Chapter Twelve
Crona's POV

Crona moaned, his head throbbing harshly. He went to rub a hand into his forehead, but Crona's hand refused to budge. He cracked one dazed eye open, noticing with dull surprise that he was sitting up in a pretty cold chair, Ragnaroc snoozing upside down. The unconscious Weapon was protruding from Crona's chest, his head cradled nicely in Crona's lap with a line of drool oozing out of his comical mouth onto his Maister's white pants. Crona tried again to move, this time seeing the thick restraints that held his arms, legs, waist and throat tightly in place, but was unable to do much more than squirm slightly.

Crona shook in fear, hating how much worse being a helpless prisoner was after tasting a hint of normality. Before Maka had shown up with her beautiful eyes, warm soul and kind words, he had been able to live without having the slightest bit of control over his life. Now, the terror of the unknown, anger at whoever had done this to him and the barest spark of rebelliousness was tearing him to pieces. "Th-this is r-really b-bad. R-Ragnaroc! W-wake up!"

This was so similar to Lady Medusa's 'experimentation laboratory' that Crona wanted to throw up, but there were very clear differences. For one, the walls of this room were a sterile white, the floor made up of checkered black and white tiles,unlike the reddish-brown stained grey stone that made up the walls and ceiling of Lady Medusa's dungeon. Another difference was the bright light, leaving no area shaded. In Lady Medusa's lab, the only light was directly over her current subject, leaving whomever her attention was directed at blinded. Unfortunately, the similarities between the rooms were all of the worst parts; something to strap victims to, [though Lady Medusa preferred a table to a chair], a small table in the far corner of the room that was covered in various small, sharp, dangerous-looking weapon-like instruments, and a drain in the center of the slightly sloped floor for blood to seep into.

A door behind him swung open, light footsteps clicking towards Crona. "Wh-who's there?" He flinched and yelped quietly as a needle sunk into his neck, his vision blurring and thoughts turning into incomprehensible mush.

Crona's drug-addled mind heard but was unable to understand the person's calm words, their tone icily sad for some reason. "A friend and foe."

Death the Kid's POV

"Father, it's been three days since Crona's disappearance! I believe that we can safely say that he has either run away or has been kidnapped. Can't you send someone out to go and search for Crona?" Kid asked, readjusting his comical skull shaped cravat brooch for the hundredth time that day and brushing imaginary dust off of his obsidian black suit. Worry for his missing friend was about to drive him into a bad symmetry fit, the young shinigami already reduced to tapping his leg in spurts of eight to keep calm.

Lord Death was usually very sympathetic to his son's…issues, but his own illness had just been getting mysteriously worse. The tall shinigami was now bed-ridden for the most part, apparently ailing from a wicked sore throat and roiling stomach, hawking up large wads of phlegm and wiping an ever-running nose. Kid had learned that it was a very good idea to leave the upstairs bathroom door open, so that when the urge came, Lord Death could quickly stumble into the bathroom to hurl into the commode without having to pause. All in all, Kid's dad was not in a good mood. "Kiddo, go away and leave me alone."

"If nothing else, I would think that you would be worried about ruining all of the progress that Crona has made in healing his soul; it went from practically being a Kishin egg to being almost as clear as Maka's soul." Kid's eye twitched as his father pushed his mask to one side to blow his nose, then just left it hanging crookedly, the lopsidedness digging at his son's mind insistently. Kid shook his head, thought of how wonderfully symmetrical circles and squares were, and tried to continue. "I-If he just ran away, then he's probably in a bad enough state of mind that he could lose control of his sanity and go on a killing spree. When he came back to himself, not only would his soul have been ruined again, but his spirit would be irreparably broken. Crona already struggles to forgive himself for the crimes he was forced to commit under his mother's command; if he killed any innocents now, I don't think that even Maka would be able to help him stay sane."

"Kid, right now I don't really care." Lord Death's voice was unnaturally cold, the tall headmaster readjusting his pillows before settling back with a sigh. "I have been informed by a highly trusted source that Crona was the party responsible for Spirit's injuries, and that he went in to finish the job on the night he 'disappeared'." Lord Death's huge gloved hands formed quotation marks in the air on the last word, ignoring his son's disbelieving gasp. "Spirit managed to defend himself and run the boy off, but not before he learned that Crona has been poisoning me for the last week with some sort of toxin that only affects shinigami. He put it in a special tea I like, and replaced the pills that Stein prescribed for me. Apparently, you were going to be next."

Kid shook his head, shock stealing his words away before he could spit them out. This is impossible. Crona? A traitor… again? No. I've seen how broken up Crona has been during and after his first betrayal, and that was when he was in Medusa's hold. Crona is simply not capable of betrayal.

"In any case, I've sent several teams off to capture or kill the demon swordsman Crona. So, in a manner of speaking, I've fulfilled your request. Now, will you please go away?" Lord Death stiffened before making a mad dash for the restroom, Kid flinching as he walked down the ornate wooden staircase, the loud sound of desperate vomiting following him.

Kid walked into his room, absentmindedly lying back in the exact center of his bed as thoughts tumbled through his mind, one after another. He really needed to tell Maka what his father had just told him and help her find their friend before his father's men did, but first Kid had to calm down.

Crona, a traitor. It makes sense; after all, he is so unsymmetrical that he makes my head hurt to even think of him- no! Kid tugged tightly on his hair, trying to keep his mind out of the comforting flow of neat orderliness. Maka and the Thompson sisters were the only friends that he had that were somewhat symmetrical, but that didn't make the rest traitors. "Concentrate…" he growled at himself, closing his eyes tightly. Crona had been a villain once, in a manner of speaking, but he had changed since coming to the academy. There was no way that he could have been poisoning Kid's father and torturing Maka's dad, that went against everything that Kid had learned about Crona.

Kid began to sweat, seeing every slightly crooked line and off-center object in his room. Each imperfection struck Kid almost worse than a physical blow, making him flinch and shiver uncontrollably. "Crona wouldn't betray Maka." Kid whimpered softly, flinching at the deep, asymmetrical marks that his fingernails had left on his arms. "I'm disgusting…No," he snarled ferociously, slamming his fists into the bed frame. "My condition does not rule me, I can control this…"

Crona was as bad as him; both of them were despicably imperfect beings that were only half human. "We're horrible!" Kid laughed out loud, feeling slightly hysterical. "And why shouldn't I be? I'm a waste of life! So wrong…" He felt his grasp on logic slip as he remembered that Maka had said that she and Crona had had a fight the day Crona had disappeared. Crona could have snapped after having his closest ally apparently turn on him… "NO! I refuse to dabble into theories on why one of my friends would go crazy, because of the simple fact that he didn't! I'll list the reasons."

Kid took a deep breath; in through the nose, out through the mouth. "One, Crona hates hurting others. He's made that clear enough every time we're supposed to spar in class." He could have been lying. Or maybe Crona just doesn't want to let on just how deadly he is. How much he revels in causing pain. "Shut up!" Kid snarled at himself, running his hands through his hair. A painting on the other end of his room was tilted too far, the asymmetrical sight dragging the young shinigami over against his will to straighten it up. "Two, Crona is terrified of everything. He can barely get through classes, let alone go out about a hundred miles to go beat Spirit to a pulp."

Again, he could be faking. Being scared of everything is a great way to earn sympathy from others. Kid flinched as he tripped over his carpet, gasping in mental anguish as the decorative fabric rumpled up in no distinguishable pattern. He hurried to fix it, smoothing the rug out and making sure that it was exactly ten inches from the door and perfectly parallel from his bed. "Th-three. Crona is extremely over-protective of his friends, preferring to let himself die rather than let them get so much as a scratch." So? It's not like Spirit or Father are his friends, Father wouldn't even let Crona get a more comfortable room than the refurbished cell. "Four, Crona wouldn't have a clue how to find or make the virus that made Father ill."

He almost laughed at himself that time. Kid was reaching on that one and he knew it. Crona was a lot smarter than people thought that he was, the misconception that he was stupid coming from his extreme gullibility. Kid read a lot of self-help and psychology books to try and fix his obsessive-compulsive disorder, not that it helped him any. However, since he was almost a certified psychologist after all of that research, Lord Death had had Crona come and talk with him for a half an hour every Thursday. During their talks, Kid had learned a little about Crona's twisted past. It turned out that Crona's trusting nature had been forced on him, Medusa putting Crona into positions that gave him two options; either instantly listen, trust and obey whatever she told him, or be badly injured. Kid had heard from Lord Death that Crona received top marks on all of his school work, both physically and mentally, and when Kid had tested Crona with several puzzles of increasing difficulty, he had been amazed at the speed and accuracy in which they were solved. In fact, sometimes Kid would be hard-pressed to say which of the two boys was smarter; him, or Crona.

"Five, what reason would he have to hurt either my father or Spirit?" Kid, your argument is so shaky that it would turn milk into butter. Spirit is always dismissive of Crona, not to mention the fact that if Spirit ever figured out that Crona had a crush on Maka, or more importantly, Maka felt the same way towards Crona, Crona would be a smear on the ground by the time that Father's favorite Death Scythe was done with him. And as for why he would attack Father, the possibilities are endless. Crona could have been angry that he was forced to stay in the same cell he was imprisoned in when he surrendered to the DWMA, or he could be angry that Father released his mother a few months ago, which led to him almost being killed. He could have joined the witch/shinigami war on the witches' side, or he may have just lost his temper at my father's infernally cheerful banter.

"Sh-shut up. Crona is innocent until proven guilty." Father has proof against Crona; at least one eyewitness who wishes to testify against him. "S-six… Umm…" Kid's mind was growing groggily confused, a thick fog of worry and OCD descending in full force on the teen. "He couldn't have gotten from the school to the alley and back without being missed. There's no way." Kid smirked at himself as he paced back and forth in the exact center of the room. "Who am I kidding, Crona probably could find a way if he really wanted to."

He gasped breathlessly, suddenly having a desperate need for fresh air. Staggering over to the window, he ripped open his black drapes and yanked the glass up, shoving his head out into the bright rays of the laughing sun. Kid managed to gulp down a few quick breaths before the overwhelming lack of symmetry in the outside world forced the panicking young shinigami back into his room, slamming the pane of glass down with a sharp crack. "The world is filthy…" He chuckled grimly as his eye twitched in rapid spasms. "Absolutely filthy."

He frowned, rubbing his forehead "Seven… Seven… seven. Crona wouldn't just leave, he has far too strong of a crush on Maka." Kid flinched as he saw the messy state he had left his curtains in, trotting back over to straighten them up. Though even that reason could be a clever ruse of Crona's to draw sympathy and acceptance, however unlikely that that seems. Kid snarled, anger rising at his OCD and the fact that his mind was apparently trying to convince him that Crona was a traitor just because he was unsymmetrical.

"I know I can overcome my unfortunate condition; I refuse to submit to a mental disorder…" Kid chanted, repeating the sentence. He didn't realize it, but he had unconsciously said his words eight times, the sentence made up of two sets of eight words. Kid began to chuckle softly, realizing what came next. "Reason number eight. Eight… eight is beautiful… A picture of gorgeous symmetry."

He growled, the sound guttural as he shook his head, trying to get symmetry out of his mind. Kid strode quickly to his bathroom to splash water on his face, accidentally catching his reflection's double toned gold gaze in the mirror over the sink, the last bit of his mind not controlled by his OCD cursing up a storm. All of the mirrors in the mansion were supposed to be covered when not in use, since Kid's OCD always flared up when he saw his unfortunately half-striped hair. He wasn't certain when Patty had been in here, but he could definitely tell that this was her doing from the tooth-paste rendition of a giraffe that had been painted on the glass surface.

"N-no…" Kid crumpled to his knees, staring in horror at the three ugly white stripes that forever barred him from the peace of perfect symmetry. "Such a despicable being shouldn't exist…"

He smashed his fist against the floor, howling in agony at the anguish of being such an imperfect freak. "I'm disgusting, nothing more than scum!" Kid felt hot tears trickling down his cheeks as he slammed his head and fists into the floor and walls, the harsh pain soothing his OCD as much as the unsymmetrical wounds aggravated it. He welcomed the stabbing sensation as the bones in his right knuckle cracked, his out-of-it mind reasoning that it was his duly deserved punishment for being such a disappointing heir to the Death line, such a weak-minded shinigami, such a horrible friend, such a despicable piece of garbage. Then his obsessive-compulsive mind began to quiver at the sight of only one broken hand, so Kid began to grimly smash his other fist to balance himself out again.

Maka's POV

Maka sent her soul wavelength for what seemed like the millionth time that week, searching for a flinch of fear, a twinge of misery, a hum of kindness, a throb of gentility, a mutter of loyalty, a spark of gentleness; all the things that made up Crona's poor soul, but as usual her energy returned without having touched any souls but Soul's. They were riding through the desert on Soul's motorcycle, Maka using her soul perception to try and find the missing swordsman.

"Hey, Maka! We gotta head back now, we're almost outta gas."

Maka sent her wavelength out one more time before nodding to her Weapon partner. "Yeah." They had known that the odds of finding Crona in the desert were slim, seeing as how the boy had gone missing the week before and they had done this exact thing for the last three days, but both had agreed that it was better to be safe than sorry.

The ride back to Death City was a quiet one, both lost in their own thoughts. Maka's mind was full of questions; Had Crona left of his own accord… again? If not, then who had kidnapped him? Why would Crona be kidnapped? Was the timid Maister alright?

Her feelings weren't in much better shape, guilt over their fight battling with worry and concern for Crona's safety, a mental war that only left Maka feeling drained and sick.

When Soul pulled his bike over at Kid's mansion, the young shinigami having invited them over after school and their trip to plan what to do next, the pair were startled to hear loud crashing sounds coming from inside the house. "Patty?" Soul asked, red eyes confused as they both looked toward the tall black building. "That's not cool. Kid's gonna be having fits, it sounds like."

Maka nodded and sighed wearily. That was just what they needed just then; one of Kid's famous symmetry tantrums. She took a breath and headed on up the obsidian gravel path, figuring that the sooner the mess was cleaned up, the sooner Kid could think straight on what to do next.

She pushed open the front door and strode in, Soul swaggering in after her, both wincing at another loud crash. It sounded like it was coming from Kid's room, which was unusual. Patty was the only person other than Black Star who would dare trigger one of Kid's OCD attacks, but even she generally respected Kid's personal sanctuary. As the Maister and Weapon pair trotted up the stairs, they heard Liz's voice, the gun's usually calmly amused voice frantic. "Kid, open the door! Damn it, listen to me and open this door!"

"What's going on?" Soul asked, beating Maka to the question. Liz spun, eyes worried.

"We've got to get in there, Kid's having a really bad OCD attack. Patty's gone to get Doctor Stein, but if we don't get in there soon he's going to need Stein's help for more than just head problems." Liz slammed her fist against the door, pounding on the dark wood. "KID, OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR NOW!"

"Let me…" Soul slammed his shoulder against the door; once, twice, three times, four times… On the fifth attempt, the wooden door groaned and smashed open.

The sight inside the room was sickening, one of the worst things that she had ever seen with any of her friends- other than with Crona and Soul. The walls were dotted with fist-shaped impressions, blood smeared in places and pencils embedded deeply in others. The white carpet was stained red, gobs of crimson slowly soaking into the ivory-colored velvet, with long rips running up the length. But what was so eerie was the fact that all of this was perfectly symmetrical; the rips were carefully matched, the pattern of pencils mirrored on the opposite wall, and every bloodstain had an exact copy. The bed, chairs and table remained untouched, their pristine cleanliness beside the horrific images around them adding to the freakishness of the room. However, the worst thing in the room was Kid himself.

The teen shinigami normally looked and dressed impeccably, his half-striped raven hair neatly combed and his movements clean and crisp. Now, however, Kid looked… rumpled. Though he was rumpled in perfect symmetrical harmony; his suit seemed scruffy at the first glance, but with a closer look Maka could see that every cut and wrinkle somehow had a matching partner on the opposite side. His hair was mussed, though it was also mussed symmetrically, and his normally calm double-toned amber eyes were wild, his gaze flicking from person to person in jerky, spasm-like movements.

"Disgusting…" Kid's voice was ragged, and Maka winced as he started laughing, his emotionless chuckles turning into a flurry of wet coughs as he spat another blob of scarlet onto the floor. The boy jolted slightly, as though a cattle prod had just been rammed into his side, then fell to his knees and began carefully replicating the red spatter. Kid squeezed a large gash on his wrist, crimson liquid seeping from the injury to drip onto the floor.

"Shit…" Liz cursed, Maka turning to see that her friend's face had paled drastically. "He hasn't been this bad for years, not since he took us in off the streets."

"You're all… disgusting." Kid growled and slammed his fists against the floor, wincing as he did so. "No… Just because they're not symmetrical doesn't mean that they're disgusting-" He whimpered, face shifting back and forth between rage, fear, concentration and nausea. The nausea won, Kid gagging as he dry heaved before going back to his ragged cackling. "Yes, yes you are. You're all unbalanced garbage that should be destroyed for your own good."

"What do we do?" Maka asked Liz, but the older girl just shrugged helplessly.

"There's nothing we can do once he's gotten himself this bad, other than keep him from hurting himself while we wait for Doctor Stein to get here."

Soul gulped audibly as Kid staggered to his feet, the gold gaze directed towards them a fiery ball of utter hatred. "Um, I don't know if we need to worry so much about him hurting himself, but him hurting us? Now that seems like a very possible problem."

Maka had to agree with her Weapon partner as Kid drew nearer, the shinigami never before having seemed threatening to her. But now, he seemed a lot more dangerous than even Medusa had been, and the fact that Maka had seen what Kid was capable of wasn't helping either. His eyes burned into her, the amber orbs scorching a path from her head to her toes dispassionately. "Tolerable… barely." Maka wasn't sure whether she should feel grateful or insulted. The teen frowned, his eyes focusing closely on her as he did a short double take. "There was something I think I was supposed to tell you…"

Kid wiped a hand over his face, fortunately not appearing to notice as he smeared crimson across the bridge of his nose, his three observers flinching as he did so.

Maka gasped as the motion drew her eyes to the boy's hand. The last two knuckles of his hands had been forced to pop out of their sockets making the attached fingers droop uselessly, and Maka really hoped that she wasn't actually seeing a crimson weeping figure eight carved on the backs of his hands. "Shit!" Liz cursed again, her voice sad.

Kid stiffened momentarily, then darted forward in a blur. Maka blinked in surprise as it finally registered that he was no longer a few feet away, but right beside her, slamming Liz roughly against the wall."It is truly astonishing, the havoc you and your sister wreck upon my broken mind."

Maka started towards him, but he casually cracked a hand back, the blow sending Maka reeling back. She touched her cheek and winced as it came back red, his ring having left a long scratch down the side of her face.

The teen shinigami continued on as if nothing had occurred, one of his hands going up to cup his Weapon partner's cheek gently as his soft words continued. "Alone, you are beautifully balanced, a speck of symmetry in a world of asymmetrical beings." A small smile touched his lips as he stroked Liz's cheek, Kid's face softening until he almost looked like himself again. Then his face darkened and his hand moved down to grip her throat in an iron grip, an impressive feat to be able to do with only two fingers and a thumb. "But together, you and Patty are revolting; repulsive pieces of sickening unsymmetrical trash that constantly rip away at my sanity."

"Not… COOL!" Soul growled, hauling off and socking their friend hard. Kid fell to the floor, Soul keeping a wary eye on him, while Maka helped Liz stay on her feet.

"You filth!" Kid's voice was ragged velvet as he snarled furiously. "How dare you?" Kid slowly stood and glared at Soul, eyes dismissive as he took in the Weapon. "You're so ugly I can barely stand to look at you, and you dare to think you can touch me? I am the pinnacle of perfect symmetry, my life a shrine to the majesty of balance. You damnable trash, you sicken me." His hands clenched into painful-looking fists, Kid sneered. "But don't worry. I'll make sure that your disgusting lack of perfection doesn't ruin the world for much longer. In fact, you should be gone in just about… eight minutes, perhaps a few more or less as the case may be."

"Soul…" Maka said, prompting Soul to Manifest. Her partner hesitated before nodding and shifting forms, his orange jacket and blue jeans changing to a long black pole, his arm lengthening and sharpening into the jagged design of a scythe blade. Maka grabbed the staff, twirling the Weapon onto her shoulder with the ease of years of practice. "Kid, calm down."

"Yeah, man. Chill out." Soul's reflection in the blade nodded, watching their shinigami friend tense.

"Kid, please don't make me do this…" Liz gave her Meister a pleading look, but the teen merely sneered and stalked towards Maka and Soul, Maka's eyes widening as his soul began to hum with power. "I warned you. Guys, you remember what I said about keeping him from hurting himself?"

"Sure, but-"

Liz cut Soul off. "Hey, Kid! Your hair only has stripes on one side!"

Maka and Kid stiffened, Maka stiffening as she realized what Liz was doing, and Kid stiffened as pure horror entered his double toned eyes. The boy fell to his knees, fingers wrapping tightly in his hair as he began to rock back and forth. "Trash, filth, vermin, debris, shinigami waste, refuse, rubbish, garbage, litter, junk…" Kid's voice was almost normal as he muttered to himself, beginning to shake. Maka frowned as the thought crossed her mind that he was almost acting like Crona in one of his worse panic attacks. "Disgusting, filthy, indecent, revolting, repulsive, sickening, ghastly, sordid, horrible, nauseating…"

Soul shifted back, kneeling next to the distraught boy. "Hey, dude. You okay?"

Kid jolted violently, suddenly sitting straight up, though his head still hung against his chest. A low, pained sound began to rock his frame, Maka gulping as she realized that he was laughing again; the sound even rougher than before. "That's right, there are stripes on only one half of my hair. You are absolutely correct." Maka could see the long grin that had stretched itself across the boy's face, a ghoulish smile that showed absolutely no amusement at all. "I've been quite remiss in my little mission, wouldn't you say? Somehow I continually forget just how repulsive I am myself, no matter how hard I try to conceal the fact." His voice blackened with self-loathing as he slowly got to his feet, and Kid chuckled again. "I'm the most sickening being in this room! A shinigami pot calling the Maister and Weapon kettles black."

Kid's frigid laughter choked itself off, turning to loud sobs. "I abhor myself." Stumbling blindly across the room, the teen slammed into a wall and crumpled to the floor, having knocked himself out cold.

"Well, fuck…" Soul exhaled, Maka and Liz nodding in perfect agreement.

"Why don't we put him on his bed?" Maka suggested. Together, the three of them gently set the young shinigami on his pristine bed.

They went out into the mansion's living room to wait for Stein and Patty to get back; figuring Kid was probably going to be out for a while. "So, you've seen Kid like this before?"

"Yeah, or a little worse." Liz sighed and settled back in her chair as she continued. "Kid was way different when he picked Patty and I off the streets, a lot colder and more self absorbed, if you can believe it… Anyway, he had determined that since we were so asymmetrical that he would have to stick us on a trial period of a month before he decided on whether or not to keep us as his personal Weapons."

"Seriously? That's not cool."

Liz shrugged. "We were different then too. Anyway, about a week or so after we moved in here, Kid got called by his dad to go and hunt down a Kishin egg in Rome. So, we ran on over there on Beelzebub and started attacking the creepy thing, Kid trying his hardest to keep hold of us as he fired on it. You see our souls weren't exactly on speaking terms, so while we were able to sync up enough so that he could pick us up, every time he fired one of us, not only would the kickback feel three or four times as harsh as it should have, but our handles were burning his hands pretty badly.

If the Egg hadn't gone and ate the soul of a nearby little child, we all probably would have died. However, that made all three of us furious at the Kishin egg instead of each other, and we were able to resonate fully for the first time. That was when we found out just how freaky Kid can get when he's really stressed and tired.

It turned out that the Kishin egg was actually completely asymmetrical, something that Kid hadn't been able to see since it had been keeping mostly to the shadows. Anyways, when Kid saw it he freaked out and started beating the Kishin up. When it had faded away to nothing more than a crimson soul, then Kid started fixing the symmetry of the town. Unfortunately, that involved shooting the buildings to dust, since they had been built in a very unorganized manner. When we shifted back to yell at Kid, he attacked us. Fortunately for us, Kid caught sight of his reflection in a pane of glass and started trying to kill himself by beating his head in with a brick. He managed to knock himself out, we called Lord Death, and he got us a ride home and gave the town more than enough money and supplies to rebuild itself. After about sixteen or seventeen more such OCD attacks, Lord Death contacted Stein, who made up a batch of pills that help with Kid's OCD and stress. He's never had another attack that bad since then; I don't know why he relapsed today."

Maka frowned, realizing something. "Where's Lord Death? Isn't he here?"

Liz nodded, pointing up towards the older shinigami's room. "Yeah, but he probably took some sleeping pills after Kid talked to him earlier; he's been doing that a lot lately. To a guy that's never had a sore throat or an upset stomach, sleeping through the worst of it is definitely preferable to spending most of his time with his head in the toilet."

The door burst open, making the three friends jump to their feet, Soul Manifesting as Maka grabbed his handle, swinging him into an offensive position. Then Maka relaxed, recognizing the two soul wavelengths seconds before their owners ran into the room; the spastic and generally scarily cheerful soul of Patty, and the overwhelmingly powerful soul of Professor Stein.

"I take it that Kid is detained at the moment?" Stein's voice was calmly monotonous, the calm words a contradiction to the quick pace that the two had had just seconds before.

"He knocked himself out." Liz replied, waving in the direction of Kid's room.

"How bad was he?"

Liz shuddered, Stein nodding thoughtfully as though that had given him all of the information that he needed. "Ah. I'll be back."

It took him about an hour before the professor returned, lightly trotting down the stairs. "He'll be fine in a day or two. I would personally advise against him wielding either of you two," nodding towards the Thompson sisters, "for at least three days, to let his fingers heal fully. Also, try and keep him as calm as possible for the next two days or so."

Liz nodded seriously, while Patty giggled and clapped. "Do you know why he relapsed?"

"From what I can understand, he's been weaning himself off of the medications that I prescribed, and for the last few weeks he hasn't been taking any at all. That, mixed with the stress of having Crona missing, and seeing anything asymmetrical, is the most probable causes that I can think of for his OCD attack."

"Oopsie!" Patty said, looking guilty. "I went and drew a pretty giraffe on Kid's mirror this morning, but I don't think I washed it off…"

"Patty!"

"In any case," Stein called attention back to him with a polite cough, "Kid is lucid, and he wants to talk with you all, but Maka especially. He said that it was 'highly urgent'."

"That's right, earlier he said he thought there was something that he was supposed to tell you, remember? It was right between calling you tolerable and attacking Liz." Soul reminded her, sticking his thumbs in his pockets and rocking back on his heels.

Maka nodded and headed up the stairs, the others on her heels. When she opened the door, Maka was somewhat surprised to see Kid sitting on the floor, scrubbing at the bloodstains. "Um, aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

Kid jumped to his feet, one hand nervously brushing down the front of his suit. "Maka, Soul, Liz, I sincerely apologize for my atrocious behavior; it was heinous of me, and I have no excuses."

Maka raised an eyebrow, a small smile on her lips. "I don't know; it seems to me that having such an extreme case of OCD is a pretty good excuse to me… In any case, we're all fine, so no harm done to us. If you should be apologizing to anyone, it's yourself."

"I agree with Maka. Kid, I've seen you like this before, it's not a big deal." Liz said, setting her hands on her hips. "What is a big deal is not taking your medications without telling Patty or I! What were you thinking?"

"I disliked the idea of becoming dependent on them to cope with my life, so I thought that I would try and take them only when I truly needed a stress relief." Kid smiled sheepishly. "And then, when I did need to keep calm, I completely forgot to take them."

Soul spoke up, leaning against the wall. "Hey, not getting dependent is cool, but next time, talk it over with Stein, alright? Freaking us out like that and beating yourself up is not cool."

Kid nodded. "Don't worry, I will."

"Was that what you wanted to tell us?" Maka asked, confused.

Kid's eyes bulged, and he began to tap his pocket in sequences of eight. "Damn it, how could I have forgotten?"

"Kid, calm down." Stein warned him, absently twisting the screw in his head a few clicks. "I will sedate you if you get too anxious."

"Fine, fine. Maka, my father was told that Crona has turned traitor; torturing Spirit, then slipping him a virus that made him ill before going back to the hospital to kill Spirit outright." Kid flinched as Maka shot a deadly glare in his direction, knowing that Crona could never have betrayed Lord Death again after the shinigami had given him a second chance to live in Death City. "Apparently, Spirit was able to fight back well enough that Crona was forced to retreat."

"Crona would never-" Maka started, only for Kid to wave a dismissing hand.

"I know, Crona doesn't have it in him to make my father as ill as he is, let alone trying to kill your father. He would never be willing to hurt you, even if it was indirectly. I'm just telling you what Father told me was his reasoning for sending DWMA agents out to capture or kill Crona."

Maka and Liz gasped, Soul paled slightly, and Stein scowled while Patty frowned, "That's not good."