Marie woke earlier than Stein, the unfamiliar surroundings keeping her from sleeping well; sliding out of the bed she padded to James' room, opening the door and looking in at the two sleeping children.
James lay on his left side, Elsa on her right, both of them with a small smile on their face. James' arm was wrapped around Elsa's side, the other cushioning her head as Elsa lay curled against him, her head tilted down and slightly underneath the boy's chin against his chest. They looked peaceful. Marie smiled, feeling better and closed the door quietly, slipping to Azusa's kitchen to start some coffee.
'We're definitely going to need the caffeine today…' She thought to herself, smiling as she measured the scoops of coffee out. The coffee was brewing steadily a few minutes later and Marie sat at Azusa and Spirit's kitchen table, at a loss for what to do. Normally she would be making breakfast at this point, but she didn't want to intrude on however Azusa and Spirit did their mornings. With a sigh she leaned her head back, letting her eyes slip closed.
The smell of coffee brought Spirit awake, quite a bit earlier than he would have liked to be. Azusa stirred in the bed beside him and he blinked for a second, the previous night's events suddenly rushing back. Spirit carefully extracted himself from Azusa, moving quickly to James' room to check on him.
Spirit sighed in relief and let himself grin at the sigh in front of him. "Oh James, Stein is going to cut you to pieces if you two keep this up…" He murmured quietly.
"You have no idea." Spirit jumped as he felt Stein's hand land on his shoulder. "Let them sleep for now, though."
Spirit looked over at the scientist, the other man's eyes seeming to stare right through the children. "I've told you that it's creepy when you do that, Stein! Sneaking up on a person like that just isn't right." Stein glanced at him and just shrugged. Spirit shook his head, closing the door to James' room.
Stein walked down the hall a bit then turned when he noticed that Spirit wasn't with him. "I'm just checking on Sylvia." He explained, cracking the girl's door open.
Sylvia was sitting upright in the middle of her bed, dried tear tracks running down her cheeks, her knees pulled up to her chest. Spirit stepped into the room and called her name out softly. A muffled sob answered him, and Spirit pulled the door shut behind him. Stein looked at the door and shrugged, going downstairs to where he could sense Marie's soul, leaving Spirit to do his own parenting.
"Sylvia, honey, what's wrong? Tell Papa-chan." Spirit cooed, rubbing Sylvia's back, pulling the girl to him.
"It-it's nothing Spirit-sama…" She trailed off, bristling a little at Spirit calling himself Papa-chan, but didn't do anything about it besides pull away from him and sniffle.
"You've been awake all night, haven't you?" Spirit asked suddenly, giving her a quick hug. The child refused the comfort he was trying to provide.
"I couldn't sleep… and then there was something wrong with James-san and you screamed for Azusa-sama so I just stayed in my room. Is James-san alright?" She asked, trying to change the subject.
"He's fine, Sylvia. Why couldn't you sleep? Did you have a nightmare?" Before she could stop herself Sylvia nodded. "Was it the same one that you had the last time?" He asked gently and Sylvia shook her head.
"It was… similar… but not the same." She said slowly, her eyes closed for a second as she did.
"Want to tell me about it? You know if you tell someone a nightmare you can never have the same one again." Spirit smiled. Sylvia just shook her head. "You sure? It works, I promise." That smile again and Sylvia almost giggled.
"I'm fine, Spirit-sama. I promise." She said, wiping the last of the tears from her cheeks with her shirt sleeve.
"Alright, Sylvia. Just remember that if you ever need to talk to someone, you can talk to me or Azusa. We both love you, you know that?" Spirit said suddenly.
Sylvia's heart stopped, and she felt her cheeks heat up. "I- I'm not your little one though…" She said quietly.
"You don't have to be related to us by blood for us to love you!" Spirit said, a grin on his face. "I, we, love you as much as we love James or even Maka. I hope you understand that, Sylvia." He gave the girl another hug. "Now let's go see if Azusa is awake yet- and if not, we'll wake her."
Spirit's grin was infectious and the young dragon stood, following her to check on Azusa. "Don't get too comfortable. He's not your father." The voice came from nowhere, and Sylvia felt a shudder run down her spine, slipping her hand into Spirit's. Spirit's eyes widened slightly, but he squeezed her hand lightly, opening the door to his room so they could check on Azusa.
Azusa was up and moving, having already checked on James and Elsa. She was dressed, and getting ready to leave the room when Spirit opened the door, entering with Sylvia.
"Is something wrong?" Azusa asked suddenly, kneeling in front of Sylvia. Sylvia took a step behind Spirit unthinkingly.
Spirit's right hand snaked around his back to push Sylvia over to the left so she wasn't behind him. "She had a nightmare last night. We've talked about it- I thought we could come and see if you were awake now." He winked at his wife as he finished his sentence. "I'm getting hungry." A smirk pulled at his lips.
"Besides, Stein and Marie are already awake. Just James and Elsa are still asleep." Azusa just nodded.
"I know, I just checked on them." Azusa stood, stepping out of the room and waiting on the other two to leave as well, shutting the door. "What do you want for breakfast, Sylvia?"
Sylvia's mouth suddenly tasted as if it were full of ashes. "Rice and miso soup…" Sylvia said and Azusa laughed, ruffling her hair.
"At least someone agrees with me that that is breakfast!" Azusa said happily, the three of them going downstairs to get breakfast started.
"You didn't have to make coffee, Marie." Spirit said as they walked in and Marie just shrugged.
"I think that we're all going to need the caffeine today." Marie joked as the other three adults nodded. "How are they doing anyway?" She asked suddenly.
"They're fine. Their souls look to be just fine." Stein said, answering calmly.
Azusa busied herself around the kitchen, pulling out boxes of cereal before starting water to boil for rice and soup. "Will either of you two eat miso and rice?" She asked suddenly, looking at Stein and Marie. Both gave her a blank look. "That's fine, you two can have cereal with Spirit and the kids!" She said with a laugh, starting the cooking. They were done in a short time.
A sleepy yawn alerted the adults that James and Elsa were up. Elsa stood in the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Mother, daddy? Why are we at the Albarn's house?"
The adults looked at each other. "Don't you remember last night, Elsa?" Stein asked.
The girl blinked at him. "What do you mean, daddy? I went to bed last night and woke up here." She looked around the room and her eyes settled on Sylvia. "Who's that?" She asked suddenly, pointing.
Stein narrowed his eyes and shook his head. Elsa's soul was damaged, and it wasn't something he was sure would fix itself. "That's Sylvia…" Spirit's voice trailed off.
"Elsa, how old are you?" Stein asked, and Marie picked up on the worry in his voice.
"I'll be 8 in 4 days." She said cheerfully, her head tilted to her side, a smile on her face.
Marie broke down in tears and Elsa looked at her strangely. Spirit sat down in the chair he had been standing beside and Azusa covered her mouth with her hands. The adults were speechless.
"Imouto, you're 10." James' voice came from behind her, and Elsa turned and gasped.
"James, you're big!" She said, looking up at him.
"So are you. You're 10, not 7." He said firmly. Stein watched their souls closely, intrigued at how closely they seemed to be linked.
"You're lying." Elsa said suddenly, anger on her face.
"No, he's not honey." Marie's voice said unsteadily, tears running down her face. "You're 10 years old and you'll be 11 in a couple months. You're a student in the E.A.T class at the DWMA." Her voice cracked and Stein stood to wrap his arms around her.
Sylvia shook her head. "Elsa-san, you're an idiot." She said suddenly at Elsa glared at her. "I don't see how you could just forget the last couple years of your life." With a sudden movement Sylvia disappeared and a creature lunged at Elsa.
Elsa screamed. "It's a WITCH! Daddy, help!" She backpedaled until she hit James. Stein saw it then, a flash in their souls, and Elsa's seemed to grow stronger. Elsa shrieked as the strange creature settled around her throat.
"Sylvia, no!" Stein called out suddenly, darting forward even as Elsa's wavelength crackled and she brought both hands to her own neck, hitting the creature. The force of the attack knocked Elsa into James and took both children off their feet. Sylvia hit the ground hard, sliding against the table and knocking it and everything on it into the floor. She was breathing in ragged gasps. Spirit was at her side in a second. Azusa darted for James.
Elsa was curled up on the floor, sobbing. James had hit his head against the door frame and laid a few feet from her, unconscious. Elsa was muttering something under her breath.
Stein shook his head when he knelt down close enough to make out the words. "I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster." She was whispering over and over.
"Elsa, enough." He said, picking her up even as Azusa lifted James, taking him to the couch. "You are not a monster."
"Only a monster hurts their friends." She said miserably looking at Sylvia. "I'm so sorry. I was so scared…" She whispered.
"How old are you, Elsa?" Stein asked.
"I'm… I'm eleven." She said uncertainly. "No, I'm ten. I'll be eleven soon, a few months." She smiled suddenly. "James-kun will turn 13 before I turn 11 though. Sylvia-chan will still be 11 for a little while though, so we'll be the same age."
Marie breathed a sigh of relief, smashing Elsa to her chest in a huge hug as Stein smiled then moved to check on Sylvia and James. James was already sitting upright, his head in his hands as he shook it slightly, his glasses broken in the fall. Elsa craned her neck to look at the boy as her mother tried to crush her.
He gave her a weak smile. "I forgive you, Imouto." He mouthed and she smiled.
Sylvia was hurt a little bit worse. She didn't have anything broken, but she did have a few contusions from her collision with the table. Stein didn't think that the bruises would last long; they were already healing as he watched with a smirk.
Suddenly James asked a question that made them all laugh.
"Do we have to go to school today?"
The children sighed as they climbed the long staircase up to the DWMA.
"You just had to ask!" Elsa pouted, Sylvia wrapped around her neck and (Elsa thought) purring, though it could have been a laugh.
"Would it have been better if you had asked?" James stopped, asking.
"Of course! My dad would do anything I asked." Elsa said smugly.
"Then try asking him to not give us homework again!" James grinned, waving his paper in front of her nose. Elsa and Sylvia both giggled, and the children reached the top of the stairs.
Walking through the hallways of the DWMA they slowly navigated their way to Class Crescent Moon, noticing that a large group of students had gathered in front of Reception, where the mission board was. Sitting down in their seats just before the bell rang, they waited patiently for Stein to finish taking role and call for the papers to be passed forwards.
"Alright class. Now, everyone, follow me." Stein said, rolling out of the room, leading them back to the Reception area and the mission board. "As you can see, there are quite a few more missions on the board today than there were just yesterday. A rash of small pre-kishins has been reported in Death City- so our training exercise for the day will be your first actual missions. Take one that will showcase you and your partner's talents. I'll see all of you tomorrow, and I expect success."
The class remained silent before there was a rush of students moving up to the board, all of them chattering, pointing out missions, grins and laughs all around. Stein smirked, none of these souls would prove a problem for any of the students here, he was certain of it.
Elsa and James waited until the others had chosen their missions and wandered off, moving up to the board to look at the remaining missions. There were tons. Elsa read the ones that she was tall enough to get to; James looked at the ones he could reach.
"Hey, Sylvia? Could you look at the ones on the top? Neither of us can reach them." James asked, looking over his shoulder. Sylvia was gone. "Hey, Elsa, where's Sylvia."
Elsa took a step away from the board, closing her eyes and concentrating for a second. She turned and pointed. "She's over there… but she's with two other people." James snagged the mission from the board that he had been contemplating and walked over the two children walked over to where Sylvia was.
"Hey, Syl-chan?" Elsa called, stepping around the corner and stopped when she recognized who Sylvia was with. The look Elsa gave Kiru could have killed a prekishin on its own. "We've got a mission the three of us can do." Elsa said, trying to keep the venom out of her voice as she glared at the boy. He just smirked.
Stein looked up from talking with Marie when he felt the tension in Elsa's soul flare. He raised an eyebrow, but stood where he was, carrying on the conversation as if nothing had happened.
Nicole wrapped her arms through Sylvia's pulling the girl closer to her. "Kiru and I thought that we'd take her on the mission with us! I know that you two probably want some time to get to work closer together, she said that she's an autonomous weapon, and we thought it'd do her some good to get to work with a meister she hasn't gotten to yet!" Nicole said cheerfully.
Elsa's glare turned to Nicole. "Kiru was an asshole yesterday and now he wants to be nice to her? That's a lie." She said.
"Alright, it was my idea!" Nicole said, a slight blush on her face. "I thought it would be the nice thing to do after what he did to her." She smiled brightly. "Is that a problem?" Kiru just smirked from the corner he stood in.
Elsa started to say something, but James put his hand on her shoulder. "If that's what Sylvia wants, that's fine." Elsa looked pleadingly at Sylvia.
"It is…" Sylvia whispered. 'I'm going to face my fears on my own, Elsa-san.' She thought silently.
Elsa turned in a huff and stalked off.
A/N: Chapter 26 will start the featurettes for our featured OCs (meaning their fights and reactions with the missions they accepted and the partner they are working with) starting with *gasp* Elsa and James. Stay tuned!
The only OCs I own are Elsa and James. I don't own Soul Eater, Syl, Kiru, or Nic. (Or anyone else)
Thanks for the reviews- love you all! :D