Author's Note: Hey, strangers. I've missed you. We'll talk at the end. For now, let's jump back in. Can't remember what's going on? There are a few paragraphs near the beginning that should help recap things for you a bit (I hope)! Enjoy~
They couldn't stop.
Despite his exhaustion, there was an urgency in the labored pace of his breaths, the soreness of his limbs. Soul's mind was set into a series of phrases, repeating incessantly, one after the other: There was no time to pause, no time to rest. They weren't safe yet. Just a little farther.
In truth, he wasn't sure if they'd ever feel safe enough to stop.
The sounds of their feet against the ground were too damn loud, and despite the fact that the sun had started to rise and the terrifying sounds of the forest had begun to dissipate, he was far from feeling relaxed. With every passing second, he only felt more exposed. Everywhere he looked, he still imagined blackened hands emerging from the semi-darkness, ready to snatch them from their directionless path.
He glanced up at Maka, who had led the charge through the entire night, never breaking stride for a second. As soon as they'd started running, she'd steeled herself and picked a route at random that he and Tsubaki had both silently agreed to follow.
Although it was clear that she was leading them somewhere, Soul was pretty sure that she didn't actually have a plan. Where the hell were they going? Even if they did somehow hit a town soon, where the hell could they stop and rest? It wasn't like they could trust anyone. There was nowhere to lay low, and Kid had been the one with all of the maps, plans, and food at his disposal.
In any case, Soul couldn't believe that she'd kept up this pace all night long. That realization had led him to make very distracting conclusions about his meister's stamina, something that had kept his mind sufficiently occupied for the past hour. He felt his heart skip a beat as another burning rush traced through his chest, and grumpily turned his mind to less tantalizing questions.
Throughout the night, he'd been running his conversation with Kid over and over through his memory. Kid had found that syringe just before their camp had been attacked. Was it a coincidence, or were they being watched? And who was behind it?
Even more unsettling was the way Kid had talked about Soul and Maka's wavelengths. This situation was getting more and more unpredictable by the second. What kind of influence could he have over Maka's wavelength? None of it made any sense. Now, more than ever, he knew he had to figure out a way to control it.
All in all, they needed help. On top of the resonance problems, they were operating on no sleep, minimal food, and had no destination.
But really, what else could they do, other than run?
When they finally did see another living soul – a moment accompanied by a loud wheeze and a burst of neck pain on Soul's part, as Maka tugged the two of them swiftly behind a boulder – the sun had fully risen and it was clear that the trees were starting to thin. For the first time since they'd begun, they paused, leaning against the rock as they caught their breath.
Maka was all for circumventing the town and continuing on, but after finally having a chance to rest his legs, Soul was ready to dive headfirst into breakfast and a bed. Tsubaki had plopped down onto the ground and was stretching, looking just as disenchanted with the idea of another four-hour marathon.
"Let's just try to go into town, Maka," she said in her most placating tone, trying to smile up at her. "We don't know when we'll find another one, and we've been up all night. We should rest."
Maka still looked hesitant, and Soul didn't miss the way that her eyes kept sliding his way. Jesus, he thought as he rolled his eyes at her. She shouldn't worry so much. He'd be fine… probably.
"What we really need is a mirror," Soul said aloud, his voice cracking as he spoke for the first time in hours. The girls looked at him in surprise.
"Or, at least, what you really need is a mirror," he nodded at Tsubaki, grinning. "Since you're the only one who's actually on this mission." The other two grinned back, and he and Maka pulled Tsubaki to her feet and headed towards the village.
As it turned out, apparently finding a mirror in a tiny Malaysian village was easier said than done. Hell, every reflective surface seemed to elude them, he thought as they meandered along the back paths of the town. They passed by wooden shacks and animal pens, lurking behind trees and stones where they could find them and avoiding the main street at all costs. There was no question that they looked ridiculously out of place, he realized, as the occasional farmer passed by with his cart.
As the minutes ticked by and their search turned up no results, he knew they needed to get craftier. Edging closer to the houses, he started scanning, searching for inhabitants within each one. If there was nothing outside, maybe there was something inside that they could use.
The other two weren't thrilled with the idea; he had the feeling that Maka's arms might stay permanently crossed, with the amount of dedication she was putting into it. But eventually, once they'd staked out a seemingly empty house for a quarter of an hour, they still followed him up the rickety steps of the shanty and raided for any piece of glass they could find. Maka's perceptive eye stayed trained on the door as they worked. After the first house turned up nothing, they moved on to another, taking care to put everything back in its place.
Determined to figure out a way to control his wavelength, Soul was on a smaller, separate mission. While they searched, he was testing out their connection, paying careful attention to how his wavelength was behaving.
Unfortunately, the results hadn't been too promising. At first, he'd definitely been more tempted to resonate with Maka when he was physically close to her – a certain cave encounter, and several others afterward, had taught him that much. Now, that same urgent, desperate desire to resonate now plagued him almost constantly.
Several houses into their search, their hopes were finally brought into sharp relief by a gasp from Tsubaki, who slowly pulled a drinking glass out of an old wooden chest in the kitchen. Without hesitation, Soul and Maka moved into the hallway as Tsubaki blew on the glass, and they ducked behind the wall just she began to mouth "forty-two-"
The ever-dependable Stein picked up right after the first ring. It was sort of eerie, actually, Soul thought; almost like he had been waiting for them to call. On top of that, the call should have gone directly to Lord Death, which meant that Stein had been spending a lot of time in the Death Room recently. He was either very determined to cover for them, or something was keeping him perpetually in Death's company.
"Tsubaki," Stein said briskly, his tone business-like. "Are you alone?"
Tsubaki hesitated, clearly unsure of how to answer, since she didn't know who else might be listening on Stein's end. Which was probably smart, as seconds later, Death's voice filled the shack. As usual, he was mysteriously cheerful, despite the fact that they were all in imminent danger.
"Hiya, Tsubaki!" Death began, and she started to answer, before he continued on with an exuberant, "Hello, Soul and Maka!"
Soul jumped about a foot, glancing quickly around and wondering how the hell they'd been seen, then realized that they were still safely hidden, and that Death must have been taking shots in the dark. Maka dug her fingers into his arm, partially to calm him down, and partially because that's what nerdy meisters did when all of their fears of expulsion were about to come to fruition. He prayed that Tsubaki would think on her feet, but her stunned silence seemed to guarantee that they weren't getting out of this one.
Stein seemed to enjoy the uncomfortable quiet that was stretching across the call, and when he finally spoke, Soul could hear the maniacal grin in his voice.
"The others are safe, in case you were wondering!" he declared, changing the subject abruptly. "Black*Star checked in a couple of hours ago."
Soul barely had time to blink before Tsubaki launched into a series of questions, her voice hurried and breathless:
"Is he okay? What happened? Is everyone together? What else did he tell you? Are you sure he's all right?" she stammered, not giving Stein the chance to answer one question before her voice spilled into another.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Soul barely held back a chuckle. Now that it was on his radar, he wasn't sure how he hadn't seen it before. Maka was staring at his twisted smile quizzically, expression curious about the private joke he was enjoying, though her face was still ashen from the shock of Death's greeting. He shook his head at her slowly. She let out a silent hmph and leaned back against the wall. Soul smiled wider.
Finally, after Tsubaki had exhausted her supply of queries and Stein had reassured her several times that Black*Star was, in fact, not dead, Death's voice resurfaced.
"Do you think we could talk to Soul for just a minute?" he said politely. Soul would have been both curious and appeased if he hadn't been so sure that they were about to be thrown out of Shibusen permanently.
Tsubaki hesitated again, and said very slowly, "But you see, it really is just me…"
"Ah," Death said, sounding disappointed. "Then it's a pretty strange coincidence that his bag seems to be sitting right behind you."
Tsubaki turned around and blanched, confirming what Soul and Maka could already see from their hiding place: Soul's backpack, black and dust-laden, lay incriminatingly in the frame of the door, betraying them. Tsubaki backed up toward the wall, kicking the bag out of sight with a flourish. When she turned around again, her cheeks were bright red. In the midst of the ruckus, Soul could have sworn he heard Stein mutter a bemused "you two deserve each other."
Soul stilled, considering for a moment that Stein might know far too much about the Shibusen goings-on than Soul felt comfortable with. Damn, actually, if that was true… then maybe Stein already knew why he and Maka's reson-
"Listen," Stein said, stepping back into the frame and interrupting Soul's horrifying revelation. "This is important, and we need to make sure that all of you know what's going on. Especially you, Soul."
Soul took a deep breath and walked around the corner, Maka on his heels. They stepped behind Tsubaki, both sheepishly returning Death's cheerful wave before Stein began to speak.
"We have some new information for you," Stein said seriously, and all three of them straightened up in sync, eyeing him attentively.
"As you may remember, there were two people infected with black blood left that hadn't been kidnapped," Stein continued. "Last night, the other person who was infected was attacked. It seems that there was quite a struggle. They came in the middle of the night. It follows the same pattern as all of the other attacks, including last night's when they tried to capture you."
Soul swallowed and steeled himself a moment before responding.
"Any idea where they've taken the last person, then?" he asked, his voice coming out much more balanced than he felt.
"Oh, I sincerely doubt they've taken him anywhere," Stein said, adjusting his glasses cryptically. "Considering he's dead."
At this, Maka's hand latched onto his wrist, which somehow steadied him, despite the familiar head rush that he felt at the contact. After a moment of silence, Stein voiced exactly what had been echoing through Soul's mind:
"You're the last one," he said simply. "And now we know that if you fight back, they clearly aren't above killing you."
Tsubaki raised a hand slowly to her face, letting out a silent breath. Maka seemed to be stunned to the point of immobility, but Soul was remarkably calm. He'd already known that it might come to that, after all. They waited silently for the rest of Stein's instructions.
"This goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway," Stein said. "Tread carefully. If things get any worse, we're coming. In the meantime, we've set up a safe house for you at this location."
He pulled out a piece of paper with another set of coordinates, and Maka grabbed a pen and paper from her backpack. Soul couldn't help but notice the slight tremor in her fingers as she wrote.
"Meet the others there," he said. "Once you've regrouped, we'll come up with a plan. And whatever you do, stay away from those other coordinates at all costs. It looks like the enemy may have given us an unexpected gift, and we need to plan carefully before we go in."
Soul nodded, feeling incrementally better with a somewhat solid plan in place.
"Any other questions, before we leave you?" Death asked, massive hands pulling into a congenial shrug.
It wasn't the right time, but Soul threw caution to the winds and tried anyway, both for his own morbid curiosity and because he hoped it might make Maka feel a bit better if Death gave the right answer.
"So… are you expelling us?" he said tentatively, grinning slightly.
Both Stein and Death chortled for a moment, and Stein opened up his mouth to answer, before he stilled and his eyes widened ever so slightly.
"We'll have to leave that for later, I'm afraid," he said, a touch of laughter still in his voice. "It looks like you need to be going." With that, the glass in Tsubaki's hand went blank.
The three of them stared at the glass in utter confusion, before another shape began to slowly take form in the cup's reflection. Three pairs of eyes whipped in the direction of the door.
In the doorframe, with the blistering sun as a backdrop, stood the silhouette of a figure who, Soul supposed, could only be the owner of this particular home. As the figure stepped across the threshold and into the shack, it took the form of a very startled Malaysian man, holding a basket of fruit in one hand and a live chicken in the other.
Damn them for getting distracted and taking their eyes off of the door. Either way, Soul could only imagine what the situation must look like. It was probably unlikely that this man had ever encountered three mysterious teenagers in his kitchen before, particularly ones that seemed so intent on having conversations with his dishes.
They stared at each other for a moment, each party clearly unsure of what to do about the other. Suddenly, the man yelled out, breaking the silence and startling the rest of the group into action. With a shout, Soul grabbed his bag just as Maka tugged the shutters open on a window, filling the rest of the house with hot yellow light. They pushed themselves through the swirls of dust that moved in streams through the window frame and jumped, one by one, back into the light of day. As they ran breathlessly away from the village, the sounds left by their departure faded into the background, and the wind whipped at them as they tore back into the forest.
How was it possible that the sun was already setting again? Soul's legs had nearly seized up from the past 24 hours of hell that they'd been put through. At this point, they'd all agreed: they needed to rest. So began their frantic search for somewhere to sleep. As none of them were particularly interested in wandering the forest at night again, they were racing against the clock. Anywhere that protected them from the elements enough that they could get a few hours' rest would have to do.
He'd started to sense it: without sleep, his mind was weaker. He could almost feel his brain beginning to sag at the edges, like a wilting plant, and in this state, he knew it would be only too easy for the little demon to put down roots. Since the demon had inexplicably managed to heighten his presence in Soul's mind as of late, keeping him out of his head had become his first priority.
"How about this, you two?" Tsubaki's voice rang out enthusiastically from a few meters away. He and Maka followed her voice to examine their one promising option.
It was a ditch. Soul and Maka let out a groan in tandem. He vaguely remembered thinking that this is where they should have been sleeping when they'd first arrived. It certainly wasn't a feather bed, to be sure, but it was better than nothing.
Resigned to their fate, the three of them squished down into a line, Maka in the middle. Soul tried his best to casually give her a couple of inches of space. Backs against the dirt, they gazed at the slivers of setting sun they could see between the trees. The shades of the sun grew redder, and fainter, until finally, trails of moonlit clouds overtook the skies.
Despite the shade of the trees, the forest was humid and muggy, which meant that the heat that lingered oppressively on their shoulders during the day had turned into a wet and chilly presence by the middle of the night. Plagued by shivers, Soul drifted in and out of sleep as his mind circulated through images of churning black seas and jazz records on repeat.
Dark colors drifted back and forth across his eyelids, pulling his mind in every direction with a careful ebb and flow. After a while, the waves calmed him, and before long, a soft warmth seemed to sink into his skin, soothing and comforting as it traced up and down his front. He sighed, contented, as it settled into his limbs. As he again drifted closer to consciousness, he realized dully that the warmth, soft and perfect as it was, was concentrated solely on the front of his body.
He froze, heart thudding, and he knew what he would see before he even opened his eyes. Still, curiosity overwhelmed him, and though he didn't dare move, he slowly pulled one of his eyelids open. He took in the sight beneath him as a new kind of shiver enveloped him.
Every bend, every curve of Maka's was pressed against him, from the soft bend of her shoulders to the hard metal of her boots, which had somehow entangled themselves between his sneakers. In his sleep, his hand, the filthy traitor, had somehow managed to fix itself onto her hip once more. He could feel his pulse in his fingers, thrumming erratically against the fabric of her jacket.
As ever, the surge of his soul was impossible to ignore. It was so enticingly forbidden, having her against him like this, and suddenly his vision was dancing with possibilities, the blue in his chest screaming to life. Silent encouragements from somewhere in the darkness of his mind started to resurface, begging for resonance, for this connection he'd started to crave at every moment, even when they weren't touching.
Yet again, somehow he felt her soul respond, like a pulse that ricocheted off his own wavelength, only intensifying his need. And beneath it all, there was now a distant chanting of the madness, black and thick, pushing through into his brain and mixing in, and he was unable to tell where his desire ended and the madness began. Sharp-toothed smiles filled his vision, and he sensed an excitement that was at once separate, and also part of him, elated that he was so close to his goal, to taking control…
Why the hell did this keep happening? he asked himself for the thousandth time, pushing back against the lull of the madness. Damn this ditch, he thought. Damn this mission. Damn him for not being stronger than this. His control was slipping, it was too much, he couldn't take it anymore-
No. This wouldn't happen here. Not tonight. He shut his eyes once more and slowly, deliberately, pulled his body away from Maka's, willing himself to fall back into sleep, despite the cold he could already feel returning to his bones. His breathing was heavy, and tremors ran up and down his body as he tried to shake the foreboding feeling that this was the last time he'd have the strength to fight it.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it seemed that somehow, another night's sleep had managed to evade him. As the sky started to brighten beneath his eyelids, he heaved a heavy sigh and sat up, eyes still shut, to wake up the girls. They needed to keep moving.
It wasn't until he'd shaken both of them, hands rough on their shoulders, and they stirred, that he opened his eyes and realized his mistake. The three of them stilled and looked straight ahead at the sight before them, instantly awake. The sun hadn't risen just yet, it seemed.
Instead, the light he'd sensed was a lantern, swaying delicately from a set of gnarled fingers. The other hand, slowly and silently, was beckoning them forward.
About damn time, eh?: It's been a long seven months since my last update. Things to tell you all:
- There are some things about this story that will become increasingly important over the coming chapters. This story is completely anime-based, not manga-based! (Shoutout to ilarual for mentioning that in a review.) Also, it's set shortly (about 8-9 months) after the conclusion of the anime.
- This chapter is actually only half of the chapter I had originally planned! Sorry about that - I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew in terms of plot planning, so I ended up having to cut it into two parts. As a result, that *interesting development* that I promised you all last chapter will actually be at the end of chapter 15. ;) This brings me on to my next point...
- You'll be seeing a lot more of this story! The next chapter is basically DONE, and I'll put it up in a couple weeks' time! I have the entire summer to write and develop things, so look forward to many more updates this summer. :)
- Most important for last: if you've been here since the start or have just jumped on, thank you so much for reading this far! I'm honored! Thank you for taking the time, it means the world to me. As always, let me know what you thought of it. See you guys soon!