am..."

"Wait, Liz..." Kid said, taking his weapon's shoulder so she would back off the mirror screen. Smiling at the swordsman through his skull mask, the death god adressed to him "How are you feeling?"

The swordsman blinked for a moment, then quickly understood where his question was going. He glanced to his side, thinking the answer for a moment, just like Stein had told him to do.

"... Im alright" he said, and it wasnt a full blown out lie. He was... Alright, as good as someone like him could be. At least he was eating.

Kid nodded, searching inside his black coat until he took out a white envelope. Crona's eyes lightened.

"You want me to send it with your clothes? Or should I read it?" The Death God asked, pleased with the swordsman's stare. It was like if, all of the sudden, Crona's eyes turned back to life.

Crona seemed to measure the situation for a moment, glancing at the envelope like a little puppy would do with a can of food. He wanted to read it so badly... he wanted to know how Maka was doing. Yet again... there was no way he would allow Kid to read the letter in front of everyone. Usually Blair would take care of that...

"W-where is Blair?" He asked, noticing that the cat wasn't in the Death Room like usual. Most of the times, the magical cat was always the first to greet him through the mirror... and the one to read Maka's letters for him.

"She had to work today, but I'll tell her you said hi" Spirit smiled, shoving his hands in his pants bags. Oh, Crona knew quite well when and HOW he would send her such message. Really, Mr. Albarn...

"Uhm... T-then... C-could you please s-send it with the clothes?" Liz quickly agreed, taking the envelope from Kid's hands. The shinigami took his skull mask in his hands, pulling it off so he could see directly to Crona. The young death god's eyes were an intense golden color, and piercing cold. Yet, for his friends and students, they had a subtle warmth that would always make them feel comfortable around him.

"We saw the news; you beat the witch Maleficent, quite remarkable" Kid smiled, opening his hand where a letter materialized from thin air. Taking it between his fingers, the perfectionist god read quite pleased "To Lord Death, we send this letter to show our eternal grattitude for sending one of your students to help us. We are happy to inform that the evil witch that has been tormenting our kingdoms is finally dead. Your meister Crona and his unique partner Ragnarok will always have a warm welcome in our lands. We regret that they didn't return after their amazing deed, but we kindly ask you to tell them we are eternally grateful. Please accept the package we sent along with this letter..."

Kid glanced to his side, where Patty lifted a medium sized chest, dancing around with it. Crona guessed it was the reward they were offering for the witch's head. The shinigami cleared his voice before continuing.

"May your school and your students keep being the beacon of light and order, in this world filled with darkness and chaos. Forever grateful, King Phillipe and Queen Aurora"

"They just 'thanked us'!? I wanted a title! I want to be called Sir Ragnarok McAwesome! And you can be my loyal servant! Sir Whiny Von CryALot!" Ragnarok laughed, looking down to squeeze his meister's cheeks. Crona complained for the rude treatment, pushing his weapon away from him.

"H-how did they know we did it?... We never said we would help them..." Crona asked, quite confused. After destroying Maleficent, they had just left... So, how?

"Apparently, they recognized you as... Well... Medusa's child, so they followed you during your time in their lands." Kid said, noticing how Crona's face darkened with the mention of his mother. Despite the years, people still recognized him as Shibusen's traitor "Also, one of the victims you saved from the witch's lair said your name. The King was really impressed, specially since you didn't return to pick up the reward"

"Psh, moron" The demon sword grunted, ruffling Crona's hair like a cat before laying comfortably on top of his head.

"A true Dark Knight" Liz smiled, giving him a thumbs up. The swordsman blushed, saying nothing.

"So, did my name appeared in every TV of every house of all the world!?" Ragnarok asked with a huge grin. It was tradition that every new Death Scythe would have a world wide announcement of their transformation. It happened with Soul, who became famous from one day to another.

"We are not students, Ragnarok..." Crona reminded him, earning a harsh noogie on his skull.

"Unfortunately, you are an unofficial Death Scythe... only the students of our academy know" Kid said with obvious distaste. There was nothing he could do about it... Crona had been exiled from school, he couldn't be a student ever again.

"Goddamnit..." Ragnarok mumbled, huffing in annoyance. "Can you at least send us decent clothes with that bloody reward? A coat please! This moron doesnt give a shit if I freeze at night!"

"Yes of course... But, actually... I was wondering if you could check out a specific place for me" Kid said, staring at Crona through the mirror. The swordsman glanced away, thinking about it. After a few seconds, he nodded making Kid smile "Take a plane to southamerica tonight-"

"South-freaking-murica!?" Ragnarok roared "you have any idea how far that damn place is, stripes!?"

"We got a help request from the DWMA of southamerica" Spirit said with a serious tone in his voice, staring at Crona's slender figure in the mirror "It seems they are dealing with a Kishin Egg they cant find, he has murdered 15 girls between the age of 10 to 19 years old... they had sent many of their students to the hunt, but either they return unsuccessful... or never return at all"

That sounded familiar. Crona lifted his face, understanding Lord Death's interest in the case. Maybe it was the same kishin egg that had killed one of their own students a couple months ago. Well, not really killed... That meister and his weapon had disappeared, but nothing else. Even if it was so far away from Nevada, it could be a clue.

"I-I'll go..." Crona accepted, staring at Spirit and Kid with determination. Spirit smiled softly.

"You should be there in two days if you hurry. You have to arrive to Colombia, someone will be waiting for you in a tabern near the airport called "La cueva del diablo", he'll tell you what to do.

"La cue.. What!?" Ragnarok asked in confusion. What kind of nasty uncivilized language was that?

"Devil's cave" Crona traduced to him, looking up at his weapon. The little demon stared back before pinching his cheeks roughly "o-ouch! R-Ragnarok! S-stahp!"

"Since when YOU know spanish, dickhead?" Ragnarok roared, throwing punches at his meister's head before turning to pinch his cheeks "stop acting like a know-it-all, dumbass!"

"S-staahp! You'll make my sheeks big and I caa-ant deal with it!" Crona whined, trying to push away his abusive companion.

"Keep whining, Sir Whiny Von CryALot!"

Kid sighed, shaking his head. At last, he wished good luck at Crona and Ragnarok before turning off the comunication.


"He reminds me of you..." Marie said softy, bringing her cup of tea close to her lips. In front of her, Spirit frowned, toying with the beer in his right hand.

"What you mean?" The redhead asked, looking at the other side of the living room where Crona was playing with an almost 4 years old Victor. The little blonde toddler, wearing one of his father's medical mask, was performing a brain surgery with plastic knifes to his teddy bear. Beside him, Crona was using his hands to make the bear move and talk, complaining about random issues of his teddy bear life.

For anyone else, watching a 23 year old man playing with a toddler would have been stupid and even denigrating. No man of that age would do that willingly, maybe not even forced... But Crona was actually enjoying it. He had never played like that before.

"D-doctor, c-could you help me out with my e-eyes later? I'm tired of seeing e-everything with this old b-buttons eyes..." Crona said, trying not to stutter as much.

"Well of courseee! But I has to take off this bad thoughts! Or madness will take over!" Little Victor said, opening the stuffed bear with the plastic knife.

"O-ouch! C-careful doctor! Those are my memories!"

Marie, at the other side of the room, couldn't help a sad smile, feeling her eyes watering a bit. She could just imagine the living hell the boy had to endure with Medusa, but... It was so heartbreaking to see him enjoying children games so much... It was obvious they were new to him.

Spirit on the other hand, looked at the scene with different eyes. He didn't feel pity for the boy, he didn't deserve pity... He was too strong for pity. Opposite to that, Spirit felt a deep tenderness towards him, a man so strong to his principles and his own kind nature, that he managed to keep his humanity while living in Hell. Because of that man, who now looked so silly playing with a child, his daughter was still alive.

"You are a good man, Spirit... But for you, alcohol is like madness is to Crona" Marie said, wiping away a little tear that escaped her eyes. "When you cant deal with something, when you try to protect a part of yourself or forget something... You go to alcohol. Crona, on the other side, surrenders to madness"

Spirit frowned, looking down at the beer hanging in his right hand.

"If you both could get rid of your demons..." She musited, taking a deep sigh.

"What?" Spirit frowned, knowing where all that was going "Kami would still be with me? Maka would love us both?"

"Spirit..."

"I made a mistake with Kami, but Maka made her own choices... She decided to hate me, and to love Soul instead of..." Spirit bit his tongue, leaving the phrase unfinished. He sighed, looking at some random part of the room "Dont blame the boy for something out of his control"

"Im not blaming him" Marie said with a frown, feeling Spirit's discomfort with the issue. The redhead growled, taking a long gulp of his beer. "I want you to talk to him..."

"Talk to him?" The death scythe repeated confused, looking at the young adult sitting in the floor playing with Marie's child.

"Not as a teacher... But as the best friend of his father" Marie said, her one good eye looking at Crona without him noticing. The pinkette would never accept it, he was too humble to accept it, but he was pretty much their child just as much as Victor. "Talk to him as an equal... As the father of the woman he cares so much"

Spirit looked down to his beer, his green eyes focused on the dark liquid inside. Taking a deep sigh, he throwed his beer to the nearest trashcan. Fixing his black suit, he walked towards the swordsman, who stopped playing with the little toddler to stare back at him.

"Crona, come with me..."


It hides in the jungle, and every four weeks you can hear the screams of its victims. That was what his contact had said to him. A shibusen teacher of southamerica, which he had a conversation with as soon as he had arrived to the tabern near the airport. He told him how for the last year, many women had disappeared without leaving a single clue. There were 15 bodies, but the number of disappeared women were a lot more, actually hundreds.

So, either they hadn't found that much amount of bodies... Or they were still alive. That was his mission: found out what happened to those women. It was a simple task for any volunteer of Shibusen, but Kid had chosen him for one reason only: he wanted him to deal with the problem. So, even if his mission was to find the girls or her bodies, his real task was to find and destroy the kishin egg responsible for all that mess.

And for that, he had to search where no one else dared to go.

"Mosquitoes! Mosquitoes every-fucking-where!" Ragnarok roared, punching the air and wailing all around him, trying to scare away the infamous bugs trying to suck their blood. He had to keep the blood hardened all day and night just to avoid the little bastards from feeding on them.

Why? Ragnarok learned the bad way that allowing the buggers to sting Crona would mean dealing with the itch... Also, they had no idea what effect would the black blood have on those insects, or the other animals they could suck at. What if mosquitoes could carry his blood disease just like any other and they started stinging on other people? That sounded like a nightmare worth of a hollywood movie.

The swordsman was tired as well. They had searched for days not leaving the jungle, looking for any clue. Soon enough he found out why no one dared to search for the kishin egg in the jungle: the place itself was a murderer. Thanks to Ragnarok, he quickly found out mosquitoes were disease carriers, and if it weren't for him stopping the infection as soon as it entered his body, he would be dead already. Lets not even talk about the whole evening he spent ill in a cave after eating poisonous mushrooms... again, he was alive thanks to Ragnarok who cleansed his body from the toxins. Also, there were huge carnivores prowling around... his mangled robe was evidence of that.

"Crona, I cant keep going like this... I need to rest" Crona looked up, noticing the seriousness in his partner's voice. Yes, he could feel how tired Ragnarok was, from hardening his blood to transform into weapon form and to survive with whatever they could eat... and Crona refused to kill wildlife.

Yet he kept on going, deeper into the jungle. Some mad force pushing him further, beyond his own stamina, in a reckless searching. The day before, they had found a female carcass that seemed had been buried, and wildlife had taken care of unbury her. She was unrecognizable, with no flesh left on her bones, her brain eaten by maggots... but she was female. Why did he know that? Stein's lessons of dissection had taught him that females hips were wider and in different shape than men... Also he found the dress not so far away from the grim tomb.

Why a female that seemed not older than 18 would be so deep in the jungle? It made no sense, so she surely was a victim of the kishin egg that was terrorizing the zone. Crona's stomach growled in hunger, but the swordsman paid no mind. Above his head, Ragnarok glanced up to the trees trying to find one with edible fruits.

"Here I am, the best Death Scythe in the world, stitched to a whiny little bitch... Tired... Starving..."

"Shhh..." Crona musited, his dark eyes staring at the thick bushes around them... That part of the jungle was too quiet. He looked up, trying to find any sight of birds or the ocasional monkey staring at him... But there was nothing, not even the croaks of frogs. Probably some predator had passed not long ago.

"Im hungry you asshole! Im tired! I want some rest!" Yet again, Crona ignored him. He knew how much they could endure, and how far their breaking point was. They had survived worst.

"Sun will leave us soon, hold on" The swordsman musited, his eyebrow twitching when a new growl came out of his stomach. They hadn't eat a proper meal since they started the mission... and all the injuries they had to endure for the past week were starting to weight on his shoulders.

"I need meat Crona! I NEED MEAT! Im tired of damn fruits and leaves! If you dont hunt something Im going to force fistful of bugs down your throat!"

"I am not killing anything just to eat it!" He raised his voice, his dark eyes looking up to his partner. They indeed needed meat, the fruits around werent enough to supply the protein their black blood needed. They needed iron in their blood, or hardening it would start being a problem.

"MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT!"

"H-hush Ragnarok!"

"You greenpeace peta lover shitty mother f-!" Ragnarok couldn't complete his phrase. Out of the bushes, a shadow jumped right on top of them with a roar.

Jaws like steel fell upon them, closing on Crona's shoulder. The weight throwed him down to the floor, and the impact against the ground punched his breath away. Sharp claws digged on his chest, and soon he noticed a black panther had attacked him. The large fangs were deep into his flesh, his black blood filling the cat's mouth and staining the floor.

Not again... Crona looked down to the big cat on top of him with pity, allowing it to trash him and maul him... It wouldn't last long. On top of his head, Ragnarok was laughing.

"You just started the fight... Didn't you?" Crona growled to his partner, drowning a painful hiss down his throat. It was pointless to hurt the panther now... soon enough the animal stood still, with wide open eyes.

"I was hungry! If you dont search for food, then I'll just order food!"

Crona knew quite well what would happen next... He saw it happen with a poisonous snake the first day they went into the jungle. A cobra had biten him, and at the end both him and the snake ended up curled on the floor struggling with pain. Ragnarok managed to ooze the poison out of his body, but the snake had biten itself during the madness attack his blood had caused. That night Ragnarok ate roasted snake.

The large cat jumped away from Crona, running out without even looking, ramming itself against a tree. Confused, the panther looked around as if lost, growling to something that seemed only it could see. Running again, it slammed its head against another tree, crying out in pain. Crona could only stare with pity.

"You shouldn't have done that... My blood is black" the swordsman said to the large cat which now was curled into a ball next to a tree bleeding from a cut on its head. Leaving it like that was just plain cruel... Madness was made for humans, not innocent animals.

Though Crona wasn't human, or animal... or demon.

Without even giving an order, Ragnarok melted in thin air, forming a large cloud on top of his meister's head. The pinkette, without looking, shoved his hand inside the black cloud, taking out of it a large broadsword. The giant sword blade fell to the ground heavily, and from one of the sides, a big red mouth showed off, grinning. How a man so thin could carry a sword that was as large as himself... only meisters would know.

"Im sorry" he whispered to the terrified cat, before lifting his sword high above his head, just to let it fall like a guillotine upon the animal.

Sunset showed low on the horizon when Crona finally found a place to rest. Not so far where the panther had attacked him, there was a cave. After one of Ragnarok's loud screeches didn't made any animal flee in shock out of it, they confirmed it was empty. Dragging the dead body of the animal inside, they were quick to make a bonfire. Camping wasn't new to them... they used to do that since Crona was seven years old, and his mother would throw him to the wild for him to survive.

Using his sword, the swordsman took his time to cut the panther so he could cook it. Ragnarok could eat the damn thing raw, but Crona was now too hungry to ignore an easy meal. As long as Ragnarok had access to food, he couldn't starve himself to death... his weapon partner would just share his energy with him to keep him alive. There was no point in not eating now.

"Excuse me!" Ragnarok grinned, quickly mutating into a bigger form of himself. His paws transformed in gloved strong hands, a giant toned body popping out of his meister's back, who just bite his lips to endure the stinging pain.

Since they started hunting kishin souls, Ragnarok seemed to have gained more control over the black blood, now being able to transform and change size at will. Stein had explained to him that eating human souls would make black blood stronger, so much that it could control them. On the other hand, eating pre-kishin souls would make them able to gain full control over the black blood... just like Soul. It sound surreal, really, but Crona could only wish how would be like being able to hold back his madness, to control it completely, to stop having panic attacks or allucinating...

Ragnarok bend over, grabbing the panther's roasted leg and tearing it with his teeth, eating as noisy as he could. Crona looked up, frowning at his weapon partner's manners on the table. The sword seemed to have noticed his stare, because he looked down to meet his eyes.

"... What!?" He growled, cleaning his face with the back of his gloved hand.

" if you dare to wipe that on me..."

"Ha! I'll use your disgusting piece of rag you call robe! When is Liz package arriving anyway?" Ragnarok asked, munching on the cat's femur like a starving wolf.

"It should be waiting for us, I guess..." The pinkette musited, crossing his arms around his knees, looking at the bonfire and the cat's corpse hanging on top, cooking slowly. Fire could destroy black blood, so it was safe to eat it... It wasn't like they would get infected anyway.

Out of nowhere, Ragnarok shoved a half-cooked thick steak of panther on his face.

"Eat!" The weapon ordered, hanging the steak in front of his meister.

"T-that is almost raw!"

"Dont be a pussy! Real men eat it raw!" He laughed, enjoying his meister's distress.

They were too busy fighting each other, they didn't notice the footsteps getting closer, or the shadows forming in the walls of the cave. They only noticed it when a voice called them.

"Ey bro, mind to share the fire?"


They were out of Stein's house, both sitting in the same bench on the porch, with a fair amount of space between them. For Crona, it had never been pleasant to share space with Spirit, mostly because he didn't know him that well. Maka hating his guts had also a big deal about that too, since Crona had seen first hand how much pain he caused in her heart.

She always said she hated him, but Soul had said once that it wasnt true. The death scythe had told him that the reason of Maka's hate was because she had loved him. That didn't make sense for Crona, how could you hate someone you love? Soul had explained to him that it was all about passion: love and hate were passion in different directions. So, often, if love wasnt corresponded, it would turn into hate.

That conversation with Soul had scared him. If what he had said was true, it meant that... one day, sooner or later, he would end hating Maka. The worse part was that, even if he didn't want to believe that... Soul seemed to be right. Deep in his heart, as some kind of dirty secret, he knew he had loved his mother. Even now, when he dedicated his time to remember Medusa, he could feel the sting of hate for her, as big as the hunger for the love he never got back from her.

And yet, if Medusa somehow returned showing him affection... He wouldn't doubt to kill her.

... Would that happen with Maka as well?

"What are you thinking?" Spirit's voice made the swordsman jump, squeaking in surprise.

"... N-nothing..." He musited. The young male had forgot where he was. He had been sitting next to Spirit for some time, looking down at his feet in some kind of catatonic state. He did that quite often.

The redhead frowned, taking a deep sigh before ruffling his own hair with his right hand.

"Is not very smart to try to bullshit a bullshiter, Crona" he scowled the pinkette, making him shrink in his place. "You dont want to tell me, thats fine, just dont lie"

"I-Im sorry..." Crona whispered, flinching when he heard Spirit sigh. A long silence followed, making the swordsman look at his side to stare at the redhead.

Spirit Albarn was looking up at the blue sky, where the laughing sun standed high. Crona rarely had spent time with him, this actually being the very first time they had stood next to each other for so long. It was hard to think that, that man almost as tall as himself, was Maka's father. They were so different, physically and mentally... how could such an unstable man have such a wonderful daughter?

It was laughable. As if someone dared to say that one day he would have a brave, secure and carefree daughter. Ha... ha... ha.

"You havent talked to Stein anymore... about your issues..." Spirit talked, lacking any kind of touch. Issues, being a bad try for a nice way of adressing his madness. Yet, Crona didn't feel offended, it was true.

The pinkette didn't answer, looking down to his feet again. Spirit choked a new sigh on his throat, feeling awkwardness raising between them. Why the hell did he agree to do this? What could he possibly do or say to him that everybody else hadn't? What difference would he make? He wasnt Maka.

The redhead opened his eyes in surprise, suddenly realizing why Marie asked him to talk to him... talk about the only topic Crona couldn't talk with anybody else. Even so... as a father, the topic was still horribly awkward.

"... Do you hate Maka?" Crona asked all of the sudden, surprising the old death scythe. Spirit blinked a couple of times before frowning.

"Of course not"

"... Why not?" The question surprised Spirit again. Why was he asking him such rubbish?

"Shes my daughter, I will always love her" the redhead answered matter-of-factly, with security on his voice. Soon enough he realized that wasn't a good answer for Crona.

Of course, above all people in the world, Crona would never understand that. The love of a parent and their child, so obvious and undeniable for most of mankind, was alien to Crona. It didnt make any logic or sense.

Crona had been raised with the idea that love had to be earned. You are free to love, but for someone to love you back... You must fight for it, kill for it, die for it. If someone doesn't love you, is just because you are not worthy of their love.

He never got to be worthy of his own mother's love, how could anyone else love him? Spirit wanted to tell him Medusa wasn't a mother, that Crona was pretty much orphan and he must not think about her as an example for love. But that was something Stein and Marie had repeated to him over and over again.

Anyway, Medusa's unrequited motherly love wasn't what had sunken Crona's fragile sanity.

No, it had been Her's unrequited love...

"... Do you hate Maka?" Spirit asked, staring at the swordsman who stared back with surprised blue eyes.

Even more surprising, was that Crona remained silent, dodging his stare. Silently, the pinkette raised his hand to touch his own chest, as if trying to find the answer in his heart. There were minutes of silence, were the swordsman seemed focused at some random point in the horizon. Spirit waited patiently for his answer.

"... No" he said, dropping his hand off his chest and on top of his knees. No, he didn't... He couldn't hate her for not loving him the way he wanted to. "... In any case... I hate myself for not being good enough of her..."

"Ey" Spirit growled, frowning deeply. His strong hand raised to hold Crona's bony shoulder, forcing him to look at him "that is not true"

Crona looked at him with a panned expression. He didnt believe him.

"... I dont care what you think about yourself, that is not true" he said with anger in his voice, his own blue eyes showing something close to pain. Damn, how much he needed a drink right now.

The swordsman remained silent, his skinny hands intertwined in a tight grasp, his dark eyes looking down. He had heard that thousands of times... How could anyone tell him what to think or how to feel? It was plain stupid, he couldn't control how he felt, not about Maka, not about himself. Stein understood that, so he never tried to change his mind about that. Rather, he would try and make him talk about how he felt, that helped sometimes...

But not when it was about how he felt about Maka. He couldnt talk about that with anyone.

"I met Kami around the same age you met Maka" Spirit musited, not even looking at Crona anymore. The swordsman raised his head, quickly recognizing the name of Maka's mother. Interest filled his dark eyes, looking at the redhead intently. "In that time, Stein was my meister... and she was just my best friend"

Crona blinked, unable to say a word. Was Spirit really telling him his story with Kami and Maka? Not even Maka had talked to him about that, at least not widely. And Maka had told him a big deal. How Spirit would arrive home drunk almost every night, smelling like cheap whisky and even cheaper perfume. How Kami and him would yell their lungs out at each other. How Spirit would leave the house after a fight and how Kami would end crying quietly, with little Maka hearing everything from her room's half-open door.

"... I cant say I was truly in love with Kami" Spirit said suddenly, making Crona gasp. How could he say that?... "But I know for sure... I've never loved someone like I loved her, except for Maka"

The pinkette remained silent, feeling confusion and anger raising inside of him. If Maka could hear him, she would be so heartbroken... And he hurted for her, what he was saying was painful even for him. Just to think Maka could ever hear that...

"Everyone said it, and is true... Maka was an accident" Crona trembled, hearing that as a straight insult "We didn't plan her, we were not ready... I loved Kami, but I didn't want to be a father, I got scared... Too scared to face it, and too scared to run away"

Crona didn't want to hear any of it. What was the point of telling him all that?

"But when she was born... I felt what true love was about" the readhead whispered, his eyes looking at the horizon with a far away look, showing a half smile on his face "she was as radiant as the sun, as soft as a little angel, the first time she smiled at me... I never thought I could feel that way, so happy that it was actually painful... Havent you feel that way before?"

The swordsman looked down to his own feet, saying nothing.

"I stayed for her, for my Maka, the love of my life... But not even my love for her could keep me away from my demons, my fears... And the fame, the power that being Shinigami's Death Scythe brought to me... All the women wanting to be with me, everything engulfed me into some kind of wild madness"

Spirit stood a moment in silence, frowning, his now sharp eyes looking at the laughing sun as if it were mocking at him. Crona hadn't said a word since he started talking, but the weapon knew he was listening.

"I knew I was hurting them, Kami and Maka, but I couldn't get rid of that feeling of... Not being enough for them... My mistakes made me feel useless, and that feeling pushed me into drink, and the drink into despair, making me seek love in every women that crossed my path... Not even Kami's punches or tears would make me get into reason..."

Another long silence, Spirit looked at his side just to see the swordsman with his head down, both hands in tight grips on top of his knees. He should get to the point quick, before Crona lost his patience.

"Now I know, my mistake was to think I wasn't enough for them. Maybe... Maybe I wasn't enough for Kami, but I could have been enough for Maka. She had loved me, and I destroyed that" Taking a deep sigh, Spirit raised his hand to grab Crona by the shoulder, making him look up at him "If you think you are not enough... If you allow yourself to fall more and more into your own madness... What is she going to think when he comes back?"

That got Crona's attention, who opened his eyes as if in realization.

"You think she'll hate you? You think she'll despise you and destroy you because of that?... No, you will only hurt her, just like I hurted her..."

Spirit's hand released the swordsman, who stood still next to him, not moving an inch, as if digesting what he was telling him.

"If you truly feel for her... You must cherish her teachings, and aim to make her proud, just to make her-"

"Happy..." Crona interrupted him, almost reading his mind. Spirit smiled, nodding.

"To show her your love, even if she doesnt love you back" Spirit said with a knowing sigh.

Maka's father knew... He knew about him and how... he felt. It seemed now, more than ever, that everyone knew. He should feel terrified, sickened, but... maybe, in the cruelest of jokes, the only person in the whole world that could understand how he was feeling, was Spirit Albarn.

He was trembling, his bony shoulders shaking slightly in fear and anxiety. A strong hand fell on his back, in some kind of odd comfort.

"You are a good man, Crona... So please, dont be like me" Spirit whispered the last part, patting the pinkette gently before standing up. He had said enough, and certainly... He needed a couple of drinks.

The death scythe walked away, leaving the swordsman who just looked at his lonely figure getting lost into the city.


They were in a tabern.

Crona wasn't comfortable at all in such a noisy place, but it certainly was better than the jungle they had been sleeping in for almost two weeks. The stench of smoke and alcohol filled his nostrils giving him a slight headache, but the environment was... in some odd way, nice. People were laughing and cheering, the few women around walked back and forth serving drinks and food, giving the ocassional slap to anyone who tried to disrespect them. Those girls were nice, and the one serving his table always smiled at him.

He wasnt alone though. Ragnarok on his full size form, swinged on top of him flexing his muscles, making most of the guys around to cheer and clap. They were five, most of them with light brown skin color except for the most relaxed of the five, who was blonde.

Hugo was just as big as Ragnarok, with a prominent stomach popping out of his belt. He was flexing in some kind of contest against the black blooded demon. Next to Crona was a boy almost as small as he was, Martin, smiling and clapping along cheering for the huge demon. The swordsman sighed, glancing to a very tanned boy that could rival Professor Stein's heigh, with chocolate colored hair, grinning while holding with his teeth what surely was the biggest tobacco Crona had ever seen, he remembered his name was Raul. Just as loud as the rest of the group, a short man with jet black hair kept on ramming his mug against the wooden table, roaring in laugher and cheering for Hugo. He was really short, probably as shorter as Soul in his teenage years, his name was Dante.

And at the other side of the table, relaxed and calmed with a smile, was the only blonde in the crew, Carlos.

"Cant beat dis muscles!" Hugo roared in a quite bad english accent, flexing his enormous arms and puffing his chest.

"You bitch, those are no muscles! You are all fat!" Ragnarok roared back, puffind his whole body, showing off muscles that would make Rambo scream like a little fangirl. Or at least, thats what he had been saying the whole night.

"Bring it you frog!" Hugo yelled, flexing his arm right on the table, digging his elbow against the furniture.

"You'll regret that!" Ragnarok grinned, dissolving inside of Crona's body.

"W-wait! R-Ragnarok!" Crona gasped, trying to stop his partner with no avail. Suddenly, the swordsman chest exploded in a rather painful way. The pinkette choked a scream on his throat, biting his lip, while his partner bursted out of his chest so he could be closer to the table.

"Cabrón! Puto Alien!" Raul laughed in his native tongue. In shibusen students received classes in many languages, and spanish was an obligatory language to master since it was used in pretty much half the continent. Crona wasn't good at learning foreign languages, but spanish was kind of easy... it was very similiar to Italian. Although he didn't understand the slangs, he did understand the word "Alien"...

"A-Alien!? W-where!?" Crona asked, looking around trying to see one of those thin being with giant heads and insect-like eyes. He couldn't deal with an Alien invasion right now!

"Right there! Like a motherfucker Riddley Scott's Alien!" Raul kept on laughing, pointing at Ragnarok who now was pulsing with Hugo, both holding their hands tightly and roaring. Crona was clueless, and everyone could see it in his puzzled face. "Oh my god... dont you know Alien movies!? You are american!"

"I... I dont understand... is Alien a movie?" Crona asked, watching with discomfort how Ragnarok and Hugo kept on pulsing, making the table shake.

"Best-Movie-EVER! Jesus man, you do are sheltered arent you?" the tanned boy named Dante mocked at him, his jet-black hair moving slightly with the air conditioner nearby. Taking a long gulp of his beer, he stared at it for a moment before looking at the swordsman, who simply had a glass of soda in front of him.

Before anyone saw it coming, Ragnarok roared, pulsing hard enough to slam Hugo's hand all the way to the table, breaking the furniture and throwing the huge man to the floor. The swordsman gasped, just about to apologize, but just then he noticed that half the bar was looking at them and were now clapping and cheering, while others growled in anger.

"Haha, Raggy won, pay me" Martin grinned, extending his hand to Raul who frowned, giving the smaller boy some bucks of the local money. Hugo whined in pain, barely getting back on his feet while Ragnarok kept on flexing and laughing.

Crona didn't understand. They just broke a table! Why were everyone cheering? Carlos smiled at him, patting his back.

"Dont worry about it, is just a table" He said, giving the swordsman a comforting smile. The pinkette stared at him for a moment, but decided that... he could trust him. If he said it was okay, then it was okay. Carlos had been really good with him since the day he met them in that cave, a couple days ago.

"Excuse me" The bartender approached them with a frown, crossing his arms on his chest, talking in english with a very strong latin accent "You will pay for that"

Crona shuddered, about to start apologizing, but Carlos stood between him and the angry manager.

"Él está conmigo" Carlos said in spanish, the swordsman understanding that he was helping him to get out of the mess. Handling money to the bartender, he just smiled and looked at him. "We should leave"

Crona nodded, watching how the manager counted the money before leaving them alone. In matter of seconds, everyone got their things ready and left the bar with the swordsman. Ragnarok was pissed, of course, but this time he was back into his small form so he wouldn't drag that much attention. Everyone else was still laughing at poor Hugo, who kept on rubbing his sore arm.

Carlos, the blonde cheeky leader of the obnoxious team, was not laughing. Rather, he kept an interested stare at the tall slender swordsman and his unique partner.

"Ho is you are still walkin' straight?¨ Hugo growled to the pinkette, who just moved one step away from him, not quite getting the question. "... you bitch! you didn't drink, did you!?"

Crona opened his mouth to protest, but Ragnarok was quick enough to hold his cheeks to stop him from answering.

"This bitch? ha ha! This bitch is as boring as a freaking grandma! No smokes! No drinks! No sex! BORING AS HELL!"

"No smokes!?" Raul gasped, horrified.

"No drink!?" Hugo roared, even more horrified.

"NO SEX!?" Everyone yelled dumbfounded. Crona's cheeks turned bright red in shame.

"... are you even human?" Martin, the smallest of the group, laughed a bit just as a joke. Crona glanced away.

"Unnaceptable..." Carlos musited, staring at Crona with a frown. All of a sudden, the tall blonde held on the swordsman by his shoulders "I wont accept this... Crona! as your friend! I wont accept this! I'll help you my friend! I will!"

"W-what?"

"Yeaahh!" Everyone cheered, Hugo suddenly taking Crona in his arms, lifting him up all the way to his wide shoulder, sitting him there.

"Ey! what the hell! Put us down!" Ragnarok roared, watching how the giant man kept them sitting on his shoulder.

"Smokes! Booze and Women! Tonight is the night!" Dante yelled in a cheer, followed by everyone else "We'll make a man of you tonight!"

"I-I dont think..." Crona tried to stop all of his new crazy friends, but they ignored him while walking down an alley with bright lights and quite filled with people. It was part of the bar zone, not to far away from the one they had been, but Crona wasn't sure this was a good idea.

He wasn't comfortable at all.

"Ey" Carlos called him, giving him a smile "Is alright, Im your friend, I wont let anything bad happen to you"

The swordsman have never had many friends... actually, he could count them all with the fingers of his two hands, but... those words, were the exact same words Maka and Black Star once told him. They always meant it, even Black Star with his antics, he never mean any harm. Maybe it was okay to trust them...

Or maybe he was too lonely to notice the truth.

They arrived to a big and quite fancy bar, where music was loud and could be heard from outside. This wasn't in his comfort zone at all, but he had no voice in that group, they were too dominant for his shy nature. It seemed they knew the bar quite well, since they didnt have to pay to get inside... or maybe it was the benefits of being shibusen students.

All of those guys were students of South America DWMA. Carlos was a meister, and funny enough, his weapon partner was Dante, a demon machine gun. Huge Hugo was the meister of Raul, a flamethrower, and Martin was a freshman of the school, who oddly could transform into a giant double-edge axe. He still didnt have a meister.

They sat in a big table for six, Crona taking his seat awkwardly between Carlos and Martin.

"Cervezas para todos" Carlos ordered in spanish to the waitress next to him, who just nodded.

"Beer!? You dont come here for beer! This place has the best drink in town!" Hugo roared in disappointment.

"Hugo, please... This will be Crona's first time, I want to be gentle" Carlos grinned, making everyone laugh.

"Oh boy, this is gonna be good!" Ragnarok grinned in delight, making his meister shudder. If Ragnarok wanted it so bad, it surely couldn't be good... were they going to make him drink?

Maka had told him he should never ever drink. And he knew, thanks to Spirit, that it was a horrible habit. Maka had told him, again and again, not to fall under their friends pressure to drink alcohol. She had told him... she would be mad if she ever knew...

"Shes not here asshole! She doesnt give a rats ass! She'll never know because she doesnt care!" Ragnarok growled in his ear, knowing exactly what he was thinking. Crona's eyes dropped, glancing away.

Everyone was laughing when the waitress arrived with buckets of beer. He remembered those, Soul and Black Star would often sit in the living room to drink. He remembered because at those times, Maka would leave the house quite angry. He remembered because he would always follow her to make her company and try to make her feel better.

Thinking about her hurt... a lot. His sadness could be seen in his dark eyes, and it was quite obvious for Carlos, who frowned.

"Crona" He called for him, pushing a mug of beer in front of him.

"I... I shouldnt..." He musited, raising his left hand to hold tight his right arm.

"Something is hurting you, I can see that" He said close to his ear, probably because the music was so loud there was no other way to be heard. The meister raised his finger to point at his head. "Here"

Then lowered his hand again, to point at his chest.

"And here... this is not a cure, but its the first step to move on" Again, Carlos pushed the mug to Crona, who shakingly took it between his hands.

Move on... that was the word everyone kept on saying to him. Move on, from her, from his feelings, from his past, from himself... just move on. Could it be that easy? Would a drink help him to "move on"? Crona kept on looking at that yellow liquid, looking around and how everyone laughed and cheered, how the guys in the same table as him were already drinking and cheering. He also remembered everyone was just like that in every party Kid would make, in every meeting Black Star organized, in Maka's wedding...

Maka's wedding...

Crona closed his eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and finally raised the mug to his lips. He wanted to move on, he wanted the pain, the sadness and the suffering to stop. He wanted to move on, to move on from the feelings that kept on killing him a little everyday. He wanted to move on from his past, from the snakes chasing him in his dreams, from the darkness crawling in his mind, hunting his sanity. He wanted to chase what everyone always gave for granted: just hapiness, joy, peace, the simple things everyone around seemed to have, everyone except him.

Most of all, he wanted to move on, to let Maka go.

With his spirit filled with resolve and his mind clouded with the wrong ideas, Crona emptied his jar in long gulps. Taking a deep gasp just to catch his breath, he dropped the empty mug on the table, just to watch how everyone was staring at him, dumbfounded.

"Holy shit..." Ragnarok musited with wide open eyes. Suddenly, the whole table raised their beers and cheered.

"ESO ES TODO CABRON!" Roared Dante in spanish, quickly giving Crona a new beer. Everyone was happy and cheering for him...

"I want too! Gimme!" Ragnarok demanded, reaching for a bottle he sucked on like a starving newborn, making the guys laugh.

Crona looked around, frowning a bit when he noticed the floor was moving slightly, as if the whole bar had suddenly turned into a ship sailing in the ocean. Carlos quickly noticed this, giving him light strokes on his back.

"The dizziness is normal, drink more, it will pass" He whispered on his ear, and Crona obeyed, drinking from his new beer. More cheers, more laughs, they were happy.

In his mind, it seemed he was doing something good, everyone was happy with him, everyone cheering and laughing, giving him some kind of dejavu, or old memories of youth. Memories of joy and warmth, memories of inocent laughs and plain simple fun, days when certain girl, warm as the sun, would sit always beside him and hug him for no reason.

He drank more, chasing those memories, chasing the fake sensation of happiness it was giving him, chasing the long lost love and the broken promises. He drank more, just to forget what he didn't have, what he would never have. He drank more, to forget his reality.


"Crona... can we talk?" Maka musited, stopping the long walk they were having. The 18 years old Crona blinked, staring at her in curiosity. He nodded, releasing her hand from his grasp, allowing her to walk freely.

The blonde stared at him with something close to worry, but nonetheless she walked away from him and into a park nearby. Making a move with her head, he quickly understand she wanted him to follow her, so he did swiftly. Not so far away from the park entrance, there was a lonely bench below a tree that was offering a cooling spot from the laughing sun. She sat there, leaving enough space for Crona to join her, but this time she didnt look at him... she just stared at her hands, clenching on the edge of her skirt.

She was nervous, thats how he understood it was serious. Frowning in worry, he joined her in the bench, sitting right next to her.

"Is everything okay?" He asked, his dark eyes staring at her, lifting his hand to hold Maka's in a soft warm grasp. She stared at his hand with her sweet emerald eyes, coated in a feeling that might as well be sadness... or sorrow.

She didnt answer his question. Rather, she used both of her hands to gently caress the skin of his own hands. Silently, Maka's gentle fingertips caressed his slender fingers, his knuckles... she just sat there, doing that, saying nothing. Crona was now blushing, feeling happy yet nervous, but very worried... what was wrong?

He wanted to know, yet he waited patiently for her to tell him willingly. Her emerald eyes just stood there, focused on their intertwined hands, her caresses turning slower, longer, as if... she was longing for something. As if she was making a decision in her head, a very hard decision.

"... Soul asked me for a date"

The blush on his face faded, like diluded red paint falling off a white wall. His eyes widened, his body tensed... he just stopped breathing. He knew what those words meant, he knew it quite well... dating was what Black Star and Tsubaki did all the time, what Kim and Ox did all the time. Dating was hanging out, going to places, hugging, kissing...

Soul and Maka...

His blood had run ice cold and dropped to his feet. He was feeling dizzy, his mind got light, clouded, his limbs numb, his eyes out of focus...

"Crona?" Maka called for him, staring at him with worry. Crona felt everything spinning, and probably would have been like that for a while, unless Ragnarok didn't punch him from the insides, making him react with a yelp.

"Ah..." He just said, like a traumatized dog after falling off a cliff and broken all its ribs. What... what was he supposed to say? His mind wasn't working, he had even forgotten how to breathe.

Oh yes, he was feeling dizzy because he stopped breathing. Taking a deep gasp for air, he felt dizziness leaving his body, being replaced with a rushed beating of his heart. Run... run... run...

His body was telling him to run, while his mind was frozen in shock. His heart... beating so fast, his anguished soul... everything started to make him shake, shudder, pale as paper... Oh no, not a panic attack, not now...

"Crona?" Maka asked again, this time with a frown in her face, with worry, and something else in her eyes... something he didnt know what it was, the glimpse of some kind of suspicion.

What was he supposed to do? to say? What?... he couldn't rely on his mind, or his black heart... yet again, Maka was right next to him, worried, her soul wavelength being a powerful stabilizer to him. Slowly, he managed to recover just a little from the shock, slowly, he started feeling his limbs again, to feel his soul again, his mind slowly working again. Maka was dating Soul, and that just meant one thing...

Maka and Soul liked each other, more than just friends.

"That... that is good Maka..." He finally managed to say, his mind working too slow to say anything else. What was he supposed to say? or do? He swallowed hard, hearing the beating of his heart thundering in his eardrums, buzzing inside his head.

Maka said nothing, her green eyes staring at him, asking him something with her stare, something he couldn't decipher. Just like that, both of them fell into a long uncomfortable silence. He had retreated his hands from her, and now both just were sitting next to each other in silence... a silence that went on and on for minutes. There was a silent message in the air, like a question both of them wanted to make to each other, but didnt dare to do it.

Crona's soul started screaming. Silent, mute screams only he could hear. It started like a soft whimper, and grow into a full blown out cry of agony. He wanted to scream, to cry, to roll over the ground just to see if that could shake off the unbearable pain inside of him. His soul was almost disconnected from Maka, blocking her from most of his feelings, hiding her the truth... she couldn't know...

He was no one to ruin her happiness. Telling her what he was feeling, would ruin her moment... and maybe their friendship. That was something he would never ever put in jeopardize. He couldn't tell her... not now, it was too late, too late.

Yet, despite his own pain, and the feeling of his heart falling down to pieces, he knew what he should say... something she deserved, something he, as a friend, should say. He had to be at the level of circumstances, he had to... be a friend, for her. If this was what Maka had chosen for herself... who was he to stop her?

Now, more than ever, he understood he never got a chance. All his dreams and fantasies, his happiness, his hopes... all of them built like a castle in the clouds. It was his own fault, just to think one day she would look at him in a different light.

"If this makes you happy... Maka..." He said, holding the need of running, holding the heat at the back of his throat, the tears behind his eyes. Despite it all, he smiled at her, as best as he could "I just want you to be happy..."


Kid had given him the scold of his life.

For weeks, Crona had been so immersed into the issues of his new group of friends, that he completely missed the first full moon during his stay in Colombia. That night, the group got a get-together in Carlos house, with booze and some cigarretes with an odd smell… he had tried them, and quickly found out two things: he was a terrible smoker, and those cigarettes were awesome to calm down his nerves.

He fell asleep quite fast that night, the first night of full moon, and another 5 girls disappeared during his watch. When he woke up, the guys were not with him, but left him a note saying that they got called from the school to investigate another murder.

Crona was pissed off with himself. That had been the most irresponsible thing he had ever done during a mission. The guys were cool and all, like 4 Black Stars and 1 Soul, but he had to put aside all that and focus on the reason of why he was in Colombia in the first place: hunting down a kishin that was probably murdering Shibusen students.

Carlos had shared some information with him. That was the main reason of why Crona stood with them in the first place. That group of students were the oldest and highest rank in SouthAmerica's Shibusen, and were in charge of the investigation of the murders in the country. Apparently, 5 girls would get kidnapped during the first full moon, and in the next few weeks, some bodies would start to show, carried away with the river, or bone by bone.

People in town believed it was something related to drug warlords, but Crona and the shibusen students knew better. It was too macabre, too well organized, to be made by humans.

After losing the first full moon, Crona decided to walk around towns to gather more information. It had turned to be quite a hard task, especially because Carlos insisted in not leaving him alone. So, day after day, the demon swordsman would walk around with any of the shibusen boys to teach him the place. It was quite different to what he was used to see in other countries.

People there were loud, but very warm and kind. Women would be out doing laundry, some men doing repairs to cars or whatnot, but what impressed him the most where the kids. There were kids everywhere, laughing, running, hiding, every family surely had at least 2 kids, if not more. That was something he didn't see often in Europe or even Nevada. It was nice to watch, but also frightening… he had to find that kishin egg soon.

Of course not everything had been all work. Since he had to wait 4 weeks before the next full moon, the guys took Crona to travel around, took him to the movies, the beach, they were very kind to him and shared with him everything. Of course, the swordsman still wasn't fond of their ways of drinking till passing out, and definitely would not try some pills and powder they sometimes carried to the parties, but he was alright with the cigarettes, they were awfully soothing.

After four weeks with them, Crona started to see them as… friends.

The forth week was tonight, the week when women would disappear, it was already noon and Crona was ready. He didn't tell the guys were he was going that morning, he didn't want to worry them. Surely they would want to come over and help him, but this was something only he could do. The swordsman wanted to work alone, the risks were only for him, and his life didn't matter unlike theirs.

He was wearing his old worn-out robe, for displeasure of his weapon partner. He had said it would be the last time, since they were going to the jungle, he didn't want Liz new clothes to get damaged. The swordsman lit a cigarette, and took a long slow suck out of it.

"Dude, that's the sixth weed you take, chill the fuck out" Ragnarok growled from Crona's insides.

"Im nervous…" the meister responded, feeling calm and relaxed almost immediately. The so called weed was even more effective than Stein's anxiety pills.

"That fucking shit makes me hungry dammit" the sword sighed, knowing there was no use of begging Crona for food. His meister was now on full mission mode.

The sun was sound asleep in the sky, slowly falling down and giving room to the one and only full moon of the month. The air turned fresh and slightly colder, quite the refreshment for such a warm place. Inside the jungle, the heat and humidity was almost unbearable.

Crona took a deep sigh, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to focus all of his quite numbed senses into the mission. The last few days he was able to follow some tracks of what seemed to be human body parts here and there, along with signs of a path that lead deep in the jungle. He was almost certain, he would find something that night, that night four weeks after the last disappearances.

Why the police didn't go all the way to the deep jungle? It was massive, yes, but the evidence was everywhere. Deep enough, it didn't take much to find unburied bones, and even some broken trees where surely a fight got unleashed. The more Crona studied the environment, the more he noticed they used the jungle as a hunting ground… a playground of massacre. The huge trees had scratches of what seemed bullets, some had long slashes, it most certainly was a kishin egg's work, if not some maniac going trigger happy in the middle of nowhere.

In Crona's mind, the news of interrogated victim's was his drive. Their families, the mothers of the disappeared women, crying for mercy to the killer, hoping for the girls to return alive, knowing that the chances were slim or close to non-existant. Worse part was… the whole town was used to it. It was an everyday news, a women vanished here, a woman vanished there, oh look another one, and people would keep going on their merry lives. It was normal to them, it had happened to quite some time, and the swordsman wouldn't tolerate it, not after failing the first time, when he missed the first night of murders of the month because he was too wasted to wake up in time.

Now he understood why Maka told him to never ever use alcohol. It was way too numbing, and despite it actually helped him to cope with his madness outbreaks, it also increased their power if he wasn't drugged. Right now, he wouldn't be able to deal with this mission if it wasn't for the cigarette packages Carlos had given him. It was wrong, of course, but at least now thinking about her wasn't as painful… or at least numbed him enough for not caring.

"Crona" Ragnarok whispered inside his entrails, catching his meister's attention. Night was above them now, and their walking had taken them to a clear in the middle of the jungle… a man made clear. The trees looked chopped, most probably with a chainsaw, and the plants had been burned recently, but it wasn't that what caught his attention… but the large crosses planted all over the place. They were large, almost two meters tall and 1 and a half wide, looked like crosses people would use to tie people up, instead of being used for graves. It was a big clear in the jungle, but probably no one had ever found it because the trees surrounding it were so big. It surely was invisible if you searched for it by air.

Walking around, the swordsman felt a tingling in his hands, feeling the trill of discovery and the fear to the unknown. This place, as simple as it looked, had a tense aura around it… like a grim-looking scenario for no reason but the crossed deliverately planted there and abandoned for no apparent reason. Or at least that's what looked like in first sight. Walking towards one of those crosses, Crona noticed something that had been hiding in the darkness of the night… a black stain in the wood.

It was blood.

Frowning, Crona scratched with his finger the stain, noticing how it departed in small bits of dry blood, already turned to powder… probably was four weeks old. Now he noticed, that most of the crosses had chains, and all of them had stains of blood… they were bloody crosses. He finally had found a tangible proof, this was like some ritual spot, very common for early kishin eggs. Probably the victims were taken there, so it was a good place to wait.

Or so it seemed… but something didn't fit in the whole picture. It had been too easy. He just walked into the jungle for a couple of days, it made no sense that he could have found it so easily, because all the SouthAmerica Shibusen had been looking without avail. Damn, Carlos and his group had been searching everywhere, there was no way they hadn't found this place.

Unless it was just a bait. Probably it was a fake made up scenario, to distract hunters from the real spot where the Kishin made his killing. Time was running up, and he had to make a choice… spend his time here or keep looking for more evidence.

There had to be another place, somewhere where they could hid their victims for days without the screams calling attention. Someplace…

"Look over there!" Ragnarok called, popping out of his body to point at a spot out of the clear, in the middle of high weeds and trees. Frowning, Crona carefully walked towards the spot, the tingling in his hands increasing, hoping to find some evidence, cloth, shoes, a stain of blood…

What he found was a girl's torso. No arms, no legs, maimed everywhere with stripes of flesh here and there… and it was fresh. Her face was contorted in an anguished scream, void eyes wide open, in an expression of eternal horror. It had blonde hair.

For one second… Crona was seeing Maka's mauled body.

The swordsman fell on his ass, screaming in horror, eyes wide open. He tried to back off, crawling with hands and knees away from the scene, away from the horrid vision in front of him. That corpse in the middle of nowhere was Maka, it had her face, her eyes, a now empty green filled with despair and death. Crona kept screaming, turning over to face the ground, and started vomiting.

He had nothing in his stomach, but the pain in his guts was unbearable. He was hyperventilating, daring to look up with haunted eyes, just to see the crosses around him. They all had Maka, trapped in them, bleeding, with void dead eyes. All of them…

He kept on screaming.

"CRONA!" Ragnarok shrieked, punching his meister trying to make him snap out of it. It was those damn drugs! Crona had used way too many that day, it was for sure. The little weapon was turning desperate, his meister was locked into a visual nightmare he couldn't escape, crawling in the dirt like a beaten dog.

With no other option, Ragnarok increased his size, turning into his massive bulky form, and delivered the hardest slap into Crona's head he had ever delivered.

Crona passed out.


His head was spinning.

And it hurt. A Lot. The groggy sensation on his mind was keeping him from doing much. He could barely move his hands up, as if they had some weight on them. Faintly, he could hear the ruffling of metal, dragging on what sounded like a stone floor… or a cave. Probably a cave, there was a lot of echo in the sounds… very far away sounds. Like talking in the distance, like whispers… muffled screams.

"CRONA!"

He could hear his name being yelled, but everything was spinning, his neck aching with a contracture, stinging pain making him groan. Slowly moving, he quickly noticed he was laying on lose ground, dirt, small pebbles all around, the air was cold and charged with humidity… surely a cave. Then, he felt a stinging pain on one of his side, forcing him to yelp in surprise and open his eyes. It was dark, very dark, but there was small torches sticked into the cave's walls, faintly illuminating a tunnel.

"Crona goddammit! Get up!" Ragnarok's voice echoed, forcing the swordsman to look around, trying to shake off the numbing feeling of disorientation and madness hangover. It had been a while since he had lost it that bad… it had been a dream? Did he imagine it?

Yes, yes of course, Maka wasn't there, she was in Germany, save and sound with Soul. He knew that, he had read her last letter when he arrived to that country. The stinging in his mind kept on going, like a hammer constantly slamming against his skull, making him hiss in pain and holding his head. It was then when he noticed he was chained up.

"This is bad Crona! Get up!" Ragnarok insisted, pushing his meister up from the floor with his small hands. With another groan, the swordsman finally got on his feet.

Both of his hand were on shackles, chained up to the wall, but loosely enough so he could get up on his feet. Frowning, the meister studied his surroundings. It was a cave sure, but it didn't have a fully natural shape… it looked man made. Surely it started as a natural cave, but that tunnel was not natural, it had been built, trying to make the cave deeper.

It lead to an underground level.

"you're awake!" A familiar voice called, making Crona turn over to face Carlos. The blonde meister smiled gently, walking towards them.

"Stay the fuck away from us!" Ragnarok snarled, his sleek skin on edge, like a cat ready to attack.

"C-Carlos… what is going on?" Crona asked with fear and doubt in his eyes, dumbfounded by the idea of that meister casually being there… why? How?

"We were nearby and heard your screams, you were in a crazy fit my friend, we had to chain you up so you wouldn't hurt yourself"

"They took your limp ass and dragged us here!" Ragnarok vociferated, snarling at Carlos like if he were a venomous snake hissing at him "They used a flamethrower on me!"

"W-what!?... I- I don't get it… Why?" Crona looked at Ragnarok and back at Carlos. He wouldn't do that! He was kind and very polite, surely Ragnarok had imagined it… right?

"I don't know what he's talking about, you both were very unstable back there" Carlos smiled, taking the chain that held the swordsman to the wall and unlocking it free. But, instead of releasing Crona from his shackles, he took the chain and led the pink haired meister to the depths of the cave.

"C-Carlos?... can you release me?" Crona asked, started looking at him with a slight frown. What was the deal with being kept in chains? Yeah he have had a madness fit, but now he was ok… were they scared of him? It was a preventive measure? That hurt "I-Im okay now… sorry if I scared you"

Carlos laughed lightly.

"We all are down here, Raul has the keys, don't worry"

"That bitch ass bastard burnt my ass! Im going to murder him!" The little weapon screamed, throwing a tantrum on top of Crona's head.

"You imagined it" The tall blonde meister said matter-of-factly, dragging Crona by his chains.

"I didn't imagine shit you lying cunt!"

Crona was outright confused, between his weapon's screams and Carlos cool attitude, he didn't know who to believe. Ragnarok wasn't one who would easily get on allucinations, although it had happened a few times, but Carlos wouldn't lie to him, right? He was his friend. Yet, he didn't like being dragged around with a chain, like some kind of wild animal.

"Release me Carlos" Crona said with a secure tone in his voice, almost like a warning. The blonde meister looked at him over his shoulder, but decided to ignore him. Crona frowned, starting to feel on edge.

Soon, the light at the end of the tunnel started to look bigger, showing that it came from many torches lit at the bottom. There, the tunnel opened to a big room, all carved in stone, it was an underground cave, massive, they were probably several feet below the jungle's soft soil.

Inside were all the guys, Raul was smiling, holding his cigar with his teeth, cutting an apple on his hand with a hunter's knife, the small blackhaired Dante was at top of what looked an improvised outpost, just a pile of rocks stacked together forming a rudimentary tower. Martin was near Hugo, both stopping their chatting to look over Carlos and Crona. They both got on their feet, facing them. Martin, the double-axe weapon, had a worried look on his face.

Ragnarok felt silent, staring at all the Shibusen students with suspicion.

"You know Crona, my man, we want you to join our club" Carlos said with a cheerful tone, giving the swordsman a light pat on his back. "We could have the thrill of our lives with you. You, my friend, are what we are missing!"

Crona frowned, tilting his head a little, looking flabbergasted.

"Crona -Makenshi- Gorgon" Raul growled, still smiling while cutting his apple and munching a piece. With his mouth full, he kept on talking "The witch's child, the cursed weapon, the pre-kishin who dared to rival Ashura and won, the Black Dragon of Shibusen"

The demon swordsman paled by the second. Those names… how they knew that? Yes, he was well known, but he hadn't told them all that, those were personal titles, cursed titles, titles he didn't like.

"Dude what just happened to you? You were like a freakin legend!" Dante shouted from the top of the outpost, loud as always. "A weapon of mass destruction! Man I heard you could eat souls by the ton!"

"Hard to believe from such a scrawny looking fellow" Hugo muttered, sitting on a rock with a wary look in his eyes, don't losing sight of Crona and his weapon "I didn't believe Carlos at first, coming over telling us he saw Crona Gorgon in this country"

"Yeah yeah, keep stroking my ego you bastard, doesn't erase the fact you burnt me!" Ragnarok roared, pulling on Crona's hair.

"You didn't let us get near your dear meister, what could we do?" Raul laughed, turning one of his hands into a flamethrower cannon. Martin, no so far behind, gulped slightly,shaking with anxiety and fear.

Crona was trembling, unable to understand what was going on around him. He was walking in the jungle, looking for clues for his mission…and then… and then…

"So, we have an idea, my dear friend" Carlos said, hanging his arm around Crona's shoulders "Martin is new, he is our freshman in mischief, and we need a meister for him".

"Fuck off!" Ragnarok roared, about to punch Carlos right on his face for being so near them, when he felt the heat of fire next to them. Crona jumped away from Raul, who was pointing at them with his cannon. Ragnarok wasn't immune to fire, it burnt him, it heated him, it melted him, his strength to fortify his blood was non-existant next to fire.

"Relax Raggie, we are not ditching you, we know you are the brains" Hugo said giving the dark sword a thumbs up. That caused a reaction in Ragnarok, who focused on that bulky man, paying attention.

"… The hell I'm listening to you bastards! You are trying to burn me!" the sword screeched, fitting a whole new tantrum on top of Crona's head.

"Put that thing down Raul" Carlos ordered, making the flamethrower to snort, turning his cannon-arm into a human limb again.

"I-I don't follow…" Crona said, confused, with a hint of danger dancing deep inside his mind. This wasn't what it looked like, there was something else… the guys, the whole place, what they were saying, how they looked like…

They all looked dangerous.

Hugo cleared his throat, walking towards the swordsman. Out of his own clothes, he took out a photo. It was the photo of a beautiful blonde girl with green eyes, holding Crona in a tight hug.

"Must say, you have nice taste for women" Huge snarled, looking at that photo he had taken out of Crona's luggage without him noticing.

That caused a reaction in the meister.

"… that is mine!" Crona shouted, looking at that man taking something so sacred to him, saying such words that he knew were said with vile intentions. "Get your hands off that!"

"Why are you so pissed off? We know she's not your girlfriend" Raul said matter of factly, showing him the letter that Maka had sent him no so long ago. Crona gasped, feeling betrayed in his privacy… they had raided his luggage, took his stuff, read his private mail with Maka… "Shes married, but that can be fixed easily!"

"Crona" Carlos said, surrounding him alongside with Raul and Hugo. The three young man were tall and intimidating, but Crona wasn't scared of them, not even for those shackles, he was scared for what seemed to be the start of a betrayal, a treason, a friendship that was an illusion. He didn't know if he could deal with that.

"What if we tell you there is a way for you to have her, all for yourself?" Raul said, smiling at Crona with what seemed to be a gentle smile. It wasn't gentle at all, it had a grim sinister shadow over it, it was a dark smile that sent shudders down his spine.

"We are lookin' for a new dude, someone with knowledge about kishins, someone who has a firsthand experience… someone like you" Hugo said with a broken english, his accent barely understandable, holding Maka's photo so Crona could grab it. The swordsman took the photo between his fingers with shaky hands.

"N-no…y-you are all w-w-wrong… I no longer d-do that…" Crona said in a whimper, his voice almost gone, looking at his so called friends with desperation in his eyes. This couldn't be true, they couldn't possible be asking him that. He still could feel it, the edge, the itch, his hands were itching, his back shivering, his unsteady eyes staring at those men around him with despair.

His pulse was running fast through his veins, his head throbbing, and Ragnarok anger started to boil in his veins.

"But you used to do it Crona, and you will do it again" Carlos said, snapping his fingers a couple of times. With that order, Hugo walked away from them.

"Carlos… don't do this" The swordsman begged. He begged, with his blue eyes staring at him in desperation. He didn't want to do it, he didn't want to see what he wanted to show him. He didn't want to know what they had been doing…

Because he already knew, he already knew and he wasn't sure he could deal with that.

Carlos took a deep sigh, walking away from Crona who was still chained with shackles around his wrists. He glanced to Hugo with a nod, which laid his hands on a huge rock at the end of the cave, and started moving it to the side.

That rock was blocking a small pathway in the wall… and there were screams coming out of that hole. Violent, desperate, high pitched screams…those where the screams of women.

Crona's face turned pale, his sight out of focus, his eyes showing that icy blue that would only come out when startled. Hugo pulled a cage out of that hole, where a small woman was inside, begging for mercy, crying out for help. Her clothes were mauled, she was almost naked, dry blood on her thighs and her face was swollen, showing purple spots of what looked like fists on her face.

Might be the itching on his hands, the shivering on his spine… but Crona was almost sure that girl had green eyes.

"We can have all the women we desire, and so can you" Carlos whispered in his ear, noticing the shaking in the swordsman body, who was still and holding his breath. "Look at this like a game, you like games don't you? You used to know how to play it…"

Games… yes… Medusa taught him those games, when was that again?... He shouldn't be here, he should be with Medusa, Medusa would be mad at him if he took too long in returning from his mission…

What mission?... he had a mission… about what? Did Medusa give it to him?... no… or did she? About what?... Crona's mind was now clouded with static, like a fuse that didn't match the voltage and couldn't quite turn on. Why was he there? He was in a mission… and then… and then…

"Look, I'll make this easy for you" Carlos said, holding his hand up in the air. Looking at the signal, his weapon Dante jumped off the tower outpost and landed on his hand, turned into a machine gun. Holding him, he pointed at the girl inside the cage. She started screaming again. "I'll feed you her soul, you gonna eat it, and then we going to party like the day you came here, sounds nice?"

"W… what?..."

"We'll have our share, but we need to know if you are committed with this!" Hugo roared, taking out of the hole in the wall more cages. They had women trapped there, as big as probably 18 and as small as a little girl of maybe eleven…

They were the kishins he was looking for… all of them.

"For the moment I saw you in this country, I knew what you were looking for… us!" Carlos said, a glimpse of madness showing in his eyes "But you are wrong Crona, you don't belong to Death and his students, this is your nature, you belong to us!"

"With you we would be unstoppable! And we could have so much fun!" Raul said with a grin, right next to Crona's ear.

"Why wasting time with one married old woman when you can have all the young ladies you want?" Dante snorted in his weapon form, still pointing at that frightened woman inside the cage.

Ragnarok stood silently on top of Crona's head, not saying a word, not even moving, just… staring. The whole situation was fucking hilarious! They had wasted six weeks of their life, looking for a kishin egg that had been drinking with them the whole time! This was fucking gold! Trust in Crona for having new friends betraying him in such a way!

Crona started giggling. Small, little giggles coming out of a smile that twisted by the second.

This all was a freaking comedy!

The girls trapped inside the cages were sobbing, screaming, or silently whimpering. Some of the cages had more than one inside, and the women were hugging each other for comfort, for protection, scared out of her minds. And they all had blonde hair, green eyes, and looked like Maka.

Maka's mauled body in the jungle.

Maka's blood running down the cave walls.

He was seeing the floor filled with corpses and corpses, all with Maka's face.

Crona laugh thundered in the cave.

"That's the spirit!" Carlos grinned, pulling the trigger of his weapon. A bolt of soul wavelength traveled through the air, and hit right in the middle of that woman's head.

The girl fell limply on her cage, unmoving.

Crona's laugh stopped, his unfocused eyes staring at that girl… and how a single light blue soul abandoned her body. She was dead…

She was dead.

Maka was dead.

Ragnarok blinked, feeling a shift in Crona's wavelength. Like a claw gripping at him, the weapon felt the sheer strength of magic piercing right through their souls. A thunderbolt, a flash, some kind of arrow that pierced his soul and Crona's, merging them into one. It was almost as if… their souls were fusing, eating each other into a mass of live pulsing power. Ragnarok could no longer keep his sold form.

"C-Crona! Something happening! Crona! CRONAA!" Ragnarok screamed, feeling how Crona's body sucked him back inside. Then… Crona started to twist in pain.

Falling on the ground, the thin meister digged his fingers into the stone of the cave, piercing it like if it were made of clay. His screech filled everybody's ears, incapacitating the weapons and meisters around him, who had to block the sound into their ears with their hands. Something Crona had never felt before… a sting of magic, the sheer power of a witch magic was flowing into his body, unrestrained, uncontrolled, magnified by Ragnarok's wavelength… and the soul of the witch they ate.

"Que chingados!?" Hugo roared, seeing how the american thin meister was contorting on the floor… and it looked like his skin was getting dark. Like a corruption, Crona's skin was being consumed by a black tone of color, looking more like an oily paint covering him instead of skin.

Another yell, even stronger than the last, and Crona's face started to change. His face got longer, covered in that black shiny ointment, his eyes disappeared in two white buttons with X shaped pupils. His neck elongated, his arms, his legs… they were twisting in an odd angle, looking animalistic, looking inhuman. The shackles around his wrist shattered.

Crona looked like a lizard, a 16 foot giant lizard. A sharp arrow shaped tail popped out of his rear, and out of his back a pair of wings ripped the remnants of his robe. It wasn't a lizard… it was a dragon.

"Fuck" Carlos snarled, pointing his gun at… that thing. The vile animal roared, its teeth were almost human, grinning in a wicked snarl.

"PYGEEEEEEEE!" The dragon screeched, making everyone in the cave to go deaf. Carlos felt as if his ears had exploded, hearing nothing but a faint buzzing.

"Mata esa webada!" Raul screamed at his meister, who had barely heard him. Hugo pointed his flamethrower, shooting his soul wavelength in the form of fire.

Crona roared, looking at that fat guy with his weapon partner… the guy that took Maka's photo. The wavelength crashed against his skin, burning him, and Crona retaliated slamming his thorny tail against Hugo's body, piercing him like a cheese slice with a toothpick.

Hugo regurgitated blood, dropping his weapon partner who couldn't protect him. Raul returned to his human form, looking how quick his meister had perished. The dragon slammed his tail against the cave walls, shaking off the corpse of that meister, which erupted into a kishin egg soul, floating in the air. The dragon stretched his long tongue, looking more like a tentacle, grabbing the kishin egg and eating it.

"HUGO!" Raul screamed, turning both of his arms into flamethrower cannons, firing his wavelength at Crona's massive body. The dragon snarled, dropping his claw right above the weapon, crushing it into its weight.

"Crona! Be reasonable!" Carlos yelled, climbing the tower outpost with Dante on his back, in his weapon form. He got up just in time to see that dragon eating another kishin egg "Is not too late! Just… just look at you! You are the ultimate kishin!"

The dragon roared, batting its wings. The cave was too small for its size, he could barely move. Slashing towards the meister, Crona felt a shower of bullets falling on his body. Sharp, piercing, wavelength made bullets crashed against his black blooded skin… he didn't even bleed.

"Its an armor! Is Ragnarok!" Dante yelled at his meister "we can't damage it if it's covering his whole body!"

"I know!" Carlos screamed, yielding his machine gun to keep on firing at Crona. The Dragon growled, covering its body with its wings to minimize the damage. The attack stinged, it hurted, but didn't damage him.

If he wanted bullets, he would give him bullets.

Opening its mouth, the dragon fired. Thousands of bloody needles erupted from its mouth, like a shower of deadly lances, piercing Carlos body and pinning him on the cave's wall. Red blood spurted everywhere, the meister dropped his weapon partner right before his body crumbled, releasing a kishin egg that Crona was delighted in swallow hole.

Dante fell on the floor, sheer terror in his eyes, looking at that massive lizard staring back at him.

"MARTIN!" Dante roared, holding his hand to the last of the five. The double-edge axe was shaking hidden between a rock, his eyes closed, covering his ears "You bitch! Don't puss out! Hes gonna k…"

Martin opened his eyes, shaking, terrified, just to stare at Dante being pierced by the arrow shaped tail of that thing. Shaking it off, the tail dropped his corpse, a red kishin egg emerging from it.

The dragon gulped that soul in one bite. It roared, its sound was a mix between Crona's desperate screaming and Ragnarok's screech. It was a piercing sound, crushing into Martin's mind like a needle.

"P-please! I- I haven't done anything!... T-This was my first night out!" Martin cried, getting out of his hideout on his knees. Begging, the small boy crawled with both of his hands in the air, crying his eyes out "Crona please! We are friends! I-I didn't know they were doing this until now! I had no idea what to do!"

"Lies…"

The dragon talked.

"LIEEEEEEESSSSSSS!" It screeched, raising his claw, and slamming it against the weapon, who did nothing but cry for mercy. The beast strength was enough to rip apart his body with one swing, blood splattered all over the cave.

Martin's limp body dropped on the floor… and a blue soul emerged from it.

A light blue, untainted human soul.

The dragon stared at that fragile, innocent soul floating harmlessly in the air, dumbfounded. Just then the whole cave started to collapse, the fight proven to be too much for its structure. His body was becoming unstable, shifting, his black blooded skin bubbling threatening to lose its shape. The Dragon inhaled, sucking the soul of Martin.

In swift movements, it grabbed the cages of the victims on its claws, like weightless bird cages, and rammed the roof of the cave with his wings. Over and over, he slammed its spine against the falling rocks, until the whole roof collapsed. Jumping out of the cave, the dragon battled its wings, flying to freedom, right into the night sky of the jungle. It flew high in the sky, its claws securely holding all the cages where the young girls had been taken prisoners. Its body ached and hurt, like cramps nagging at its muscles, making him screech high in the air… it wasn't far… it had to get there.

It was late at night, around 2am, when the South America Shibusen students woke up with the terrifying sound of an inhuman scream. Every student left their dormitories, going out of the building with weapons nearby and in hand, just to see a nightmarish vision.

A dragon, unsteadily flying, falling right into the building, crashing back first into the floor at Shibusen's entrance. The whole Shibusen surrounded the fallen beast, murmuring in their native language.

"What is that!?"

"A kishin? Is it a kishin?"

"It's a witch! I can feel it!"

"Back off everybody!" A grown woman ordered, making the students to step off a few meters away from the dragon's body.

The beast skin was melting, smoke leaving its body, slowly losing its shape. With its last strings of strength, it pushed aside the cages of the girls he managed to save, unharmed.

"Call the principal! QUICK!" The teacher ordered, looking at the woman who were half dressed, shaking in the cages, too terrified to talk. "These are the disappeared women from tonight!"

The students roared in outrage.

"IT'S THE KISHIN!"

"KILL HIM!"

The dragon shuddered, wings and tail slowly disappearing inside its body, the claws and legs shrinking and twisting in a more human angle. The black skin of the dragon had molten into a black puddle that looked much like blood… blood that slowly started to return to the body of a pink haired man, naked in the night sky.

It was a very thin man, body filled with scars, curled into a ball in the floor. Out of his back, Ragnarok popped out.

"Ughhh…" The demon sword groaned holding his head in a severe headache, having little spasms just before puking out a soul… a blue human soul, Martin's soul. "I can't eat those… Stripes orders"

Just then, Ragnarok noticed his meister body, in plain sight of everyone around. With a yelp, the demon sword transformed into a pair of wings, large enough to cover his meister's body from the student's sight.

"I killed them…" Crona whispered, before crumbling into a desperate cry "I killed them all! Its all my fault! I KILLED THEM!"

The students started yelling at him, crying for bloody murder, demanding his head. Some had taken already the form of weapons, ready to execute the kishin they had been looking for so long.

"Murderer!"

"You monster!"

"MONSTER!"

They were right… they all were right….

He was a monster, after all.


AkireRosales: ITS FINISHED!

CHAPTER 9 IS FINISHED! The hiatus is finally over! I delivered! YES! SO MUCH WIN!

Is anyone left to read this anyway? xDDD Reviews?... hello?... somebody? ;_;