Chapter 26: This Night of No Tomorrow: We're Born and We Fade (Into the Dissonance)?
Screeching to a shuttering standstill in the depths of the night, Maka's heart stopped beating in her chest as the sight before her struck her at her very core. Trying to find some words to express her emotions, none come to surface as she covered her mouth with her hand in confounding shock, subconsciously rearing back in spite of herself. As her mind tried to gain some form of comprehension of what she was bearing witness too, she found only pleading denial in the ways of wishing that this were all still just part of some horrible nightmare that she would soon awake from. She would open her eyes to the sound of her alarm clock just as the sun began its ascent over the horizon, pull the covers from her sleeping form to greet the new day, and all would be as it should.
"Maka…"
Hearing the pleading of her name coming from her partner, the Scythe Meister was shaken from her wishful thinking and brought back into the present moment where the moon was no longer black and Soul was curled up in a ball of painful distress.
"Soul!" she cried out in a tone that came out somewhere between a shrill gasp and a choking sob. Falling to her knees, she placed her hands upon his shoulders as she desperately tried to offer up any consolation that she could.
"I'm here, Soul! What's going on?! What's wrong?!" she implored, already having a frightful deduction based upon what she had seen in his eyes, but asking the question nonetheless on some off chance that she might be proven wrong. However, her hopes of being contradicted were growing slimmer with every passing moment as a sensation that she had last felt in a time that seemed so long ago began to reemerge in a slowly expanding aura of wavelength. It was the faintest of feelings at first, but as she knelt there in the disturbed darkness the conclusion that she had desperately attempted to deny eventually became inevitable. Trembling from the mixture of apprehension and chilled perspiration that still clung to her skin, for the first time in her life she activated her Soul Perception with the truest sense of dread and peered into her partner's chest.
Burning bright within him, she saw the flaming light blue of his soul hovering inside, but upon closer inspection she also spied an orb of translucent violet trapped beneath its surface. Like a second heart within him, it would rapidly glow bright and then dim ever-so slightly as though it were beating to a frantic rhythm. But she knew all too well that it wasn't a second heart, but rather the other soul that dwelled within him that was somehow the culprit behind her Weapon's distress.
"Arachne…?" she whispered to herself, the words barely escaping her as Soul let out yet another straining groan of pain. "No…its…it's not possible. I don't understand….how?"
Though she couldn't comprehend at all why the scene unfolding in front of her was occurring, she nonetheless found herself forced to the dire conclusion that somehow, some way, the soul of the witch they had conquered to turn Soul into a Death Scythe was now acting on its own accord.
"What's going on?" she questioned shakily as she shifting her eyes back up to his, but finding them squinted shut. Feeling her chest clench tight, it pained her to see Soul in such a state knowing that she knew neither what was occurring nor how to remedy it. Deep inside her soul she desperately wished she could magically take all of his agony away, but she knew there was little, if anything, she could do at the present moment to ease his suffering without knowing what the root of it all was to begin with
His response to her desperate inquiry was low and forced, but its ominosity was as clear as the prominent moon light that now shone in through the window.
"Maka…get away," he grunted in warning, forcing a single eye open to look up at her. "I-I'm not sure I can hold it back."
"Hold what back?" she wondered worriedly, ignoring his command and moving in just a little bit closer to examine the inner struggle occurring within his soul. "Soul, what's-"
Blinded by a flash of white erupting from her partner, her inquiry was abruptly cut off as a firm force simultaneously took hold of her by the scruff of her pajama top and yanked her backwards away from the Weapon. For a brief second she didn't understand what had happened until she saw the gleam of the moon reflecting off the black and red blade whose tip was currently pointed ever-so precariously just off the left side of her cheek. Feeling the faint sting of the laceration igniting within her nerves and the warm trickle of something wet slipping down her face, the Scythe Meister reached up with widened emerald orbs to run her quivering hand past the edge of his blade in silent confirmation. Looking down, she found her palm stained with the scarlet of her own blood, after which she turned her head to see Blair behind her with her manicured hand still latched onto her in an iron grip.
"Maka!" Soul managed to cry out, a second flash erupting that quickly returned his arm back to normal. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! I can't help it! I-I just…want to tear everything apart."
Crawling backwards in retreat, the Death Scythe pushed himself up into the corner of his room so as to put as much distance between himself and the two women as possible. Moaning all the while, he continued to clench at his chest, as though trying to reach beyond his flesh and get at the two souls within. Letting loose with another agonizing wail, the teenager reared back in a fit of conflicted and muddled emotions and punched the wall beside him, leaving a sizable dent in the drywall.
"It's alright, Soul," Maka tried to console despite the shaking in her voice. "I know it's not you. It's Arachne's soul. It's the one doing this."
Although she knew what the cause was, the questions that still burned on the forefront of her mind remained why and how. After the months since they had defeated the Spider Witch at Baba Yaga Castle, the arachnid loving woman's soul had remained entirely dormant within Soul, as it should have. It had turned Soul into a Death Scythe and its power had gotten them out of more than their fair share of tight spots while battling Asura. Why now of all times was it flaring up? How was it even possible?
"Maka, something's not right," Blair's voice came from behind her, pulling her out of her confliction. She was about to make a sniding comment about the obviousness of the situation, but stopped herself when she turned around to see the buxom woman still clad in her sheer nightgown staring out the window at the moon with a far off expression of worry on her face.
"I may not be a witch, but I do have a really good feeling for magic," the feline stated with a quiet solemness, stepping closer and pressing a hand up against the glass as though unable to take her eyes off the return of the lunar body. "I'm almost certain Arachne's soul is reacting to the Pull. I don't know what it is, but something out there is making the Pull really strong. Like so strong I can actually feel it. Right before you screamed I woke up because I felt something in the air change. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but I'm sure now that it came from the moon."
The moon, Maka remembered. When she had seen Soul in his current state she had momentarily forgotten about the significance of its return to the celestial sky. So what she had seen within her nightmare wasn't just the product of a rampant imagination after all? Was Crona really…? No, she couldn't begin to think like that. Not after all they had been through and all they had done for her and the world. Somewhere in the back of her mind she refused to believe it.
But what about Asura? The Mad Blood prison was no more, so what had become of him? It didn't make any sense. He didn't just disappear, did he? Perhaps the Witches' Coven might have done something to be the cause of all of this, she theorized. If enough witches were using powerful magic all at once, they might have been able to trigger something within Arachne's soul for it to want to react the way it was. Even still, there were simply too many blanks that needed to be filled in before she could make an educated hypothesis.
Whatever the cause may be, the fact of the matter still remained that she wasn't in any position to handle any of this by herself. Soul was fighting to keep the Spider Witch's soul at bay and she needed someone with more acute soul wavelength abilities than her own if she wanted to help him.
"Blair!" Maka said firmly with a hint of desperation, pulling the feline's attention away from the window. "I need you to go get Professor Stein. Tell him you're sorry for waking him up, but it's an emergency and we need his help immediately."
"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" Blair questioned with concern.
"I'll be fine, but Soul needs help right now," she reiterated.
Nodding in confirmation, a flash of purple smoke filled the air around the woman, dissipating to reveal her nightgown swapped out for her standard witch's attire. Pushing the window open, she conjured a giant pumpkin outside the ledge and hopped on sidesaddle.
"You can count on me. I'll be back before you know it," Blair stated in understanding before giving her mount a quick kick with her heels. "Alright, let's go! Pum-pum-pum- pumpkin!"
Speeding off over the still sleeping Death City, the late night wakeup call was rapidly dispatched to fulfill her assignment. Watching Blair disappear over the blackened horizon, Maka could only hope that she wouldn't take very long to retrieve Professor Stein and bring him back.
"It's going to be okay, Soul. Help is on the way," she reassured, moreso to herself than to him as she reached down within to steel her trepidations and tell herself that she needed to be strong for both their sakes. They had definitely been in some scary situations in the past, but this was all too reminiscent of the time she had watched over him following their first battle with Crona and Ragnarok. It pained her to see him in such a state, but the fact that she didn't know how to help him only multiplied that grief tenfold.
"C'mon, Maka, think," she muttered faintly to herself, wracking her brain from something that she could do in the meantime to help. "Arachne's soul is responding to the Pull of Magic and making Soul do all of this. If that's true there has to be something that can stop it from reacting. If I could do Soul Menace like Professor Stein I might be able to interfere with it, but I don't know how to do that technique yet."
Deep within his chest she could still see Arachne's soul pulsing in erratic tendencies, sometimes coming on strong followed by brief periods of momentary relief for Soul. If only she could use magic of her own and put up a barrier like Soul Protect or something to that nature then maybe she could block whatever it was out there that was making it act like this.
Or maybe she didn't need magic, she realized.
Stepping over to the Death Scythe as she remained curled up in the corner of his room, she knelt down beside him and placed a comforting hand upon his shoulder, causing him to look up with a panicked expression.
"Maka, what are you doing? Get back," he implored, trying to worm his way around her to distance himself from her, but her firm grip prevented him from doing so. "I don't want to hurt you again."
"It's alright, I have an idea," she said, knowing that he would never do anything to harm her intentionally. "Let's try resonating. If we do that then I can use my Anti-Demon Wavelength to block out whatever is causing this."
Looking down and away, his lingering silence spoke of reluctance to her proposal. While he understood that her special wavelength could filter out Madness and to a certain degree magic, something in his conscience told him that having them perform a resonance wasn't the ideal solution. It wasn't that he didn't trust her abilities, in fact he had placed his life in them on more than one occasion, but some little voice inside his head said that this just wasn't a good idea.
"You're not going to hurt me," her voice spoke out beside him tenderly as her hand squeezed lightly upon his shoulder. "I know you won't."
There was a certain comfort that came with hearing her say those words, and despite his earlier forewarnings and wishes to keep her at a safe distance he could feel himself slowly begin to disregard his own advice. Although still reluctant, he heaved a heavy sigh as the pulses coming from Arachne's soul fell momentarily in their intensity and he nodded his head in approval.
"Okay," he stated, unfurling his arms from around his knees and shifting to meet her. Allowing her to place both hands upon his shoulders, he closed his eyes and drooped his head slightly as he tried to calm himself to perform a resonance with her. Feeling the light of her soul reaching out to him like a glowing beacon, her wavelength moved to synchronize with his own as spiritual static crackled between the two glowing orbs.
In its inception the resonance began as seamlessly as it usually did, but as the cyclic amplification of souls began to accelerate Maka instinctively knew that something was amiss. There was a foreign, albeit prominent, presence that was intertwined within Soul's wavelength that she automatically deduced had to be coming from Arachne and it was throwing interference into the middle of their resonance. As the harmonic power between them closed in upon its zenith, the spiritual connection linking their two souls began to experience severe disruptions in the way of distortion that caused the back and forth flow between them to sputter and lose its rhythmic momentum. With a faint grunt of aggravation, Maka steadied herself to try to get everything back under control, but her efforts would come to bear no fruit. The way things were, Arachne's meddling into their resonance was making Soul's wavelength too sporadic, throwing everything out of time. Then with a sharp pang of interference, the resonance was severed and the energy accumulated expelled in a forceful shock that sent the two partners staggering back from one another in bewilderment.
"What was that?" Maka questioned in rhetoric disbelief, already knowing full well what had transpired within their soul space.
"Arachne's soul's throwing everything out of whack," Soul replied with a huffing sigh, figuring that something along that line was going to happen. "I can't keep my wavelength stable enough to make a connection with you."
"Maybe if we tried again?" she offered up in equal parts consolation, concern, and determination.
"It's no use. Whatever's going on with Arachne's soul isn't going to let us resonate. If we tried again we'll probably just make it worse," Soul growled in frustration as the lingering backlash of the failed resonance was replaced by the sensation of the Spider Witch's soul reacting to the Pull once again. In fact, if he had to say, their attempt at a Soul Resonance had actually made the violet orb residing inside him to become even more stimulated in its desire to unleash unbridled destruction. Focusing in on the world around him, he fought back the temptations that came and went in spontaneous waves. It was like a sneeze, he figured, but far more consequential. It was there, just teetering on the edge and begging for him to let it out. He could hold it back and force it back down again, but that would only make it come out even more violently once it did. It wasn't a matter of if, but only a matter of when it would happen.
"Maka, go get Kid," he grunted as he slumped back into the corner of the room. "Whatever's going on, it's not just happening to me. There's witches all over Death City right now and my gut's telling me that they're feeling the Pull too. If that's happening, we're in trouble."
"Are you crazy? I'm not leaving you alone like this," she rebutted firmly.
"Dammit, Maka, don't you get it?!" he snapped sharply in aggravation, misdirecting his jumbled cocktail of emotions onto her. "This is bigger than just me! There's dozens of witches in the city and they're all about to go off the edge! If they do then everybody's in danger! Now go get Kid! I'll stay here and wait for Blair to come back with Stein!"
"But-!"
"Now, Maka! We don't have time to worry about me! Go!" he commanded harshly with an underlying tone of pleading lacing his straining voice. Flashing brilliant against the night, his right arm took his scythe form, slicing clean through the upper part of his desk and chair. Clenching the bladed appendage, an utter look of self-scorn filled his features, horrified at what was becoming of him because of Arachne and the Pull.
Retreating backwards with hesitant steps, Maka could only watch on helplessly as she paused at the threshold of the doorway for one final look into the corner before she bolted in flight from the scene. Rushing back into her own room, faint droplets of tears lined her stricken face as she hurriedly changed from her pajamas into a set of sweats and pulled on a pair of running shoes. Wiping the waterworks from her eyes, she threw a hoodie on over everything and was out the door in a flash, sprinting with all the strength her legs could muster towards Gallows Manor.
Echoing hollowly against the chilled winter's night, the heavy footfalls of her frantic pace and the labored gasping of her breathing were the only sounds to be heard. Passing beneath streetlights and by darkened homes, she turned her gaze skyward as she ran, watching as the crimson blood filtered through the ominously wicked grin of the moon.
It was all so wrong, she thought to herself as she turned a corner and dashed down a barren city street. The Black Blood Moon was gone, she couldn't sense any traces of Asura or his heightened Madness, and Soul was now being influenced by the Pull of Magic. On top of that she didn't even want to begin accepting the visions of Crona she had seen before she bolted upright in terror from her nightmare. Absolutely nothing that was transpiring around her was making any sense.
Reverberating around her in a thunderous ruckus, a booming wave of sound rocked the otherwise still December night, causing the Meister to screech to a halt along the cobblestone pavement. Spinning about, she found a towering pillar of orange and red flame rising into the sky several blocks away, churning thick smoke that formed pitch black clouds over the city.
"An explosion?!" she gasped with widened eyes.
Following through with two more blasts in separate locations throughout the city, Maka stood petrified as the columns of twisting fire began to grow in their intensity, fueled by the buildings they had started to consume unimpeded. Entranced by the roaring infernos, she found it near impossible to look away as they swayed and danced to a symphony of destruction, illuminating the shadowy silhouettes of homes and businesses as suffocating blankets of embers and ash floated juxtaposed to the light of the moon they hindered.
From somewhere in the back of her mind a little voice told her to move, to turn her back to the horrific scene unraveling before her, but her body was slow to respond. Shakily she turned herself in the direction she had been going, her sight not wanting to leave the hypnotic waltz of the fire as yet another series of concussive explosions rang out in an infernal chorus. Forcing herself around, her legs began to move once more as she broke into a full sprint and regained awareness of why she had been running in the first place.
"Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay," she chanted, not knowing exactly upon whom she was directing her hopeful pleas, but saying them all the same as she turned down yet another avenue and headed towards the outer limits of Death City. Images of Soul, Crona, her father, and everyone else at the Academy flashed through her head as she sprinted, although a faint glimmer of rationality told her that it was the civilians who were most at risk. Her only hope now was that the emergency plan was as simple and sound as Kid made it out to be. That and Blair.
Five minutes after her hasty departure from Soul and Maka's apartment, Blair reached the off-putting, and frankly rather creepy, home of Professor Stein and Marie that resided on the outermost limits of Death City. Diving down out of the moonlit night, the magically airborne pumpkin that she rode screeched to a halt just outside the stitched up building. Dismissing the magic vegetable with the snap of her fingers, a puff of purple smoke filled the air as the woman stepped forward.
"Well, this is the place," she commented shakily, suddenly having second thoughts about going and waking the deranged doctor from his slumber. She was hard pressed to say that they were acquaintances by any stretch of the imagination, and although she knew that he had supposedly mellowed out following the battle upon the moon and his marriage, her nerves were still admittedly on edge on how the eccentric and unpredictable man would respond to her late night intrusion on his sleep.
Steeling herself as she approached the door, she searched around for some form of doorbell that she could possibly ring, but couldn't spy any to speak of. Huffing slightly at the inconvenience, she raised a manicured fist and rapped gingerly upon the threshold with barely enough force to make a sound.
"Well…I guess nobody's home, nyah!" she remarked with a faint cheeriness in her voice. Making a hasty about face, she had taken several steps in retreat before a sharp twinge of guilt fell over her. Trudging to a halt, she begrudgingly looked back over her shoulder at the doorway and was reminded of the mission she was sent to accomplish.
"No, no, no! Bad, Blair! Bad!" she scolded firmly to herself, shaking her head as she dismissed the waves of fright that hindered her. "Can't go being a fraidy-cat now. You've got to do this for Soul and Maka. They need your help."
Breathing in a deep breath of determination, the magical black cat pulled her shoulders back and puffed out her already sizable chest, marching smartly back to the doorway. Raising her fist, several pounding repetitions befell the threshold that she were sure could be heard even in a deep sleep.
"Professor Stein!" she called out. "Professor Stein! It's Blair! Are you in the-?!"
Cut off in her shouts, a shrill, feminine shriek came forth from the inner depths of the stitched up household, sending the feline scurrying back in fright. Quaking in her leg length boots, her imagination ran wild at the horrible things that he must have been doing to the poor soul inside.
"Awww…I knew this was a bad idea, nyah!" she whined, any bravado she had just had moments earlier vanishing in an instant as another banshee-like wail added to the already upset night. "I should go get help, no wait I'm already supposed to be doing that!"
Hearing the clicking of a lock being undone, Blair's sharpened senses picked up on the jiggling of the knob being turned and the almost painfully slow creak of the door as it swung inward upon its hinges. Scared stiff at the thought of her impending dissection, the sight of two glowing orbs shining against the darkened interior prompted a scream of her own to escape her.
Only when the last of the air had vacated her lungs did she see the scientist in his entirety, sitting backwards in a caster chair with a bored, albeit slightly perplexed, façade.
"So…this is the assistance they sent me?" Stein questioned flatly, giving an exhaustive sigh as he reached up and gave the screw in his head a few clicking turns. "I was expecting Nygus, but I suppose it could be worse. Very well then, come on in. She's in the bedroom."
Giving a kick against the floor, the bespectacled man was consumed by the shadows of the interior, leaving Blair standing just outside the darkened entrance stunned, bewildered, and ever wary. Peering deep inside, she tried to make out any trace of danger that might be lurking beyond the concealing veil, but was unable to do so. Heaving a weighted sigh, she hoped for a moment she wasn't being lured into a trap. After all, she still had a mission to accomplish.
"Well you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat," she droned to herself in self-deprecation as she took a few hesitating steps inside.
Utilizing her natural feline traits, her golden eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, allowing her to see that the interior of the home wasn't nearly as unsettling as she had envisioned within her mind. The living room was quaintly furnished with little potted plants growing out of various glass beakers and tubes and the décor had obviously been given a woman's touch. Following the squeaking of the caster chair as Stein rolled past the living room and into a side hallway, Blair could hear painful moans coming from just beyond a doorway at the end of the corridor. Stopping dead in her tracks, the hairs on the back of her neck sprung to life while her body froze in place.
Seeing the frightened feline, Stein swiveled about in his chair, eying the woman with both stoic curiosity and exasperation.
"There's nothing to fear. I have her restrained," he stated nonchalantly, light filtering into the hallway as he pushed the door open and wheeled his way within.
Wondering what on earth the eccentric scientist meant by his remark, little voices inside Blair's head were telling her to high-tail it out of the stitched up house before she ended up on the other end of whatever was going on beyond the bedroom door. Tortuous screams and a need for restraints certainly weren't what she had in mind when Maka had told her to come get Stein in the middle of the night. But on that same token, the clock was ticking and her precious Scythey-boy was in trouble. Going against her better judgment, she told herself that leaving the house without Stein in tow would be an upmost failure on her part and she wouldn't be able to forgive herself if anything happened to Soul or Maka because of her incompetence. Pressing her hand against the door, she entered the room with the upmost apprehension.
Readjusting to the glowing lamplight that cast itself about the bedroom, Blair's manicured fingers found their way over her mouth as she gasped in equal shock and embarrassment at the sight before her. There, lying in the center of the bedspread in front of her was Marie still clad in her nightgown with leather restraints latched around her wrists that were fastened to the either side of the headboard. Covered in a sheen of profuse perspiration that seeped into the bedspread, her breathing was shallow and haggard as she released another moan.
"Nyah, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to see! I-I think I'll just be going now!" Blair wailed in apology, turning crimson red as she shut her eyes, concluding that the moans and restraints and sweat were all the result of something more…adult… than she had been anticipating. Not that she was a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but being caught in the middle of someone else's bedroom fantasies was certainly more than she had bargained for when she had departed Maka and Soul's apartment.
From his position in his backwards chair, Professor Stein merely raised a quizzical brow as he eyed the obviously uncomfortable woman.
"There's no need to be squeamish," he stated casually. "If you're already getting cold feet just standing there you're not going to be any use to me in helping deliver the baby."
"Deliver the baby?" Blair repeated in confusion, blinking a few times as she turned her head from the scientist over to Marie and back again. "You mean…?"
"That's what the Academy sent you over here for, isn't it?" Stein asked, concluding by the befuddled expression over Blair's face that she most assuredly had no idea of what he was referring to. He should have expected as much, however. Why would they send the magical cat over to help him with his current predicament?
"I suppose not," he sighed lightly. "Well either way your assistance would be appreciated. I'm reluctant to admit it, but delivering a child is not exactly one of my specialties. I don't exactly have what one would call a nurturing enough personality necessary for a procedure like this."
"I'll help out however I can, but I didn't come here just for that," Blair stated, remembering the reason for her being there in the first place. "You see, Maka sent me to come and get you! It's an emergency! Soul is-!"
"Being influenced by the Pull of Magic," Stein finished, standing up from his chair and glancing at Marie who remained in her bonds. Moving over to a medical cart that was parked in the corner of the room, he picked up a syringe and a bottle of clear fluid. "Yes, I'm quite aware of that. The same thing is happening to Marie, and if my assumption is correct, to the other Death Scythes and witches as well. That's why I have her restrained, although I'm not sure how long she'll stay that way. Marie's incredibly strong as is and the effect the Pull is having on Freya's soul is only going to make matters more complicated."
"Freya? Is that the witch's soul inside her?" Blair wondered in worry, feeling awful for having to watch Marie suffer in such a way.
"Yes. The witch Freya was the one Marie defeated and consumed all those years ago. She's the one who gives her abilities as a Death Scythe," Stein confirmed, filling the syringe with the concoction from the bottle and walking over to his wife.
As if to illustrate his point, Marie let loose from her place on the bedspread with an agonizing scream of pain, sparks of yellow electricity coursing around her body as she bowed outwards against her restraints. Dropping back down onto the mattress, her haggard golden hair veiled her distraught face as she slumped limply with her head lolled against her chest.
"Please…" she muttered weakly, her voice cracking in choking sobs at barely over a whisper. "Please, Franken…save the child."
Striding over to the bedside with syringe in hand, Stein took hold of his wife's wrist just below her restraints and injected the serum into her vein.
"We're going to help you through this, Marie. I promise you nothing is going to happen to our child," he stated in consolation, taking her hand and holding it in his for a brief moment. For a fleeting moment his lips turned upwards into a faint smile and his features softened as he looked down upon her in her pitiful condition. It was barely recognizable, but there appeared to be a look of compassion and tenderness in those otherwise neutral hazel green eyes.
Letting his hand slip from hers, he stood up and subconsciously plunged the appendage into the depths of his lab coat, fishing in vain for his box of cigarettes. Questioning to himself how many times he was going to continue to repeat that habitual mistake, he reached up to the screw jutting out his head and gave a few clicking turns before hearing a sharp click lock into place.
"While it may not be as effective as the real thing, the serum I just gave her should help to induce labor," he stated, speaking solemnly as though to himself, but knowing that Blair could hear what he was saying. "Under any other circumstances I would concede my limited knowledge in child bearing to the experts and take Marie to a proper hospital. However, given the current situation I don't believe that would be the wisest decision. Who knows what kind of havoc she could unleash if she was under the influence of the Pull inside a hospital. Also, with regards to your own emergency, I'm afraid I can't help you. My sympathies to Soul and Maka, but my first priority right now is to ensure Marie and our child are safe. After that it'll be cleaning up whatever mess tonight might hold in store for us and getting to the bottom of this whole issue with the Pull."
"So…you can't help Soul?" she questioned dejectedly, biting her thumb in a worrisome tick.
"No. Unfortunately, he and Maka are on their own for this one. However, your help would still be greatly appreciated here."
Hearing Marie give a sudden pain-laden shout, Stein could instinctively tell that the medicine he had given her was beginning to take effect.
"I'll do whatever you need me to," she agreed.
"Can you make coffee?" he questioned with surprising casualness given the current situation.
"Uh-huh," the woman nodded with vigorous enthusiasm, knowing that was certainly one thing she could do to offer up her services.
"Then do me a favor and start brewing some, would you? Black preferably. I have a feeling that we're all in for quite a night."
Charging up the drive to Gallows Manor, thick rivulets of sweat ran down Maka's face and onto the collar of her hoodie, soaking into the cotton fabric and chilling her bare skin beneath. The run from her apartment to the lavish mansion hadn't taken the Scythe Meister any more than fifteen minutes at the most, but she could have sworn that it had taken much longer than that. Her heart, her mind, and her body were all racing as she at last reached the grand double doors of the manor and began pounding her fist on the wood.
"Kid! Kid!" she shouted, her voice lurching into her throat as she tried to reign in her heaving gasps for air. "Wake up! It's an emergency!"
Slamming her fists against the hardened black oak in repetition, waves of pain began to shoot from her bruised fingers, but she barely registered them as she continued to plead for the shinigami to wake up and witness for himself what was happening across the city.
"Kid! Liz! Patty! Anybody!" she forced out, having half the mind for a brief moment to just shatter a window and break in. However, much to her own relief, she heard the clicking of a lock behind the doorway and the flood of yellow light as the entrance swung inwards.
"Maka?" Liz questioned wearily, still clad in her pajamas and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she took in the sight of their late night inquirer. "What's with all the yelling? Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Where's Kid?!" Maka demanded, bursting inside.
"He's sleeping, duh," the eldest Thompson yawned, too tired to comprehend the franticness in Maka's voice. "What's going on? Why are you all sweaty and gross? And what happened to your face?"
"It's the Pull! Something's going on with the Pull and its making all the witches' souls respond to it! It's even making Soul react! We can't even do a Soul Resonance for me to use my Anti-Demon Wavelength!"
Blinking blankly several times, Liz could hear the words coming from her friend, but the fuzziness of her mind still failed to register any coherency amongst them. She heard something about witches and Soul, but the rest was merely a muddled slur of incomprehensible sounds.
"I'm sorry, Maka, I have no idea what you're getting at," she apologized. "Something about Soul? Say that again."
Losing her patience and knowing that they didn't have time for guessing games with the older girl, Maka grabbed Liz by the wrist and with a forceful yank pulled her back out the door she had just came. Hearing yelps of surprise as she practically dragged the Thompson sister into the street, there came a sudden uneasy silence as both girls stood facing the grand silhouette of the cityscape. Gazing up towards the towering constructs that composed the Academy and Death City, raging infernos rose up in scattered pockets across the skyline, nearly blocking out the light of the shining moon above as they churned their thick veils of blackened smoke. It had been so long without seeing the lunar entity that she had almost forgotten it wasn't supposed to be black.
"What the heck's going on? What happened to the moon?" Liz managed to murmur after several moments, the spectrums of fiery yellows, oranges, crimsons, and blacks reflecting off her blue eyes. Subconsciously she found them almost mesmerizing to watch, the ways the columns of flame bent and contorted around themselves like blazing dancers. They were almost bewitching in their trance.
"Something's going on with the Pull of Magic and its making every witch's soul in the city go off the edge," Maka reiterated, trying her best to slow down her explanation so that she could be understood. "Even Arachne's inside Soul. Her body's gone, but her soul is still responding to it and I don't know how much longer Soul can hold it back. And as for the moon…I-I don't know."
Utter perplexion and apprehension befell the older girl, turning her head to her friend with an aura of concern and confoundment about her and then back to the blazes that continued to engulf various blocks of homes and businesses. The longer she stared into their hearth, the more she became lulled by their movements, intrigued as to how such inanimate phenomena could act with such beautifully destructive grace.
"Wait, what are we doing just standing here?!" she quickly realized, shaking her head as the reality of what was happening across Death City broke her stare. "C'mon, Maka! We need to go get Kid!"
Now fully awake and alert, the two women sprung back inside Gallows Manor, hurrying up the grand stairwell at the back of the entrance with the Thompson sister leading the way.
"This doesn't make any sense. Do you think the Coven is behind this?" Liz questioned hurriedly, looking behind her as they sprinted down a hollow hallway towards the shinigami's room. "What if they've been planning this all along?"
"I really don't think that's it," Maka replied, staying right on Liz's heels as they rounded a corner and came upon another barren corridor. "Blair said that she thinks it has something to do with the moon, but I don't know what it would be that's strong enough to make a witch's soul with no body want to start destroying everything."
"You don't think it has something to do with Asura, do you? Like his Madness making them do it?"
"It's not his Madness though, it's the Pull. But that doesn't explain what happened to him or the moon. Either way we need to do something or else the whole city is in trouble."
Coming upon a set of double doors at the end of the hallway, Liz and Maka burst through the distinctive black entrance with a Death Skull hanging symmetrically in its center, never even bothering to knock as they disregarded any formalities in their state of urgency. Creating a prominent clamor as the doors were practically separated off their hinges, the two hurried over to the grand bedspread in which Kid lay in the exact center of, stiff as a board with no part of his body disproportionately sprawled out to one side of the mattress or the other. Taking in the sight, Maka wondered for a moment if this was how he always slept. It was almost creepy in a sense, because it gave him the appearance of a cadaver who had been arranged that way purposefully for his final viewing. However, those thoughts were quickly dismissed as Liz bounded upon the bed and without any sense of tact or inhibition straddled herself over either side of his chest.
"Kid! Hey, Kid! Wake up! We've got an emergency!" she barked, making the urgency of the situation well known as she took hold of his shoulders and flailed him about violently. Snapping his golden eyes open as his head flung limply to and fro, the shinigami let out a startled cry of protest as the Demon Pistol continued to give him a serious case of whiplash.
"Ahh, I'm awake! I'm awake!" he managed to shout out, grateful when he felt Liz's hands release him and his rattled cranium plop back down onto the pillows below. Feeling her weight crawl off of his chest, he managed to raise himself to meet his unexpected wake up call, rubbing the crook of his neck sorely.
"What's the meaning of this, Liz? What's going on?" he questioned tiresomely in soft demand for an explanation, his vision adjusting to the darkness and making out the form of Maka standing by his bedside alongside Liz.
"Kid, something really, really bad is happening!" Liz rushed to explain. "The Black Blood around the moon is gone and for some reason it's making the witches go nuts! They're attacking the city!"
"What?!" Kid yelled, throwing the covers from his form and bolting upright so that he was standing before the two women in his Death Skull boxer shorts. "How did this happen?! Is Asura loose again?! And why would the witches be attacking?!"
"We don't know, Kid. It's really strange," Maka said, watching as the shinigami sprinted over to his closet, throwing the double doors open and began getting dressed at a frantic pace. "The Black Blood is gone, but I can't sense any trace of Asura. But now something is happening with the Pull of Magic and its making all the witches in the city go off the edge. It's even happening to Soul. Arachne's soul is causing so much interference we can't even resonate."
"Is there any possibility that Asura could have broken free and is hiding somewhere else?" he interrogated. "Is it his Madness that's making this happen?"
"I don't know, but I don't think so. Blair said that she could feel a shift in the Pull and that it was coming from the moon. Whatever's going on I don't think Asura's Madness is behind it."
"Kid, you don't think Maba and the Coven could've been planning this all along, do you?" Liz questioned as the shinigami began lacing up his black dress shoes. "What if they've been waiting for us to let our guard down so they could attack?"
"They have no reason to purposefully attack us," Kid stated, standing up and slipping on his coat. "Our relations with Maba and the Coven may not have been as progressive as I would have liked, but we have been making headway ever since the treaty. There haven't been any witch's souls claimed or any confrontations between us, and Maba just agreed to allow younger witches to begin attending the Academy. There's no motive for them to just start attacking out of the blue."
"What if it was all a front though?" Liz rebutted in counterpoint. "What if they've been lying to us this whole time?"
Stopping for a moment as he finished buttoning up his suit, an aura of grave concern and confliction washed over the young Lord Death. Gazing down and away towards the floor, a brief passing of silence followed as he mused upon the situation he had unforeseeably found himself in.
"While that is a possibility, my instinct is telling me that Maba wouldn't go against our treaty like this. Not without some form of provocation on our part," he said, sound in his conviction. "No, something else is going on here and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."
Throwing his cloak around his shoulders, he strode with lengthy steps across the room, pushing the double doors ajar and making his way down the adjoining hallway with a heightened sense of intensity.
"Liz, go wake Patty and both of you hurry up and get dressed," he instructed commandingly. "Contact every Death Scythe and Three Star faculty in the city and tell them I'm initiating Emergency Protocol Eight. Tell them to get their response teams deployed on the double, but make sure that they know that they're only to use non-lethal force. While these are witches we're dealing with I don't want any of them killed until we know for absolute certain what's happening here. Who knows what ramifications killing a witch now might have. Send out the word that all other faculty are to mobilize and get civilians to safety and they are not to engage in combat unless in self-defense. E.A.T. and N.O.T. students are to shelter in place."
"Got it," Liz replied with a nod, understanding her assignment and taking back off in a sprint towards the room she shared with her sister.
Keeping in stride with Kid as they descended the stairwell back towards the front doors of Gallows Manor, Maka was right behind him as he flung the doors open without regard and moved quickly out into the night. Stopping in his pursuits, his gaze grew wide with awestruck horrification at the fires that were blazing over patches of the cityscape. Turning his head upwards, he too now found the moon shining down upon them with blood flowing from between its teeth, its usual crescent shape now so severely warped so that it was nearly circular.
"Maka," Kid addressed gravely with narrowed eyes of the Meister beside him as he took in the entirety of the situation. "I apologize for my upfrontness by asking, but do you think that Crona could have failed? Is there any, I mean any, possibility that Asura overwhelmed them and managed to escape?"
"Like I said before, I don't know for sure," the Meister replied grimly. "I can't extend my Soul Perception to sense either of them since I can't resonate with Soul. The moon's just too far away for me to tell on my own. But…"
Hesitation laced her voice as the images of her nightmare repeated itself in heart-wrenching snippets.
"But what?" Kid wondered, compelling her to finish.
"But…I had a nightmare…about Crona," she continued on, her heart lurching in her chest as churning emotions filled her already aching soul.
Stretching forth throughout the entirety of the open expanse around her, miles upon miles of rocky sand filled the landscape all the way over the horizon, dotted by dark grey stones that were scattered about at random. Squinting her eyes through the radiating brightness that filled her sight, her vision quickly adjusted to the sunlight bearing down from above.
She knew this place. She had been there before, in what seemed like a time so very long ago as well as yesterday all at once. It was the same desert she had found herself drawn within when she had first utilized the Madness of Soul's Black Blood on the night the Kishin had been released; the second time she and Soul had battled Crona.
"Maka," a voice came from behind her, soft and meek, but with an underlying tone of both wonderment and melancholy.
Spinning around in startled surprise, the Scythe Meister now stood less than an arm's length away from Crona, her soul soaring with awestruck elation at the sight of her pink-haired friend. Unlike the last time they had met within the realm their two souls had created through their mutual connection, Crona was no longer a child and subsequently neither was she. No longer outfitted in their standard black attire, the Demon Swordsman merely stood there in a white suit and pants identical to the one they had been wearing at Kid's party the year prior, their left arm crossed over their chest to grab at their elbow as they looked down and away with an almost apologetic expression.
"Crona…" she managed to force, her voice hitching in her throat as she tried to force down her brimming well of emotions.
Smiling softly, the Demon Swordsman merely nodded in silent affirmation, and before they knew it the Meister had crossed the distance between them, embracing them with all the strength she could muster.
"Crona!" she choked again, squeezing the pinkette like she had never hugged anyone before in her life.
Feeling a warm wetness begin to stain their shoulder, Crona could feel Maka's body reverberate against their own as she tried to hold back each shuddering sob.
"Please don't cry, Maka," they implored tenderly, wrapping their arms around the girl gently in return. "If you start crying, I don't know if I can handle that. It might make me start crying too."
Reaching up, the Scythe Meister wiped the rivulets of tears away from her eyes, noticing the silken fabric glove upon which she had done so. Looking down, she realized that she too had unknowingly gone through a change of wardrobe within the desert dreamscape and that she herself was outfitted in the white version of her Black Blood dress. It was the same one she had been wearing when they had battled Asura upon the moon, after the Black Blood had been purged from Soul's body.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, relaxing her embrace and pulling away with reserve. "It's just that…that…oh, Crona, I'm so sorry. We never wanted to leave you there. Please believe me, there wasn't a day where I didn't think about you. I wanted so badly to find a way to get you out of there and bring you back home to the Academy. Because that's where you belong… with all of us."
"There's no need to be sorry, Maka," Crona replied with sentimental sincerity. "What I did on the moon I did for you. You were the first person one in my whole life who truly showed me any kindness, and for that I can never repay you. You gave me friends…people who actually cared about me no matter what I did, and a real home. But most of all you gave me the courage to make my own decisions. Not Medusa's, not Ragnarok's…but mine. Back there on the moon, that was my choice to make and I wouldn't change it for anything. I did it because I trust you and I wanted to protect you just like you protect me and everybody else."
Turning their reminiscent stare from the sand below back to her, they met her gaze with upturned lips, soft and quivering as though trying to hold back their own cocktail of feelings.
"Even though I still don't know what sins or crimes I've committed, I know that I've done things that made you upset, Maka. And despite those things you still came for me in the Madness," they said, their voice entwined with both wondrous happiness and remorse. "You could've left me there in the darkness, and to be honest I wouldn't have blamed you. You wouldn't have been the first one to abandon me to the Madness…but you didn't. You care too much about other people to do that, and that's what makes you so special, Maka. I only wish I could have done more to be as good of a friend to you and the others as you all were to me. I wish…I wish I could have done more to protect you…but I couldn't."
Trailing down their pale cheeks, glittering droplets dissolved the fragile façade that Crona had erected. Dripping from their chin onto the sand below, tears of guilt-ridden sorrow stained the earth as they cast their head downwards, overwhelmed by the unbearable guilt that filled their heart.
"I'm sorry, Maka," they forced between sobs.
Closing the small gap between them, Maka took the pinkette tenderly in her arms, holding them close as she shushed them in consolation the way a mother would to an upset infant. Against her chest she could feel their reverberating quivering and the remorseful sincerity of their words despite their underlying bleakness.
"It's alright, Crona. It's alright," she whispered, allowing them all the time they needed. "You don't have to be sorry. What you did was the bravest thing I've ever seen and because of it you saved everyone. So no matter what you might think, that makes you a truly wonderful person. There's nothing you can say to make us love you any less than we already do."
Pulling away slightly as they raised their teary-eyed face, the pinkette eyed Maka with a bewildered and puzzled expression, taking a few precious seconds to allow the connotation of her words to sink through.
"Love?" they questioned, as though they couldn't believe that such a word was being used with them in the same sentence. "I-I'm not sure I know how to deal with that. No one… nobody's ever said they loved me before except Medusa…and because she said that I…"
Trailing off, Crona left their words as they stood knowing that the implication of their dark past was clear enough.
"But I know now that that wasn't what love really is," they continued, their tone both bright and somber. "So maybe I can try to deal with it now. Thank you for loving me, Maka, even though I couldn't keep our promise. I'll never forget you."
Looking upon them with concern, there was an implication in their statement that immediately alarmed the Meister.
"What do you mean?" she questioned with a shaky voice, fearful of the answer that she might receive. "You make it sound like this is goodbye."
Smiling tenderly, Crona took in the entirety of the young woman before them who had come and saved them in their darkest hour. They remembered that dress she now wore and how it had faded from the silken black to the snowy white it was now when they had purged the hold of the Black Blood from Soul.
"You look like an angel, Maka," they said distantly, appearing to not hear her inquiry as they spoke. "It's funny, you know? I never believed that angels or heaven existed. There were only demons and the hell inside my head. But when I see you in that dress it makes me feel like angels really do exist. And you're the most beautiful one of all."
Swelling deep within her Grigori soul, wave upon crashing wave of confliction filled Maka's spirit as she struggled to come to terms with what she was hearing. Clenching her eyes shut, part of her wanted to blush from Crona's remark, while other parts of her wanted to release every ounce of brewing pain and emotion that were tugging at her heart. The latter eventually prevailed as she reached out and pulled her friend in close, burrowing her head into their chest as she wailed in sorrowful denial.
From the edge of her mind she could feel the brilliance of the sun above them begin to fade, giving way to the darkness. Clenching Crona with all of her strength, she pleaded between her heartbroken cries in defiant denial.
"No…no! Please, no!" she implored with a gasping sob, the warmth of Crona's own embrace slowly leaving her to the hollow void that now surrounded them. "Don't go! Please don't go!"
"Thank you, Maka. Thank you for everything. Be strong. And remember… no matter where you go, I'll always love you."
Vanishing into the cold, dark black, Maka stood within the emptiness with eyes scrunched shut and face puffed red. Trailing down her cheekbone and onto her chin, relinquished droplets flowed in a steady drip upon the floor. Quaking against her heels, her entire being shuddered violently as she balled her fists tight against the silk of her gloves; her mind running rampant with chaotic confliction.
"Crona!"
Turning her chin towards the hollow heavens, she released one final departing testament to her sorrow before she was pulled from her dreamscape, the strain of her voice following her back into reality as she bolted upright in her bed.
Tossing and churning in the depths of the chilled December's night, Shuvo's restless form rolled about his floor-bound mattress while he subconsciously pulled the thin sheets that covered him over his shoulders. Trembling in no ways due in part to the temperature of his room, his chocolate irises eventually gave in to the unknown distress that plagued his sleep, opening up to the faint illumination that came in through his window blinds. Rubbing the temples of his shaven head, he gently parted his covers from over him and sat upright, trying to gain an understanding of why he was unable to find any form of solace from his insomnia. It was truly unlike him, as although he was a rather light sleeper, he very rarely found himself unable to drift back off into his blissful state of rest.
Something about the night just didn't feel right, he concluded. Whether it might have been something he ate at the start of the previous day coming back to unsettle him, or an oncoming fever, which he hoped he wasn't coming down with, he just couldn't seem to pinpoint what it was about him that made it so difficult for him to fall back asleep. Seeing as how it was useless to debate with himself on the matter considering the increased level of mental activity would only exasperate his unrest, he stood up from his mattress and shuffled tiredly over to his doorway. Slipping into the hallway, he made sure to be extra quiet as he moved past Mirika's room and eventually into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water that would hopefully calm him.
Taking several long gulps to quench his midnight thirst, Shuvo let out a sigh of content as he finished off the glass. Placing it in the sink, he moved back towards the hallway before a shadow of a figure caught his eye juxtaposed against the light filtering in through the living room window. Momentarily caught on edge, his heart rate lowered when he saw that it was only his Meister who appeared to be up as well.
"Mirika? What are you doing up at this hour?" he questioned softly, moving over to the window beside her. "Were you not able to sleep as well?"
Remaining entirely silent to his inquiry, the girl continued to gaze distantly out the glass with a thousand-mile stare, lost in some deep and brooding thought. In that state she stayed for several lingering moments, contemplating on something the monk could only guess before she finally answered him.
"Listen," she whispered, prompting Shuvo to stand absolutely still and focus his attention on his senses.
It didn't take long for his ears to pick up on something faint, but nonetheless recognizable. It was the telltale sound of thunder rolling in from the distance, which struck him as peculiar, but in no ways entirely out of the ordinary. While Death City was indeed located in the middle of a desert, they still did experience the occasional patches of inclement weather.
"Is there a storm coming?" he questioned curiously.
"No," she replied, her timbre firm and dark, prompting the khakkhara to wonder just what his partner was hearing that he wasn't. Then coming out of the late night hour, a screeching, piercing wail erupted from the streets surrounding their apartment. Loud and droning as it lilted in volume, it was sure to jar even the most unresponsive of sleepers from their beds. Quickly joining it, more of the wails harmonized from the distance in a haunting, ominous choir.
"Sirens?" Shuvo stated, wondering what on earth could be happening to warrant such a citywide alert.
Erupting bright in hellish shades of yellow and orange, the rooftop of a building in the not-so far distance sent both Meister and Weapon reeling backwards. Watching in awestruck horrification as the blaze began to rise into the night sky, Shuvo found himself in utter disbelief about what he was witnessing as no sooner after the explosion a clamorous pounding was heard at their door. Pulling himself away from the trance of the window just long enough to answer, he rushed over to the frantic knocking and flung the entrance open. Finding the redheaded Rapier Meister Casandra Solerno standing on the other side of the threshold, the younger N.O.T. student was still clad in her pajamas and appearing justifiably frazzled. Down the hallway the shouts of her partner Allyson Caldwell could be heard as she was busy pounding on another neighbor's door.
Struggling to find her voice, Casandra took a precious second to reel in her hysterical state as her message came out with a panicked squeak.
"W-Witches! The witches are attacking!"
A/N: Hello everyone, K.K. here reporting in.
Again, I must apologize for the delay in this chapter. Please believe me, I wish I could just churn out ten thousand word chapters one after the other every two weeks, but I can't. Its just that right now more important matters are at work in my life that require my immediate attention. I'm about to finish up my six months of vocational school, so I have about three weeks to figure out if I'm going to be employed, where I'm going to live, how I'm going to make this career work, etc. etc. Most of my writing now is dedicated to job applications and resumes.
Anyways, enough about that. Just wanted to touch base on the story. I hope ya'll are enjoying it as much as I am. With this chapter, Karma and Reaction has hit the 200,000+ word milestone, a feat shared by only 15 other English fics on this site. So yeah, I'm pretty excited for that. Also, not trying to fish for compliments, but I really would love to see this fic get some more favorites, followers, and reviews. I know I don't write romance (which tends to bring in a lot of attention on this site) or update as regularly as I would like, but I would love to hear your opinions on the characters and plot, or just any theories or questions you may have.
P.S.- This chapter's soundtrack is brought to you by Coheed and Cambria's songs "The Reaping" and "No World For Tomorrow". Gonna go see them on tour next week! So excited!
K.K.