Noun; destruction.
At eight o'clock on a Saturday morning, the diner is completely devoid of customers. A medley of cheesy eighties songs hit Maka at full blast as she opens the door.
Black Star comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He says something that Maka can't hear, and she points to her ears, prompting him to disappear back into the kitchen. The volume of the music drops, and he reappears. "Your dad taking you out for another father-daughter day?"
"I didn't want to be home." She takes a seat at the counter, letting her bag drop on the seat next to her while Soul takes the seat on her other side. They haven't had a chance to really talk since last night, though she's had no time to think about what she'd say even if they did.
He raises his eyebrows. "Been a while since your dad got you that mad."
"It's not that," she sighs. There's only a split second of hesitation before she adds on, "My mom came home."
Black Star is speechless for once. His jaw works for several moments. "She's back?"
"Five and a half years later." Her laugh feels like it might devolve into a sob so she snaps her mouth shut. Thinking of last night gives her the same feeling as whiplash-her mother's visit had lasted no more than ten minutes, though she'd promised to come over for breakfast at nine.
Meanwhile, Black Star is still in shock. "You told me she had called and sent postcards, not that she was coming to visit."
"It was a surprise to everyone involved." Maka had said mostly nothing in the time that her mother was at their house, but Spirit had been incredibly civil, cordial even. How someone was supposed to treat their estranged wife after nearly six years was a mystery to her, but Spirit had managed it with more grace than Maka would have.
"Where is she staying?" he asks.
"I don't know." She shrugs. "Not at our house."
Black Star leans against the counter, propping his chin on his hand. "So, is this your hideout or are your parents coming here too?"
"We're supposed to have a family breakfast at nine," she says. "So this is my 'deciding if I want to go' place."
"You can only avoid the situation so much," he says. "You've already been doing it for six months." Black Star has a knack for pointing out facts with little tact but complete honesty. "What do you think more running is going to do for you?"
She makes a face at him as he returns to the kitchen, drumming her fingers on the counter. Her eyes fall on her reflection on its surface; the counter is made out of recycled steel, just as shiny as when Sid remodeled the diner three years ago, warping her reflection.
Maka traces the outline of her reflection. The way she deals with problems bigger than her is black and white: bury the problem or move forward by facing it head-on. She is not good with living with grey areas-they're unstable and irresolute, throwing her forward and back again in the same second.
Her mother shrouded herself in grey when she left.
Black Star comes back with two strawberry smoothies in hand. "I assume you haven't eaten," he says, setting a glass in front of Maka.
"You assume right." She pulls the glass to her and sips. The cold from the smoothie that spreads through her chest is comforting, chasing away some of the anxiety coiled in her stomach. They drink in silence, listening to the music meld from one song to the other.
"Is your mom the reason why you've been so busy?" Black Star asks shortly after Maka finishes her smoothie.
She fiddles with her straw. "Do you think so?"
He shakes his head.
"I can't talk about it," she says to his unasked question. It's hard to resist looking at her phone for the text that Kid promised to send when they were ready for her to head to the rift. "But it's nothing that I can't handle."
"Or the bad kind of illegal?" he asks.
As far as she knows, there's no law against killing the dead. "Definitely not."
"All right." Black Star seems to relax at that. "I was worried."
Maka smiles. "I appreciate it." Checking her watch, she drains the last of her smoothie. "Well, I have to get going if I want to be on time for this breakfast."
Black Star takes her glass and meets her eyes. "If you need to get out of the house while your mom is there, you could always come here."
A buzz from her phone disrupts the lightness being in the diner has fostered. Maka fights to keep her smile natural. "Thank you."
She pulls her phone out as soon as she walks out of the diner. On the screen is only one word.
Noon.
If Maka looks at her mother directly, she thinks she might shatter, like an illusion or mirage.
There is nothing delicate about her mother, Maka knows that, but she also thought she knew that her mother would never leave, so she takes precautions. Childish thinking, her mind chides at her, but she can't help it. Sitting across the table from her mother makes her feel like a child again, though not as secure as when she was one.
The gaze of her mother is an icy scorch on her skin as they eat; the only comfort comes from Spirit, who eats next to Maka, and punctuates the silence with occasional comments about the weather, the remodeling of the police station, and the new theater opening on Walton Street.
Her mother answers back with comments of her own: the fashion styles she's seen in Paris, the canals of Venice, and the lights of Tokyo. Maka, for her part, answers the questions that her mother asks her about her grades and classes, about Black Star and Tsubaki.
They all dance around talking about the five years that have passed since they last had a meal together. It's confusing to Maka, another grey area, which is an unstable foundation for a relationship, but she says nothing. Spirit has made pancakes for the occasion, complete with bacon and scrambled eggs. He and her mother clear the table when they're done while Maka rinses off the plates and puts them in the dishwasher, like they used to when she was younger.
Spirit's phone rings just as Maka closes the dishwasher; she recognizes it as his ringtone for work, unchanged from the one he set it as when he first got the phone. Her mother recognizes it as well, judging by the way her mouth presses into a line for an instant.
His expression becomes tinged with sheepishness as he ducks out into the hallway. Maka becomes intensely interested in the dishwasher settings; Soul disappeared upstairs as soon as her mother arrived so she can't look to him to cause a distraction. When a minute passes and her excuse to look down runs out, she busies herself with putting away dishes from the day before. She doesn't look at her mother-she's not sure what would happen if she met her eyes.
"Sorry." The sound of footsteps announce Spirit's return. He has his hair pulled into the ponytail he wears for work. "There's been a series of murders around here and Moricio over the past few months," he says, looking at Maka's mother. "They just found another body in the old part of Orcus Hollow."
Maka's stomach lurches.
"You need to go." There's no judgement in her mother's voice, though Maka is sure it is there in her eyes.
"Unfortunately. It looks like the murder is recent so we might be able to pick up on a trail." Spirit's tone is apologetic. "You're welcome to stay here until I get back."
There's a pause, and then her mother says, "Thank you."
Maka raises her head when she sees Spirit's boots appear in front of her. She tries to come up with a reason, any reason, to keep him here-she doesn't know if the creature is like poltergeists or if they can attack during the day. But it doesn't matter because she can't come up with anything, not even the flimsiest excuse, because he won't listen even if she does and all she can do is look up at him.
"I'll be back as soon as I can." Spirit pushes back one of her pigtails. "Are you going to be okay?"
She doesn't know if it's a lie or not when she nods.
When the front door clicks closed, her mother turns towards her. "Let's go somewhere."
Maka focuses on the lapel on her jacket. Enduring the same stilted conversation they had at breakfast for anywhere from another couple hours to half the day would be unbearable, so she nods again. "Let me go get my jacket."
A rush of freezing air hits Maka as she opens the door to her room. She rubs her arms, perplexed. Her eyes fall to Soul, who sits in the middle of the room and peers down at the scrapbook she gave him at Christmas.
She gets a glimpse of two faces as the book snaps shut. "That was the only picture I could find of you and Wes." She crosses the room and picks up her jacket. "You looked serious for an eight year old."
"Children whose smiles look like a jack-o-lantern generally don't smile often." Soul rises from the floor, the scrapbook floating with him. "But Wes would smile with his mouth closed when we took pictures, so that helped."
He glances at her jacket. "We're going out?"
She shrugs. "Not much of a choice in it."
"And the rift?"
"The scythe is in my truck," she answers. "We'll get there on time."
"All right." He mirrors her shrug; he seems to be avoiding talking about last night as well, which vaguely bothers Maka, though she can't bring it up now. "How is the reunion going?"
"Weird," she says as they leave the room. "Too weird."
The radio in Maka's truck gives up on life halfway through the trip to Moricio, plunging Maka and her mother into an awkward silence punctuated by sudden bursts of static that only becomes more awkward when one of them speaks.
Her mother points out the hotel she's staying at, a pretty brick building with pillars running down its front, and Maka pulls into one of the spaces in its parking lot. There is a forced lightness in her mother's voice as she talks about the hotel, as if constant activity will blot out Maka's memory. She glances at the scythe in the truck bed as they leave the truck, an anxious nervousness looping in her chest that only grows when she looks at the time on her phone.
There's a few minutes of them walking aimlessly (now would be a good time to bring up the unspeakable, but her mother says nothing so she says nothing). Then her mother spots a sprawling outdoor city market and Maka follows her to it. The scent of flowers from the flower stands set up at the end of every aisle is heavy in the air and mildly nauseating. She loses sight of Soul in the crush of people crowding every aisle, and the same sense of unreality that came over Maka when Spirit first told her about her mother unfurls and spreads over her again.
When her mother points out different items at the stands and shares a little snippet about something related to her travels, Maka nods and feigns interest. Emotion is distant at the moment, but the longer she spends time with her mother, the more she feels the absence of the relief she was expecting, or the anger and sadness that strangled her for so long.
It's odd that she feels nothing at all, when she spent the last six months agonizing over just calling her mother. Perhaps it's the shock of her arrival or anticipation of what is coming later that is numbing her, but one thing is clear: this is not the mother she lost, but some kind of doppelganger, a poltergeist. Her mother spoke directly, but this mother only evades.
The bell tower near the market begins to toll eleven, and Maka swallows. She doesn't know how to deal with the dead when they are still living.
The pain hits after the last toll of the bell fades into echoes bouncing off each other; it slams into Maka's head like a sledgehammer and she doubles over, clutching the sides of her head. She gasps, trying to push on her knee so she can force herself up. It feels like fire ants are eating her alive from the inside out.
It startles her when an arm raises her up. The pain vanishes as abruptly as it appeared as her mother leads her over to an empty bench. "Are you okay?"
Maka lowers her hand from her head. "You're asking me that?"
The buzz of the market fades away as Maka waits for an answer, eyes fixed on her mother's hands instead of her face, but it's clear where she learned her silence from. Her mother shifts finally. "I'll get you some water."
She had been wrong to think she had no anger left. "You don't want to talk about it, but you made me deal with it."
"Being here when I was feeling the way I was would have only hurt you," her mother says finally. "I didn't want you to deal with that."
"All it does is make you being here now hurt me." Maka blinks suddenly and furiously at the stinging in her eyes. "Why did you come back?"
The sun bounces off her mother's shoes. "I wanted to see you, talk to you."
"For how long?"
Another pause, and then, "What do you want now?"
"For you to be here tomorrow." Maka gets to her feet and looks at her mother in the eyes. They have traces of her green in them, but not as much as Spirit. "But for now, space."
How do you kill something that is worse than dead?
The question replays in Soul's mind over and over as he waits outside of the city market. The thought is marginally better than the other thoughts and feelings that drown his mind in an endless loop, but when he thinks about what caused it, he is halfway tempted to rip his head off and see if that answers his question.
Brushing through the woman had been an accident, his mind tells him, the result of being too focused on finding Maka in the massive crowd. The sheer amount of people, the pulsing of their souls, had been overwhelming enough, had turned his hunger into a budding inferno. So when Soul's arm went through the middle-aged lady pausing at one of the stands, his reaction had been more instinct than thought.
(Maybe it hadn't been an accident.)
He reached out for her soul; it was like fruit from a tree, unprotected and hanging in front of him to pluck. There had been a moment of hesitation before he touched the woman's soul, but the hunger was bigger than him, was all he was.
(It must have been the same way for Giriko, he remembers thinking in some faraway part of his mind.)
When his fingers had scraped against her soul, a rush of pain had swept through him, crushing him as it cleared his head. He watched as the woman's normal color began to return to her face, which had turned a pasty white, and then forced himself away.
He went as far as the bond would allow, eventually returning to the entrance when he felt Maka move. She's looking for him, he feels it in the way her soul comes closer and away again as she wanders down the aisles, but he won't go back in the market.
A light drizzle mists down from the light grey clouds overhead. Soul lifts a hand and a few drops freeze in the space above his palm. Maka wants him to be alive, but he doesn't deserve to even want that. His hand drops and the raindrops fall to the ground. He used to think that it was only certain parts of his mind that were rotten, but now he knows it was all of it.
"Found you!" Maka pops into Soul's vision, gesturing for him to come and garnering a strange look from the people entering the market, but she ignores it and flips her hood up. "Let's go."
He follows and gathers himself enough to speak when they reach her truck. "Your mom?"
"Staying here." She grabs the scythe from the back and wedges it in the front seat, its blade hanging out of the passenger window. As they drive out of the parking lot, she begins to talk, but Soul only half-listens.
The hunger hadn't died down like it usually does when he distances himself from its trigger, sliding into his stomach like the tip of a knife. Maka is too stuck in her story to notice the way he fidgets, keeping his gaze fixed on the scythe blade instead of risking a look at her. His eyes move to his reflection, warped and inhuman. It shouldn't exist, but no matter how many times he blinks, he's still there.
"I think I needed that." Maka's voice makes him jump. Her gaze is concentrated on the road, the rain thickening. "It wasn't all I needed to say, but it was a start."
"Good," he manages to say. "I'm glad."
Maka nods. "So am I."
They lapse into silence. Maka turns off the asphalt and onto a dirt road as they get closer to old Orcus Hollow. "I don't know if the rain would have chased the police away from the town or not," she muses aloud. The truck rattles as she drives through an uneven part of the road. "Kid said he would meet us at the trail up ahead so we're going to end up walking either way."
"Fun."
"For the person who doesn't get affected by the rain, maybe." She glances up at the sky hopefully. "Though it seems that it's let-"
The demon is only visible for a split second, perched on the truck's hood, eyes pitch-black except for two scarlet irises. With a yell, Maka swerves, and the demon disappears, while the truck tips on one side dangerously.
The instinct to protect is still stronger than anything else; Soul stills the truck with a colossal effort. The side of the truck tipping over sends up a cloud of dust as it rights itself and its tires connect back on the ground with a large groan.
The aura of the demon is thick in the air as Soul peers out from the truck's roof and scans the area; reality is not unpeeling itself like when they faced off with the mosquito demon, but he doesn't trust it.
He drops back into the truck to find Maka wincing as she rubs her head, although she doesn't seem bleeding or injured. "Are you okay?"
"I think so." She pulls her hand away, reaching for the scythe. He possesses the scythe as Maka's hand closes around the handle. "Kid texted me that the demon was still somewhere in Moricio."
"It moves fast clearly." His mind screams at being so close, though he's not sure if it's in elation or horror. "Could you call them?"
Maka holds up a hand, showing the smashed face of the watch Marie gave her. "No cell signal either."
She gets out of the truck and walks to the front of the hood; black streaks like scorch marks stain the car metal where the demon had touched. "Not sure how I'm going to explain that to my dad."
"Your truck got hit by lightning."
"Four times?"
"That's the way bad luck goes sometimes."
"A lot of the time, more like." Maka tugs down on her hood strings and begins to move forward. "Might as well start our walk now."
The rain continues to fall as they walk. Rolling hills crest between the dirt road and the road that runs parallel to it and leads to old Orcus Hollow, which mutes any noises or lights from the police cars in the town, if they linger.
"Do you think that winged person is still there?" Maka asks when they round a bend, and the forest that killed Soul looms into view.
"Why do you think they're a person and not a monster?"
"I'm not convinced they are." His view of the forest shifts as Maka adjusts her grip on the scythe. "But something felt human about their words at the front of the church."
"And then they showed their face," he concludes.
"They said their mother made them like that," Maka argues. "They weren't like that when they were born or created."
Too many memories echo in his head as he shrugs. "Doesn't matter what you were, it matters what you are."
"I don't th-" Maka breaks off. "What is that?"
Ahead of them, at the mouth of the trail, is a shadow figure. It almost looks like the creature from last night at first glance, but it moves with the wind, like it's stuck on marionette strings. It is the monstrous form of a child's stick figure, tall and spindly, with overlong arms and fingers.
The demon's scent is extremely faint, and not pulsing as it would be if it were still around. "It could be a trap," he says. "But I don't think it's the demon."
Maka stops twenty feet away from the shadow figure. "So what do we do?"
The figure continues to stay motionless, except how it sways in the wind. Its arms resemble a pair of crooked pitchforks now that Soul is closer, and it's completely faceless. It almost looks harmless, nearly blended in with the trees.
"Go around?" he suggests. "If it's a trap, then maybe it only attacks when it gets set off."
Maka stares at the figure for another beat before heading off the path. She keeps her face towards it as she eases into the brush, slowly making her way through the forest. The shadow figure stays as it has been, but Soul gets the feeling that it's tracking them somehow the longer he looks at it.
He sees it just as Maka reaches the treeline. It moved.
Maka's head snaps back in the direction of the figure. It doesn't look closer to me.
It moved its head. The move had almost been too subtle to notice, but the twist of its head had been too deliberate to be the wind.
Kid should be around here. She begins to move again, though more slowly. If we find him-
Her thought is cut off by a whistling much higher than the wind. Maka reacts in time to deflect the shadow's fingers off the scythe blade and dive behind a tree. The tree trunk reverberates with the force of the shadow's other fingers sinking into it, and she scrambles away from the tree.
It's hard to see anything with Maka running, but Soul catches a glimpse of the shadow moving as it stalks them. Although it's solid, it moves like a monster in a nightmare, transporting from one spot and another. The shadow's arms and fingers have grown longer, almost dragging across the ground.
He loses sight of it as Maka tears past a row of closely grouped trees, and when it doesn't reappear, he thinks they lost it. Then, Maka comes to a stop, intaking sharply.
The shadow seems taller up close than when they first saw it as Maka swings the scythe back to strike, but the head of the shadow figure explodes in a burst of light before she even starts to swing the scythe forward.
Kid drops down from the tree above. "That was close."
"A little too close." Maka rights the scythe as Soul leaves it. There's no trace of the shadow on the ground or anywhere else. "Did you see the demon who made that?"
"We caught wind of it as we were checking the boundary of the forest," Kid replies. "Stein has an old police scanner and heard about the discovery in Orcus Hollow." He pauses. "Is it-?"
'It's another victim of the creature from last night," Maka confirms. They start to move forward as they talk, Liz and Patti separating from Kid's pistols in a bright flash of light. "And the thing we just saw-"
"An outgrowth of the demon," Kid answers. "Similar to a puppet, but they can move."
The reapers' voices fade as Liz and Patti fall in line with Soul, one on either side of him. They move in silence for some time; there are parts of the forest that are familiar as they get closer to the swamp, but Soul is not as on edge as he imagined for visiting the place where he was murdered. Part of him attributes it to how he and Maka came in a different way from the first time he visited the swamp, when his memories were still buried away, but in truth, there isn't much that distracts him from the mangled mess of his mind anymore.
"We're going into the rift with you part of the way," says Liz, breaking the quiet. "The witch's curse will drag Kid into Abeyance if he gets too close, which is why we can't fix the rift."
Soul looks at Kid. "How do you know that?"
"Personal experience."
On his other side, Patti is unusually somber, although she perks up momentarily. "It's going to be cool to see the rift closed though."
"And a giant weight off our backs," Liz adds on.
Having expectations thrown on him that he's not sure he can meet isn't a foreign feeling to Soul, but it's not something he needs to be reminded of. Nodding and allowing his silence to be taken as confidence is an easy enough mask to wear, however.
They emerge from the swamp fifteen minutes later. Marie, Stein, and Azusa are the only ones there, along with the teenager and twins that Soul saw last Halloween. Marie looks up as the group draws closer. "We're almost ready."
"I thought there would be more people for something like this," Maka says as they come to the table the three are sitting at, a giant umbrella blocking out most of the rain. A tent is set up behind them, filled with several machines that buzz and whir loudly.
"Having more than a few people with our abilities is like a magnet for poltergeists and other things," Azusa answers. "Kilik and I have been banishing poltergeists since we started setting up this morning."
Soul glances at the trio, who stand at the treeline, although they sneak peeks at him and Maka as they do. The twins eye him warily, like they're not sure if he's something to be feared or not.
His attention is drawn back by Stein's voice. He holds a machine that looks similar to the spidery one that he showed them months ago. "Calculations from our machines show that the tear now takes about twenty minutes to reach. At Halloween, it would have only been a few minutes away." Stein hands Maka the machine. "This will guide you to the tear and back out again. However, if you're not out of the rift within an hour, the machine will set off a distress signal and we will pull you back." He gestures to an anchor buried in the ground some distance away from the swamp.
Maka eyes the rope attached to it. "If something in the rift doesn't break the rope immediately, won't it run out?"
"The rope is thousands of feet long and it's made out of material similar to kevlar, although it's more flexible and stronger," Azusa answers. "Same as the outfit we made for you."
"It isn't exact, since we weren't expecting you to go into the rift," Marie says as she gets up and disappears into the tent, returning with a long-sleeved black shirt and matching pants in hand. She hands Maka a pair of gloves as well. "But it should fit well enough."
"I guess we'll see soon enough." Maka takes the clothes and heads into the tent.
Soul drifts to the edge of the swamp as they wait. No one follows him, either too preoccupied with preparations or otherwise. The little island that Giriko's house was on has vanished-there is no sense of closure in seeing it gone, just like he gets no peace from looking through Wes' scrapbook. There is no solace to be found in either because it is for the living, not the dead.
Turning away, Soul goes back to the camp to wait for Maka.
The pants are slightly too long, but they're fine when Maka tucks them into her boots. Her heart is a rapid drumming in her chest that slows only marginally when the swamp is out of sight. Her breaths come out quick and short as she tugs on her gloves; she holds her breath as she picks up her scythe and waits until her heartbeat is normal again to exhale.
Taking a few more breaths barely does anything to help her nerves. Maka clenches her hands into fists and squeezes as hard as she can before she crosses the tent to leave. It doesn't help her find any calm, but it keeps her from feeling like she's about to explode.
Soul is outside of the tent while the others are back at the table. He looks in her direction as the tent flap swings back in place. "You look ready."
A nervous laugh ripples in her voice. "Something like that."
Marie turns at the sound of them, smiling when she sees Maka. "Glad to see they fit all right."
"For the most part." Maka moves closer to the table. The rain has turned back into the drizzle it was when it first started. "What now?"
"We go out to the rift." Marie holds out a harness similar to a rock climber's, pointing to a small boat at the edge of the swamp that she hadn't noticed.
Azusa makes sure her harness is secure once Maka has it on. "Few poltergeists have come out of the rift in the couple of hours that we've been monitoring it," she says, clipping the rope on the hook around her waist. "You shouldn't see much coming through in the rift in the time that you're in there."
"And if I can't fix the tear by the time you pull me out?" Maka asks abruptly. "What then?"
"Do the most that you can do." Azusa steps back. "We'll take it from there when you get back."
Maka nods. Her words aren't very comforting, but her honesty is.
The boat rocks back and forth as Maka, Kid, and Marie get in while the ghosts drift above. Maka squints as they start to row out to the place where Giriko's house used to stand. She was expecting to see something like a hole in the air, but she sees nothing. "Where is the rift?"
Marie points down. "There."
The nervous dread Maka has been fighting resurges.
They get to the spot too quickly. The foundation of Giriko's house is submerged about a foot beneath the water's surface. Marie sets down the oars, pushing back her hair. "The tear is about halfway down to the bottom," she says, pointing to a space between two points of the foundation.
"The tear is only big enough for one person to fit so you'll have to swim down one at a time," Marie says. "Kid will go first. Make sure to give yourselves a minute to adjust."
"We have to go into the water?" Liz says, frowning. "It's dark."
"It'll be darker in the rift," Patti tells her in a mock whisper.
"Don't make her more nervous than she already is." Kid is wearing a harness like Maka, though he doesn't appear as anxious as she feels. "Make sure to close your eyes, Liz."
"You don't need to remind me," she grumbles as she and Patti disappear into the pistols.
With a nod, Kid drops into the water. It swallows him up quickly as he dives down. Maka tracks him by sensing his aura, a bright gold-orange. It fades slowly as he swims before disappearing abruptly.
"He's through," Marie says. She turns to Maka and gives her a smile that is meant to be reassuring. "Good luck."
Maka tries to give her the same kind of nod Kid had, though she says nothing, or she thinks she might throw up like last night. She glances at Soul, who thankfully understands her look and possesses the scythe.
Lowering herself into the water is an action that nearly breaks her composure, though the freezing temperature of the swamp drives her fear from her mind temporarily. Then phantom sensations of clammy hands pulling her into the depths skim across the skin that's exposed, and her hands tighten on the side of the boat, instead of reaching for the scythe.
"There's nothing there," Marie says before Maka can ask. She offers her the scythe handle. "I promise."
For a long moment, Maka stares at the handle, and then takes it. She kicks out to the spot that Marie had pointed out, though it's slow going with the scythe in her hand. Her connection with Soul is constricted; she can only feel him if she reaches out, but his presence is enough to steady her.
Leaning her head back, she treads water once she reaches the place above the rift. Her nerves had kept her from sensing the rip before, but she feels it now; it's like a black hole, not pulling at her feet but at her soul.
Sucking in a deep breath, Maka tugs the scythe underneath the swamp surface and dives.
Soul has the strange sensation of moving vertically before the world suddenly becomes horizontal again. The dimness of the swamp has gone out, exploded into a sea of pitch-black. It disorients him, and he blinks several times before the roaring in his mind reminds him exactly where he is.
Maka's face is barely visible; he feels rather than sees her barely contained panic.
It takes a gargantuan effort to speak. Hey.
She latches on immediately. Hey.
Still here?
Yes, you?
Lying is not easy when their minds are connected. Yes.
"Good." Maka turns, and he feels her panic ebb. He wishes he could say the same for his mind; it's turned brittle, like glass about to shatter, so he looks around to keep from thinking. Behind Maka is a wall, though when it ripples Soul realizes it's the water of the swamp.
"Maka?" Kid's voice makes them both jump. He only comes into view when he's a couple feet away. He holds the flashlight he had attached to his harness in his hand, although the beam cuts through only a few feet of darkness before vanishing.
"Sorry, I was testing how far I could go," he says, gesturing behind him. His eyes don't glow in the dark here. "The entrance of the rift is about as far as I can go."
"It's okay." Maka unhooks the machine Stein gave her from her harness, before they set off with Marie in the boat. She puts it on the floor and switches it on. It glows in the dark, though its light doesn't travel far either. "One hour, right?"
Kid checks his watch. "A little more than fifty minutes, actually. Time moves quicker here, I believe."
"Wonderful." says Maka under her breath, unlatching the flashlight that Marie gave her. She lets go of the machine and it starts to scurry away. "See you in almost an hour."
They've moved away no more than ten steps and Kid already sounds far away. "Good luck!"
The rift seems to move in time of Maka's breaths, her grip around the scythe iron tight as they follow the machine. Her footsteps are swallowed up by the rift, replaced by a soft murmuring that melds with the thoughts crawling down the seams of Soul's mind.
Many things writhe and wriggle above them and underneath Maka's feet. She skirts away from them when the creatures come close, but none of the monsters seem interested in attacking; on the contrary, they seem to veer away when they get too near. The low mutters of the rift continue to sound in Soul's ear.
The rift is alive-it knows Soul, calls to him, whispers to him. It should horrify him, but the only thing he feels is disgust that it doesn't.
It takes him a minute to realize Maka is talking to him through their bond, and when he does, it takes another moment to make sure that his side of their bond is only open enough to let her thoughts in.
What is it?
I was thinking about how we should have a movie marathon after this.
A movie marathon. His response is too short, but he can't risk poisoning her mind, too.
You need to see The Iron Giant. The sting in her thoughts from his tone is muted. I think you'd relate to him.
Maybe. He snaps his mind shut.
(The fact that he doesn't deserve her has never been as obvious as it is now.)
Something shifts, the rift constricts abruptly, and the machine comes to a stop. Maka looks up; the darkness appears as seamless as ever. "Where is it?"
It takes minutes of watching before they finally spot the ripple of grey light gleaming through the rift. Ahead of them, Abeyance is only visible for an instant, but the burning cold emanating from it is too familiar.
(Feed.)
"It doesn't seem that big," Maka says, pacing down the length of the rip when the light pokes through again. She stops alongside the middle of the rip. It seems to have shrunk from what it was in the beginning, though only barely. "I know Azusa said that we only needed to be here but-"
Maka reaches out with the scythe and tries to hook the blade around the edge of the rift.
Soul is burning, he is losing his mind, he is hungry.
He isn't aware that he's out of the scythe until a hand brushes against his face.
Maka's eyes glimmer in the half-light of Abeyance. "I can touch you," she whispers.
Insideinside inside Soul finally breaks.
And then the world shatters.
"It's not very nice in there."
Maka whirls around; the darkness seems to weep where the creature steps. They have a face today-the innocence in their eyes stands at odds with the wings unfurling from their back.
"I didn't want to do any of this," they say as they lift their hand. In a fluid motion, they cut their hand against the edge of their wing. Blood flows out of their hand, but it does not pool on the floor, but solidifies into a sword.
They move towards Maka slowly. "But you don't get a choice in what you do sometimes."
Maka brings the scythe forward in an arc. "Soul."
He doesn't move from where he's crouched down on the floor; the person draws closer, lifting the sword. "You don't get a choice in who leaves you sometimes, either."
"Soul!" Maka brings up the scythe just in time to block the blow from the creature.
She stumbles backwards from the blow, nearly losing her balance. She continues to backpedal-the scythe is nothing without Soul and their connection.
The creature's moves are precise and destructive; she's out of her league and they both know it, but the creature doesn't seem to press their advantage. Maka manages to block three more of their hits with the scythe's blade before they land a blow on its handle and she feels it bend in her hands.
She retreats, keeping her eyes on the rip and the creature, breaths coming out fast and shallow and her hands shaking. Running back into the rift for Kid would be the smart thing to do, but the rip in the rift is still open and she refuses to leave without Soul. He hasn't moved from where he kneels on the floor.
Swallowing hard, Maka risks moving closer to the creature, although she doesn't attack, feinting to one side and shoots forward to Soul. She misjudges her steps in her panic, barely avoiding crashing into Soul by grabbing his shoulder. She shakes him once. "What are you doing?"
Soul's hand folds over hers, scorches her skin, and makes her breath stick in her throat.
Maka can't move.
She is burning; it feels like she is being eaten alive. Soul is in her mind, but nothing makes sense. Everything is too loud, he won't talk to her, she is being shrunk down and dragged to the corners of her mind.
Maka can't let go of the scythe nor can she pull away from Soul-something inside of her chest is splitting, being ripped out of her, though there's nothing touching her.
She's disappearing.
The hunger breaks him; he can't remember himself. It spreads through him, erasing everything he is and was.
His mind is in shreds, or perhaps it's whole-it's the same thing to him.
All he cares about is the shining soul he is possessing. It's impossible to reach inside for their soul with their hands, he finds after a few attempts, so he draws himself out of the soul.
His hand is curling around the soul when he hears it.
"Soul?"
The voice is quiet, warm and familiar.
Green eyes with flecks of gold blink up at him. "Soul?"
Soulsoulsoul.
Soul is his name.
"Maka." The name falls from his lips, and his fingers move from above her chest to her face. Her skin is warm, unlike his.
Her fingers graze over his skin. A thousand memories flood in with her touch.
When I asked you to stay, I meant it for everything.
Soul stares down at his hands, feels the hunger twist in him again.
He looks at Maka.
This was not everything.
Maka staggers to the side as Soul disappears from her mind, bowed over the scythe and on her knees when she opens her eyes. She sucks in breaths, rapid and shallow. It takes an enormous effort to raise her head. "Soul?"
He stands a dozen feet from the mouth of the closing rift, staring down at his hands, although his head lifts when she calls his name. The dark of the rift is too thick to see his face.
Maka's knees are shaking as she steadies herself. The creature is nowhere to be seen, though she doesn't care much about it. She isn't completely sure what happened, but she knows it's not Soul's fault.
Maka repeats herself. "Soul?"
He turns, and she sees what he's about to do before he does it. "Soul!"
The scythe clatters to the ground as Maka bursts into a run. She runs, even as a voice in her head tells her that she won't make it to him in time; but she has to see his face, she has to see his eyes.
Soul's name tumbles out of her mouth, even though she knows he won't respond to it. She reaches for him, although she is too far away, too slow. She just has to see his face.
Maka reaches the edge of the tear as it mends itself together, and swallows Soul with it.
Her hands wrap around nothing.
And then, with a small tug, her rope pulls her back.