Sorry for this sorry excuse of a chapter. Just gonna throw this in here...with the disclaimer saying that I own nothing except for my OC and this story.

There was another story on the news. More children going missing. More teary-eyed parents begging for someone, anyone, to find their sons and daughters – their babies. An entire state was in lockdown. And most importantly, there were reported "sightings" of a "mysterious" farmer roaming America with a menacing-looking pitchfork in tow, going around in search of something – children, maybe?

Maka turned off the TV set. This had to stop. She couldn't let Pitch take any more children away from their fathers and mothers. She had to hunt down the Nightmare King before he could do any more damage.

She walked past the couch and the dining table, and then to her room. She saw that Soul was taking a nap – good for him. He had been worrying about her too much, and Maka thought he needed rest. She knew that she could use some, too.

She walked inside her room, and her green eyes fell on a certain shining material lying on her desk.

The diamond dagger.

Maka picked it up and turned it over in her hand. Katherine the spectral girl must have left the dagger there on purpose.

"But...why?"

She looked on as it refracted the rays of the sun that were coming through her window, causing it to fill the room with light. The light was beginning to become a bit too bright, so Maka lowered it.

The meister then remembered what Katherine had said about the diamond dagger, that during the Guardians' last battle with Pitch she had used it to strike Pitch down and defeat him.

"It's important," Maka realized. "I have to keep it safe until we find Pitch." She took it up again, and opened the drawer in which she kept the jewellery box of postcards. Then she took out the box, opened it, and laid the diamond dagger on top of the postcards before closing the box and putting it back in the drawer. The drawer slid shut with a soft thump.

Maka exhaled through her nose, trying to concentrate.

How were they to find this "mysterious" farmer?

Inside the infirmary, Spirit Albarn's eyes shot open as he woke up. He began inhaling and exhaling at a fast rate, then it slowed down until he was breathing normally again. His eyes darted around, searching for a threat, and then he realized that someone was sitting beside him and...holding his hand?

He stared at the figure with surprised turquoise eyes, breathing in and out, until his facial features softened in recognition.

"What...what're you doing here?" he asked, not taking his eyes off his companion.

"It's nothing, really," Lady Solar sighed. "I'm just curious."

"You are?" Spirit raised an eyebrow. "What're you curious about? Did you want to ask me something?"

Her usually warm expression darkened a little, but it looked stern rather than annoyed. "About the dream you just had."

"How did you know I was dreaming?"

"I know the symptoms of a nightmare when I see it."

The Death Scythe's eyebrows creased when he heard her answer with a monotonous voice, but relented.

"I don't remember much; I just know that I was trapped behind glass or something. I think the glass shattered in the end, that's all I'm really sure of." He looked back at her, but she was staring down at the white sheets, a strange expression on her face, lost in her thoughts. After a moment spent in silence, WiS closed her eyes and nodded. "I see."

Lady Solar then abruptly stood up from her seat, letting go of Spirit's hand. "Sorry, but I must leave," she apologized, and then she walked quickly out of the infirmary before either of them could say anything else.

That night, when dinner rolled around, Maka, Soul, and Blair ate in silence – for the most part. Soul had cracked something about one of Black*Star's misadventures – something about the time when he went on a mission including a spider-like kishin egg, and then it got really weird when another meister-and-weapon pair showed up who were fighting another kishin egg in the area.

Maka had to laugh a little. She liked it this way sometimes, when life was just normal and everyone could take their time with things. That was why she needed to be strong, to defeat Pitch; she needed to restore this peace and protect it. Because she knew it was her duty as a student of Shibusen.

All of a sudden, knocking sounded on their door, slow and steady. They looked up at the disturbance, and before any more knocking occurred, Maka called, "Coming!" and got up to answer the door. She was there, hand on the doorknob faster than she could process, but she thought about it for only a second before she opened the door.

In the doorway stood Lady Solar. She had a tired look on her face, as well as hair that must have had hands finger-combing it before, like she had worried about something so important that it made her wring her hands through her hair. And...were those tear streaks under her eyes as well?

All these Maka registered with her green eyes before WiS walked in without saying a word, already beginning to slouch over and it was a wonder that the latter's forehead didn't smack against the door frame as it was. "Um...excuse me?" Maka tried to say, but the tall woman paid no heed and lay down on the couch, leaving one of her arms and both her legs sticking out comedically with no room to fit in.

"...Hello?" Maka asked. No response. Soul and Blair looked over as well mid-chew, and they stared for a while at WiS's sleeping form, not sure what to do about the situation.

The meister walked quietly over to her, slowly raising a hand to wake up the tall woman, when WiS's eyes shot open, and she gasped loudly, beginning to hyperventilate. Maka flinched in surprise before taking control of her body and running off to find a paper bag.

WiS covered her mouth, trying to remember how to breathe normally after what she remembered. How to breathe in slowly, breathe out slowly.

Stay calm.

Stay calm.

Don't break down.

Stay calm.

"Use this," Maka came back and handed her a brown paper bag. Without thinking about it thoroughly, Lady Solar accepted it and began breathing into it, closing her eyes and taking breaths before removing it and trying to breathe again, remembering what she had been told before.*

Once she became able to breathe normally, WiS leant back against the back of the couch. "Sorry," she apologized, "for just barging in like that."

"It's alright," Maka said. "I think you looked really tired, though I think next time you should ask."

WiS nodded, giving yet another fake smile – the relief in hearing Maka say that was the reason why it looked so real – and looked down at the ground, blinking.

She noticed that there was grit in her eye, and rubbed it out. "Funny," she thought, "there's not supposed to be dirt in my eye this early unless..."

Of course.

She had nightmare sand sprinkled into her eyes. That was what that strange feeling she had after knocking on the door was. Were there shadows there, shadows that were working for Pitch?

And was that nightmare supposed to scare her and make her feel like a helpless child again?

She blinked once more, and then remembered why she had visited in the first place.

"Maka, I need to tell you something. Alone."

Katherine wandered around Death City, bouncing from rooftop to rooftop and gliding in the desert air. She had paused only to look at a cloud that was drifting lazily across the night sky, and then wondered if she could sit on a cloud like Nightlight used to; she had never flown high enough to find out.

Nightlight.

It hurt to even think about him now, and she became even more lost in thought as her mind came to think about Maka as well. Then what Lord Death had told her the night before.

The spectral girl flew up, carrying herself against gravity, higher and higher, until she could feel the cloud in front of her and put her fingers against the cool, condensed water vapor.

She remembered a time like this, when she was just a little girl and North, Ombric, and Nightlight were around – the djinni North had made threw her high up in the air, and she had seen Nightlight on his cloud, sitting there quietly like he always did, and they reached out to each other...

...And like in her memory, she fell back to earth, the cloud becoming far up in the sky from her view again.

Katherine gasped in surprise as she looked down and realized that shadow tendrils were grabbing at her limbs and her book. She reached down to her belt with her free hand to get the diamond dagger, but then she remembered – she had left it with Maka!

The spectral girl's scream rang through the area, and this time someone heard.

It was the farmer.

Or rather, the one who possessed him.

(* - Someone help me if I'm wrong because I'm deadly wrong at health problems sometimes...or just confused.)

Stay tuned!