10: Burnt Almonds and Turmeric
Haunting Customer
The soft tinkling of the silver bell above the café's door signals someone's arrival, and from where she sits behind the counter, she calls to the figure entering, "We're closed now, so come back tomorrow."
The visitor doesn't stop, only raises their head and pulls back the dark, baggy hood of the jacket they're wearing.
Seeing the customer's stubbornness, the young woman straightens and takes on a more stern countenance. "I'm sorry, but we're closed."
Piercing red eyes narrow with some irritation, but the stranger doesn't turn around and leave Death Bucks. Instead, he eerily floats over to the counter the young woman is standing behind and takes a seat, pulling the stool forward until he's leaning quite close to the nervous female.
"I s-said we're closed," she repeats firmly one last time, unable to keep the stutter out of the sentence. When the customer still doesn't move, she steels herself, reminding herself that The Master left her in charge of the café while he went out for just a few seconds. She can handle a persistent creep.
With a scowl at the visitor's maddening silence, she snaps, "Look, we're open all day tomorrow. If you want to come back then, fine, but we're—"
"You're Elizabeth Thompson, correct?"
To say the inference caught her off guard is an understatement. To be completely honest, she felt her soul edge into her heart where they both pulsed completely out of synch before she managed to choke out a hesitant, "Yes."
The man at the counter doesn't smile when she answers, but only stretches his long fingers, running his left thumb across a strange tattoo on his right middle finger. Scrutinizing her through his black and white bangs, the man says, "You're a weapon of the little Shinigami, prepared to become a Death Scythe for when he becomes the keeper of all Order."
Her lips tighten at the thought and she answers, "That's not what I had in mind."
"Of course," the man muses to himself with a hissing voice. "He pulled you away from Brooklyn, your home, and you decided to go with him because you had a plan." He raises a finger, pointing at Liz with a black nail. "You think you'll rob him of everything he has, leave him with nothing. You knew he was a spoiled brat, so you and your sister would take advantage of the helpless Shinigami as soon as he brought you home to Death City."
Liz swallows harshly, holding her breath in aching lungs.
"But that's not how it's going to go." He fixes her with a long look, one she'd consider sympathetic if it wasn't for the unmistakable sense of cruelty that festered deep in his retinas. "No, it's going to be like this: You'll learn the little Shinigami makes you smile, makes you laugh, and you won't have to heart or soul to steal from him. You'll have been…"
Her soul contracts when the haunting customer finally chooses the phrase, "Killed by the Shinigami."
His fingers tap the counter as he speaks now, hard, intense drumming and scratching that causes her to intake sharply whenever his nails create a shriek. "You'll happily do whatever he says for the next few years of your life. You'll collect the souls of kishin, one after another. You'll always be there for him whenever he goes on one of his many rants about foolish symmetry."
The young woman wants to ask him to leave, but she can't bring herself to say anything to the man who seems content on relaying her entire future. She doesn't know who he thinks he is to dream up such a thing, but she continues to listen with wide eyes.
"He'll mess up on a mission; Lord Death with take away every single kishin soul you've earned. You'll join the Academy because your little Shinigami insists. There you'll get into a fight, meet a few people you may consider your friends," He says the word 'friends' with something akin to a sneer, and Liz flinches, "and associate yourself with a more… common life. Everything will be perfect."
She knows something bad has to be coming. The way he talks is too pleasant, too sweet. He's waiting to drop the bomb on her. A great, life changing bomb.
"Then you'll learn something on a mission. Something quite disturbing," the man continues, folding his arms together. "Your little Shinigami will find out about a kishin sleeping under the school. A monster of a man who was locked up hundreds of years ago for the good of the world. Someone will want to free him from the restraining school, and he will be freed."
Liz gulps, feeling a drop of sweat slither past her left eyebrow.
The man doesn't notice, or if he does, he doesn't grin in triumph or contempt. "Your lives will continue on, a little more hectic than before, and then the time will come. You'll find my location, and you'll come to fight me, to stick me right back under the school."
She gives a slight intake of breath, staring in horror at the man who's now just revealed himself a monster. "Y-You're the one under the school?" she demands, taking a step back.
The stranger pays no attention to her uneasiness and replies in a slow, matter-of-fact voice, "You'll all die. Each and every one of you, slain by my hands. Your meister won't save you, your friends won't save you. You won't even be able to help Patty."
"How would you know that?" Liz cries, clenching her fists and shaking visibly. "Everything you're saying, it's all a lie." "So you want it to be a lie?" the man inquires curiously. "You want everything I'm saying to disappear from the future?"
Warily, Liz nods, breathing, "Who wouldn't?"
"If you join me now, that future will be all gone." The monster grins. "Forget about your little Shinigami, and the future rapidly approaching. Change it all and come with me instead. You won't remember your sister, other attachments, or even the meaning of fear. There will be… nothing."
Liz thinks over what she's just been told, gritting her teeth and asking, "I won't know pain or my sister? There will truly be nothing?"
"It'll be all gone."
"You're insane." Liz glares defiantly at the man. "Did you not see the loyalty I hold for my sister while you thought over my future? Did you not see the love I have for her? Maybe we will lose to the bratty rich kid, and maybe we will learn to like him, and maybe, just maybe, a kishin will be freed from under the school and will kill us all, but I don't want nothingness."
The monster looks thoughtful, but not surprised by the young woman's choice.
"I want to see my sister happy throughout the years before our supposed death by your hand. I want to see her with friends, and a family. I know I don't believe it now, but I… I want that for myself, too." She brings her hands down on the counter with a bang and leans in close to her blank faced customer. "In my future, there is no nothingness. Now I will say this only once more. We. Are. Closed."
The man smiles, a very slow and far from real smile of genuine apology. "Very well, then. I'll let you return to your life."
With a sigh, he gets up to leave, stopping for just a moment to look back at his host. "At one point in your life, the little Shinigami is taken away from you," he murmurs, staring rather horridly at Liz. "You'll realize you never thanked him for all he did for you and Patty. You'll feel some despair, a few seconds of fading hope, and you'll remember this. You'll remember what I asked you."
Liz tenses when the stranger's voice lowers and grows spiteful.
"And maybe then you'll realize what a fool you were when the Shinigami returns to you, twisted and dark. When his eyes turn to ice and his soul goes black, you'll wish you'd said yes. You'll give up nothingness, for the inevitable nothingness from your meister. Trust me, little one." The man shoots her a bitter grin. "By the time you're crying, and he's as he should be, that's when you truly will be murdered by the Shinigami."
-/-\-|-/-\-
Liz's eyes snap open, and she rolls onto her side, breathing hard as a wave of nausea rolls over her. Forcing down the sick feeling in her throat, she slowly pulls herself upright in bed. What remains of the dream is still fresh in her mind, and his words are like a mantra, burning its way into her soul.
With a shake of her head, she gets out of bed and grabs her robe off the door handle, hastily tugging it on. She darts out of her room and down the stairs two at a time, bare feet hitting the tiled floor for just a second before she's through the dining room doors and headed to the library.
When she bursts through the double doors, she's breathing hard from running and the remnants of her dream that refuse to dissipate. As suspected, her meister is sitting in one of the large, black chairs with the light of some candles to illuminate the pages of the book he's reading.
Kid looks up at Liz with surprise before becoming more alarmed at the sight of her ragged state. He quickly sets down his book and pulls himself from his chair, inquiring, "Liz? What's wrong?"
Impatiently pushing a few loose strands of hair out of her face, she declares in a loud, austere tone, "I never thanked you for everything you did for me and Patty!"
The Shinigami looks confused, blinking once or twice in the eery light of the candles before murmuring, "What?"
"Everything you did for us," Liz repeats, a little slower than before. "I never got to thank you. Before Black Star got you out of the Book of Eibon, I realized I never thanked you. And then after you got out, we were fighting Noah, and it wasn't on my mind to thank you. So now I'm finally saying it: Thank you."
The look of bewilderment remains on her meister's face for a few moments longer before it's replaced by a slow smile. With a shake of his head at the sister's flustered appearance, he answers, "You're welcome, Liz. I never regret the decision I made to find you two, and I appreciate your thanks. I'm grateful for you and Patty always being there for me, too."
Liz nods with a careful smile, taking a step back and murmuring, "Sorry to barge in like this in the middle of the night, but I just remembered I had to say that."
"What made you remember?"
Her foot freezes mid-step, and she stares at the floor, seeing the sneering face of the red-eyed customer at Death Bucks behind her eyes. Swallowing slowly, she looks back up at her meister and replies, "A world of nothing, I guess. A world of nothing and a mad man."
-/-\-|-/-\-
A/N: Obviously, this one-shot pulls away from Soul Eater's actual storyline, because Asura was locked up at this time. This one-shot is based around the way beginning of Soul Eater, so Soul Eater Not's chapters, when Liz and Patty both worked in the Death Bucks Café.