Maka
As far as thunderstorms go, this one is pretty boring.
What had she been looking for, when she quietly slipped between partially closed doors to hide from the rain under a balcony awning? Raindrops pitter on the decorative lights wrapped around a railing, chiming like tiny xylophone notes.
Seeing Soul ride into the storm with Stein-hakase has made a shroud of unease fall around her shoulders that she can't shrug off.
Her left shoe is rubbing the back of her heel raw. Maka leans to the right to pry the left one off, sorely rubbing the aching tendon. After a moment, she kicks off her other shoe grumpily, longing for bulky socks and combat boots.
Muffled laughter alternately rumbles and chimes through the closed doors behind her. Normally, she'd be in there, cracking jokes and mingling with her classmates during the formal, but her mind is a tangled mess.
"'The weapon amplifies the meister'," she murmurs to the rain, rubbing the backs of her arms. She repeats it again, and again, and again, Shinigami's words falling off her tongue, hoping for something to click. The God of Death had hinted at a solution to their problems, but she doesn't know where to start. She knows the weapon amplifies the meister! It's the whole idea behind Soul Resonance. What does that have anything to do with Soul becoming the next Death Scythe?
The sky continues to rain, uncaring.
The Black Blood has become more than just a mere nuisance. They could work with it before, but now it fully impedes their progress. His progress. Maka can't stand for that. She will open doors for her weapon- never close them. He can choose whether or not he wants to be Death Scythe, but she will take responsibility for her mistakes. The Black Blood must go.
...Except she has no idea how to get rid of it. Maka Albarn, top student of Shibusen, has no plan. Not even a jump-in-and-kick-some-ass-and-maybe-we-won't-die plan. She's clueless. She hadn't studied for this. She should talk to Stein. Or Soul. But they're both gone for the moment, leaving her so frustrated she could chop herself.
She holds out a hand to let a stream of water falling from the roof line run across her palm. If only it could be so easy. If only she could hold him out in the rain and watch the black run off. But the Blood is not some speck of dirt on a table that can be wiped away. It's always there, ingrained, bonded, and stubborn.
Maka growls to herself. And why is it whenever something good happens between her and Soul, something like this happens? She just wants to enjoy a relationship, damn it!
"The weapon amplifies the meister. The weapon amplifies the meister." She says it so many times that the words lose their meaning. Water falls from darkening clouds, softly hissing as it touches ground.
The heavy thump-thumping of the party's bass-heavy music momentarily increases, throwing off her concentration, or lack of. Maka watches as the doors behind her open. A shimmering mass of gold and little black heels steps onto the balcony.
"Bu-tan was wondering where Maka-chan was. Why're you alone?"
Maka is too confused to immediately reply, first greeting the Blair with a surprised smile and then a perplexed frown. The last time she saw the cat was much earlier this morning and, come to think of it, the cat had disappeared by the time she and Soul returned from breakfast. "Soul's coming late. Wh-"
Blair cuts her off, crossing her arms over her ample chest. "What're you doing out here? It's wet," she exclaims, ears flattening while she glowers at the rain for a moment.
"What are you doing here? I thought you weren't allowed to come to school functions..."
A neat grin slides on Blair's face. "They made an exception," she says, tilting her weight back and forth, rocking from heels to toes. She gives Maka a cautious look out of the corner of a golden eye. "Bu-tan is helping Death Scythe sha-pa-rown, tonight."
"Oh." Maka stares out into the rain a beat. Blair had come as a chaperone? She twists her lips to the side, calculating. "But it's pretty much a date," she offers flatly.
"...Yeaaah kinda-sorta," the cat admits. "I like to keep him company."
Something in her gut twists, but upon further inspection, Maka wonders if the usual reaction to her father being involved with any woman has boiled down to simple reflex. Instead, she takes a deep breath. "Just make sure he behaves, I guess."
Blair makes a little laugh and scoots closer, lifting Maka's hair off the side of her neck and peering casually. "He's been good lately, right? Death Scythe even gotta gift for Maka-chan, but he's waitin' so patiently."
"What? Seriously?" Maka looks behind, peering through the glass paneled door for any signs of her father but only seeing a mass of dancing bodies. She's surprised she's not being smothered with Spirit's gift giving, if what Blair says is true.
"Yup. Blair is the Albarn li-ay-zon, after all."
Maka gives her roommate a skeptical, shady look, but decides Blair is being serious rather than trying to be clever. Blair ignores the look altogether, and ushers Maka around and opens one of the double doors of the balcony. "You should see! They worked really hard. Get out of this wet!"
"Ah, but, hey! My shoes!"
But she's shoved into the crowd, and Blair disappears behind the collection of elegantly garbed the dancers around her and feeling the thump-thumping of the music through the floor into her bare feet make her toes clench, feeling extra vulnerable. Maka makes her way through, hurriedly waving politely when occasionally greeted by peers, feeling more and more like a fish swimming upstream by the second.
...'They' who? Why does her father have a gift for her? Her heart lurches slightly, wondering what (or maybe who) is waiting for her on the other side of the ballroom. Breaking through, she looks around for Spirit, but only sees other members of the Shibusen faculty mingling, and a table with what looks like Soul's coat hanging off a chair.
The bustle of the formal fades away. She doesn't care about the coat, either.
There's a coffin on the table, covered with a black sheet and a little folded piece of paper with her name on it. She dubiously inches forward. What's under the sheet? Is it a prank? Did Black Star arrive already?
(Is it a body? Has Soul died? Is this a nightmare?)
With nerves held steady by a tight grip of terror, Maka pulls the sheet down, dragging it slowly off the table and to the floor. Her breath comes out in a loud whoosh. She slaps a hand over her thundering heart. Someone is about to get a book to the face.
It's not a coffin, but a gigantic flower bed in an over-sized wooden tray. She smells basil and rosemary, and multicolored disco lights dance over the petals of various flowers. She's suddenly not surprised to hear Spirit's voice coming up beside her.
"Your papa didn't know how to wrap it, so..."
Maka glowers at Spirit, who cringes. "I thought it was a dead body."
"W-what? No! No, it's-" he hurriedly checks the flowers with a glance. "Of course it's not a body!"
"Could've fooled me. This is... kind of a lot, Papa. How am I supposed to get this home?"
Spirit pulls on his tie nervously. "Your weapon offered to tow it home on his bike."
Choking on air, she crosses her arms. "Soul? That really doesn't sound like anything he would say."
Her father doesn't seem to hear her comment, instead settling for lacing his fidgeting fingers together like he doesn't know what to do with them. "But you want to take it home, right? B-because you like it?"
Maka has her mouth open to argue, but it snaps shut with a resigned sigh. Looking over to the enormous planter on the table, the tiniest of smiles crawls slowly on to her face. "Mm. Especially the herbs. But I like these too," she says, stepping forward and gently cupping what she recognizes as the buds of the skullflowers. They've managed to worm their way into her heart, somehow.
He walks forward to stand at her side. "They'll wilt eventually. But they come back next year, you know. If they're, uh, in dirt." His hands move from each other to nervously jingle loose change and keys in his pants pockets.
She smiles a little wider, casually sliding her arm in the crook of her papa's elbow and leaning on him slightly. "I like that." She can tell he's resisting the obnoxious and embarrassing urge to smother her in a hug, and she feels partly proud and partly guilty. "I guess this is what Soul couldn't tell me about?"
Spirit looks down curiously at her face. "You mean he didn't give it away? I know you two are Chained." Maka's eyebrows furrow, shaking her head, and hopefully beating down a flush at the thought of just how bonded she was with her weapon. Her father makes a surprised (and dare she wonder, impressed) noise, gaze raising back to his gift to her. "Have to give that brat some credit," she thinks he mutters.
Maka can't ask anything before he wiggles his captured arm slightly and asks in his usual candor, "So, what're the chances my daughter will dance with her papa tonight?"
Because that's not embarrassing at all while being surrounded by all her peers. She looks to the side, maybe hoping for an escape, making a strained, unsure sound. Then she spots Blair again, now sitting on a bench against a wall. The cat makes shoo-ing gestures at her, and lips forming around words that look somewhat like 'he's been good'.
Great. Guilt trip from a cat.
"Okay! Okay. Fine. Sure. But justone. As a thank-you."
Spirit beams at her, holding out a hand. She smiles back wryly and takes it, but halts as soon as they move closer to the dance floor. "Oh! But, I'm not wearing any shoes," she trails off, toes wiggling as she looks at them.
"What? Why aren't you?"
"They were annoying!"
Maka watches her father make a contemplative face for several seconds before shrugging. "Well, I'm not giving up." And then her father, Shinigami's personal Death Scythe, leans over and begins to toe off one of his dress shoes, still holding on to her hand.
"Dad! What are you doing?"
"I'm gonna dance with my daughter, is what," he replies abruptly, like she's missed an important fact. He says it so seriously that she finds herself laughing. He chuckles as he starts taking off the other shoe, but before he finishes, he stands straight, confusion etched on his face.
Still smiling, she asks, "What?" but he looks over his shoulder, eyes focused far away, listening to something she can not hear.
It dawns on her suddenly that her papa is a weapon in more than just title, and the concept of his being Soul Chained to a meister is startling. It had never occurred to Maka before, but who would Death Scythe be bound to other than Shinigami?
Her father hurriedly presses his toes back into his shoe. Maka asks again, more seriously, "What is it, Papa?"
Spirit shoves his heel back in just as she hears Marie Mjolnir scream.
"Come with me."
She doesn't let go of his hand.
Why can't she ever be wrong for once?
Soul rides off into the distance with Stein? Check. Maka suffers from paranoia and worry? Check. Stein's body parts return, unaided? Check. She morbidly wonders if people are going crazy, too. Maybe there'll even be zombies. Well, Sid's here, so there's another checkbox to mark off.
"Is this a setup?" she blurts out, voice sharper than intended. She doesn't mean to sound disrespectful, but to say she's displeased is to sugarcoat the situation. Five eyes and a pair of mask holes turn to her after her outburst. When her father's hand slides out of hers and tightens on her shoulder, she realizes she's shivering with ambivalent emotions.
"Setup?" Marie asks curiously, caught between keeping her one eye on Maka and the bouncing, flopping, severed ear rolling in Shinigami-sama's white palm.
"Another test," she explains, trying not to venomously spit the words out, feeling very halved without Soul at her side. Maka gestures to the animate ear wobbling around. "Is that what this is about? Because if it is, I'd like to file a complaint," she seethes.
"I'm afraid not, Maka-chan," the God of Death says calmly behind his mask. "This wasn't planned at all. ...Perhaps I have been too lenient with Soul's testing."
"Lenient?" Maka's back immediately turns to steel, forcing her upright. Lenient? The 'test results' of Madagascar had been anything but lenient, hadn't they?
"Yes. I believed things to be under control. Mistake! As a result, Tsubaki may be in grave danger."
Maka sucks in a breath. In her frustration, she had dismissed the fact that Black Star and Tsubaki were taming the beast in the Gallows Mansion swimming pool, and that it was likely Stein had gone to assist them. Except now he's sending back body parts. His pale ear tries to rabidly chew on Shinigami's thumb. It's a good thing it doesn't have teeth.
She doesn't know what's happened, but she has a sinking feeling it has a lot to do with her weapon.
"Where is Soul?" she asks, but her voice is overpowered by Death the Kid sliding into the conversation, his weapons accompanying him.
"Father, what is happening?"
"Yeah," Liz adds in worriedly, "we heard Marie-"
Patti moves beside the teacher in question, gently patting her blonde head. "Is Marie-sensei okay?"
"I-I'm fine, thank you Patti-chan, but-"
"Oh my god, is that an EAR?!"
"Elizabeth, calm down-"
"It's chewing on your dad's finger, how can I calm down!"
Maka wants to know what the hell is going on! All during the commotion, her father silently converses with furrowed eyebrows to Shinigami, who tilts his head in equally silent communication, and it just pisses her off more. Something stupid must have happened, Tsubaki's in trouble, and no one will tell her where her weapon is!
Finally she cries out above the rabble, "A mirror! Please!"Marie hears her and digs a compact mirror out of a silken handbag and offers it hurriedly. Maka's fingers fumble trying to open it, but once she does, she holds it to her superior's masked face, the action silencing everyone surrounding her. "Please," she grits out.
Shinigami-sama stares at her quietly a moment, then waves his giagantic free hand near the mirror. With a grim, but grateful nod, Maka flips the mirror, holding it away from the glare of various party lights so she can see. She feels other bodies crowd around her to view as well, but her attention is focused solely on the image in her hands.
The other end of the mirror must be a broken shard of glass- the view is jagged on one end, and the ground is tilted awry. The sky pelts rain directly on the glass. Water washes down the picture, distorting the background.
"Soul?" she calls. Maka swallows a lump in her throat. She hears the scraping of metal on stone. "Soul!" She holds her breath as she hears footfalls coming closer. A blur of blue races past.
Death the Kid nearly blows out her left eardrum with, "Black Star pick this up right now."
Maka swears she sees red and black zig-zags swing into view, faster than a lightning strike, and just as loud. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK," she hears, footsteps becoming louder again and the whole world turning on its head. "Kinda busy right now, shini-crooked!" Black Star snarls into his hand, the shard of glass held mostly steady as he runs, though still upside down. The background twists and shifts behind him.
"What have you done to my house!"
"Screw you! Your house is the least of my problems." The rubble around the ninja stops moving as Black Star pauses a moment to hurl a massive brick at his assailant off-screen. He continues to run, breath puffing harshly. "Tsubaki!" he calls to the side loudly, "I'm hurrying!"
"Tell me that wasn't the mantle he just passed-"
Maka shoulders Kid's spasming body away. "Where is Soul? Black Star, tell me!"
"Where do you think he is, genius?" he pants, sending her an exasperated glare for half a second as he hurdles over rubble. "He's gone fucking bananas, and WHOA-" The image turns black a moment as Black Star rolls out of the way of what Maka thinks was a tentacle- but much, much larger than she remembers from this afternoon.
"Black Star!"
"What was that?"
"What's happening?"
"My pool!"
"I told you we should have killed that stupid thing!"
Sid speaks up over the commotion this time. "Black Star. Status report. Now."
"Shit," The harried meister mutters. "Okay, hang on." He sloppily sets the glass against something and hurriedly picks up what looks like part of a fireplace and forcibly hurls it out of view with a grunt. A crash is heard. "Right, so, the Kraken is huge, it keeps raining, half the house is gone-"
"Make him destroy the other half or I'll pull your skull out of your head and beat you to Death with it!"
Liz clamps a hand over her irate meister's mouth.
"-and my weapon is in that fatass, and your weapon," he shouts, looking directly into Maka's face, "-is bein' a jackass, so the great me demands his followers to back him the FUCKup sometime this century!"
Black Star cuts off his own tirade to sprint to safety. The glass breaks a moment later. She'd seen it, though- just before the end of the transmission. It forces her to snap the compact closed and hand it back to Marie. She turns on her bare heel and wrenches herself out of the group.
"Maka, where are you going?" Her father shouts. Maka makes it to the table with the coffin of flowers. She grabs Soul's coat and hauls it on.
"I'm getting my shoes."
Because she'd seen the silhouette of a man holding a long-handled blade.
There are not enough books in the world to help relieve her wrath.
"No can do. I'm on lunchbreak," says the strange driver of the limousine she and her friends had taken to get to the formal. Maka can't decide if he's a phantasm or a mummy, but she knows she wants to deck him with an encyclopedia.
She glares into his eyeless face as rain pelts down and mats her hair. "This is no time for lunch! You're not even eating anything!" she shouts, on the verge of strangling the man. She could be there by now. She could be fixing things. Her feet already hurt from her stupid shoes.
Marie makes a worried noise. "But we need to leave quickly! Students are in danger."
Shinigami has ordered their mission party to form and make haste, but this stubborn driver impedes their progress. Marie, Spirit, Kid, Patti, Liz, and herself must go, and she just wants to fly there, and she could with her father, and Kid certainly could as well, but neither of them can take Marie at the same time. Liz had suggested the limo, but the driver isn't cooperating.
She doesn't want to disobey orders and leave Marie behind, but it's becoming tempting the longer they stand uselessly in the rain.
Kid, who is still suffering from some kind of self-induced asphyxia after seeing the remains of his house through the mirror earlier, hoarsely attempts to reason with the driver. "And if I request you to take us somewhere? As a customer."
"I'm sorry, young master, but my employer insists I take my breaks and follow policy-"
"BANG!"
Patti floors the man with a left hook without warning. The driver slumps against his car, out like a light.
"Patricia!"
"Sorry, Kidd-o. I thought yer pinky twitched~"
"It most certainly did not!"
Marie says with a hand still covering her mouth in shock. "If this weren't an emergency, you'd have detention tomorrow, Patti-chan."
Liz scowls, a shawl draped over her head to keep her slightly more dry. "Whatever," she says, patting his chest curiously. "Crap. Patti, his pockets."
The sisters search the man, but only come back with a wallet and a small bag of chocolate covered nuts. "What are you two looking for?" Kid asks.
"Keys. But we can't find them."
"You could prolly wire this heap," Patti offers.
Liz contemplates the car in question while Kid says with a sigh, "Fine, fine. Let's just get him out of the rain."
Maka wonders if Assault and Grand Theft Auto are going to be added to her mission report. she watches impatiently as the trio carry the unconscious driver up Shibusen's hundreds of steps. Then a bounding ball of dark purple catches her eye, passing the three carrying the unconscious man and heading towards the group at the limousine.
Blair, in cat form, shivers violently and weaves around Maka's ankles, hiding under her dress from the rain.
"Blair! What are you doing out here?" Maka says, staring down at the feline. The cat leans back on her haunches and adjusts her magical hat with little furry paws.
"Everyone left Bu-tan!" She backs up a little and poofs into her human form, evening gown gone and back in her usual, promiscuous attire. "I want to join the fun~" and with a bump of her hip against the limousine door and a crackle of magic, a loud unlocking sound is heard.
Maka and Marie-sensei share speechless glances while Spirit opens the driver's side door for Blair to step in. Within moments and a few pumpkin spells, the car starts and is purring as the cat revs the engine. She steps out again, dusting off her hands as Spirit holds his coat open for her to take shelter under. Maka can't close her mouth.
Death the Kid and his weapons trot back to the group. "Hey!" Liz exclaims. "Who broke in?"
"Bu-tan was an alleycat once, too, yanno?" Blair holds out her hands, and Patti giggles and claps hers to them.
"Alright! Let's get in already. I'm driving," Death Scythe says with a grin.
A still somewhat overwhelmed Maka barely gets her seatbelt on when her papa floors it. She silently apologizes to the driver they had collectively assaulted, and to the limousine being pushed to the limit- though she urges the engine to push a little harder, at least to the rampant beat of her heart, for her friends' sakes.
For Soul.
She really hopes she can think of a plan.
Traffic is halted for the street that Kid and the Thompsons live, due to 'strange, unexplainable animal causes', and Spirit has to flash his Death Scythe badge to get around traffic and through the barricade. Maka's legs bounce with impatience. She should have flown. She should have flown!
They park next to Soul's abandoned motorcycle.
She'd known, somewhere, that Kid's mansion had been more or less obliterated, but the idea solidifies once she sees the remains in person. Fire stubbornly burns despite the rain, smoke almost oozing through the air. Various pipes spew water like geysers to meet the sky pouring down.
As their party fumbles out of the car, a brick wall loudly crumbles before them, dust and debris scattering away to give a view of the monster in the back yard. She's fought gigantic kishin, zombies charmed by witches, skywhales, and oversized spiders, but her lungs constrict and courage stutters when her eyes focus on what Mr. Kraken has become.
"We need to keep that thing from getting any more wet," Marie says as the group runs forward, keeping their eyes peeled for Black Star. "How can we stop the rain?"
Blair moves her hands wide. "He needs a biiiiiig umbrella!"
At this statement, Maka looks to Kid, who looks back blankly, though she thinks sweat is beading on his brow after seeing the state of his estate. She makes a motion with her thumb, skyward. Kid looks back at the monster, calculating. "Yes. I can do that," he says. Maka nods.
"Do what?" Spirit asks.
"Liz. Patti. Let's go," Kid says, summoning Beezlebub.
"Time for a ride!" Patti exclaims, transforming into a pistol and arcing to Kid's hand.
Liz growls, joins her sister. Her voice comes out metallic in her gun form. "That creep better not have trashed my makeup stash."
The three take to the air, and soon, the largest skull-shield Maka has ever seen is stretched high above Mr. Kraken, gallons of water beginning to pool and run off the edges like a giant waterfall. She catches glints of the demon guns' bullets flashing towards the monster's many eyeballs.
"Oh."
"Papa."
Only a glance and he transforms into her open hands. "I'll take good care of my Maka," comes his steely voice. His weight is different, but not impossible for her to handle. However, her father only makes Soul's absence more apparent.
Maka perceives Black Star and Stein a few hundred yards away, and Tsubaki even farther off. "This way!" She leads Marie and Blair through the remains of Kid's house.
"What's the plan?" Marie calls behind her.
"I have no idea!" Which is true, because all she can do is react as a large arm of Stein's experiment shadows them from above and careens towards them. She slices out of instinct, but the cut, though engulfing all of Spirit's blade, is shallow in comparison to the sheer mass of the limb, and she's forced to roll out of the way to not become pulverized. Maka trips over bricks and curtains once on her feet.
These damn shoes! "Close your eyes, Papa, and don't you dare look up my dress."
"Wh-what? I wouldn't!" She swings and jumps, cleanly trimming the long stilettos off her shoes. The result feels awkward, but not nearly as hindering as before.
"Blair! Go distract that thing to keep him from smacking us!"
The cat changes back into her animal form and veers off to the side. "Nya~ I love playing cat and mouse!"
"That is the creepiest mouse I've ever seen..." Marie pants. The monster roars angrily a moment later. "She gets the job done, though."
Back on track, Maka closes in on Black Star's wavelength. Rounding a crumbling corner of the mansion, she hears him shouting. "Soul, you asshat! WE WERE BROS!"
Soul?
Maka finally sees Black Star and Stein, the former wielding what looks to be a heavy water pipe and taking cover behind a lion-footed bath tub, and the latter outright laughing and swaying back and forth like a drunkard, slightly odd-looking with a missing ear. She has to blink the rain from her eyes to make sure she's not seeing things. She can't feel him, but he's there before her- Soul is being held in Stein's hands. The possessed professor swings the scythe around in a deadly whirl that cleanly divides the bathtub in two, Black Star diving out of the way.
That's when the ninja sees them. "'Bout time you got here, underlings! I'm tired as shit!"
Maka blocks a powerful blow aimed at the four of them. She wants to call out to Soul but now is not the time. "Why isn't Tsubaki with you?"
"I told you, she's in that thing! I've been trying to get her out but your stupid BOYFRIEND keeps trying to kill me!" He swings his pipe and loudly connects with Stein's face, but the metal rebounds like hitting a stone wall.
Marie shifts into her weapon form, hurling herself through the air and lands a solid blow to Stein's side, knocking him a short distance. All the while she apologizes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you're evil right now-"
Maka turns to Black Star. "Is she okay? I can sense her, but-"
"She's fine but..." he makes a face, feeling for his weapon, "-she says it's very unsanitary in there?" He ducks as Marie is flung back with a counterattack. "What the fuck is wrong with Soul? It's like he's not even home!"
"I've always wanted to go on vacation," Stein says matter-of-factly, using Soul like a golf club to drive half of the bathtub in their direction with a deafening clang.
Blocking with Spirit, Maka is shoved back a few feet, next to Marie. The older woman shifts her hand and punts the bathtub right back. "You never want to go on vacation, you workaholic!" she cries out.
Black Star is back to hurling things as a distraction while Maka tries to find an opening to disarm Stein. She prods the bond, but gets nothing in return. She focuses with Perception, but is overwhelmed by the size of Stein's wavelength.
"Soul, wake up!" she shouts, but gets no response save for Stein's cackling. She doesn't have time to worry about it, because she's already reacting- moving forward because Soul's blade is headed for Black Star's face. The muscles in her arms shriek with stress from blocking the swing, and she feels her father growl uncomfortably in her hands. The two blades are hooked and locked, handles screeching and crunching together.
Stein's not even looking at her, commenting on the atomic make-up of elephants on Jupiter, but another face has eyes trained on her, melting and forming from her opponent's blade. Red eyes with pupils so wide that the color is nearly overtaken by darkness watch her with excitement.
"Hello, Aunty," He smiles, voice draped in familiar tones, teeth sparkling in a Cheshire smile. Blade gone and just a face and neck protruding from a handle, she gasps at him, Spirit's scythe pressing into Soul's neck. She backpedals with her father in hand, quickly moving away.
"Don't get shaken! Hold your ground," Spirit calls from her trembling hands. But she can't get over it. Soul is right in front of her, but all she feels is static.
"Guard! Maka!"
She guards and saves herself from catastrophe just in time, Black Star countering Stein's punch with a kick while she tries to regain balance of her body and her terrified heart. Marie takes another swing, this time for Soul, but it's that brick wall effect again, neither of the crazed people flinching.
But Maka notices the thin line of black (Black. Black. Why must it be Black?) on Soul's neck that she had inadvertently made. It heals as she watches. Her voice is a growl Soul would be proud of. "Let him go."
"Oh? Let who go?" he replies with her weapon's smile, but eyes still too wide and gleeful to pull off the act.
"Maka-chan, I can't do anything to him," Marie says to her side.
"Could try Soul Force, but," Black Star pants, "-was savin' it for Tsubaki."
Not-Soul's eyes follow her every movement intently, like watching something very interesting (or delicious) from a distance. Stein makes no further moves to attack.
"What do you want?"
Her father argues, voice echoing from his weapon form. "Maka, this is no time for making deals with a crazy man."
"Dude, that ain't a crazy man. I'm not sure that's even a man... Well. Apart from Stein. That's probably not true either," Black Star corrects.
"You don't know the half of it," Maka replies.
The Oni's smile widens even further, Stein cackling like an echo of his unheard thoughts. "I have a proposition. I'll let creepy doorknob-head go, if you wield me instead."
Maka squints with unease. "Why."
"Does it matter?" he replies.
"It's a trap, Maka."
"I'm aware, Papa," she mutters.
But they need Stein to not be homicidal. She eyes where the mark had disappeared from Soul's neck. She leans her father's weapon form against what's left of Kid's fireplace. She hears the nearby monster howl again, the earth casually rumbling like it's been doing it all its life. Black Star braces himself, and Marie does the same. Spirit complains and tries to reason with Maka, but shifts into his human form and keeps a bladed arm.
"Fine. Deal."
The demon wearing Soul's skin chuckles. "Good! I was tired of this station anyway!" An arm shifts out of the weapon's handle and violently spins the knob in Stein's head like a roulette wheel. The Oni then shifts into jagged light and curves towards Maka's open hand.
But she swerves, pivoting on one foot to grab Marie's arm, very grateful she hadn't left the weapon behind in her haste. She prays Marie will not only react in time, but also be light enough for her. "Sensei!" she calls out, pulling the woman towards her, blinking, and then suddenly hurling a hammer and pushing as much of her own wavelength as she can with just a millisecond to spare. Marie's weapon form collides into Soul's transformation light. The crash is ear-bursting, Soul's human body careening in the air like a fired cannon ball, sailing through a waterfall and landing near the foot of the monster.
For a moment, she's terrified she's killed him. But his body moves with a quiet groan, and once he's away from Stein, she can finally feel him. Faintly, Soul's wavelength shimmers in the distance. Behind her, Stein makes a similar noise.
"Papa, you should help Stein. Black Star, get to Tsubaki! Marie, are you okay?" The weapon pulses in her hand.
"I-I'm okay... just a little dizzy. I'm ready!" The tonfa is heavier than Maka would like, but it's fine. The weight will help knock the crazy out of him.
"Maka, are you sure..?" Her father asks, worriedly.
"I'm good, Papa. Help Stein. He's still missing an ear," she calls behind her, trotting to Soul, or Oni, or whoever is present. Closer to the monster, she has to avoid goo puddles. She hears constant gunfire and occasionally hears Blair's hissing and yowling, followed by explosions. She ducks under the waterfall with Marie-sensei in hand.
"...Soul?" she asks from a several feet away, though she doesn't know why she asks. She knows it's not him. For one, he's in a suit, and she knows he wasn't wearing one when he drove away from Shibusen. For another, he doesn't respond when she reaches for the bond.
A groan. "Wrong." The Oni drags himself to his feet and tenderly touches his nose. "This is his body, you know! You should treat it more nicely. Oh, look. Ha! It's black," he says, pulling his hand away from his nose and coming away wet with blood.
"What have you done to him?"
He straightens his lapels- a hauntingly similar motion of Soul's- and grins. "I made a small investment. And when I saw the opportunity, I cashed in. The moron has no will to fightme!" He says happily, shrugging. "And here I am. Here! The World! I even got rained on. Though I had higher hopes... the place is rather boring."
The demon walks forward to her, oozing confidence she knows is borrowed. She holds her ground, hand gripping Marie tightly. "That's why I like to gamble. To bargain. To take risks.It's boring by myself. Stein doesn't get it. Once he's crazy he's just a puppet. But you," he purrs, stepping much too close for her liking. "When you're off, you're fun. I remember."
Maka swallows down the absurd urge to blush, embarrassed. The last time she went crazy, she tried to bite off her opponent's head.
"But I know you, Anti-Demon. I'm sure you won't just give in," he says with boredom, "-so listen to my offer again-"
"I'd rather just beat your face in," she says with a glare, shaking her head to get her wet bangs out of her eyes. She hefts Marie's comforting weight in her hand.
The Oni raises Soul's eyebrow. "I don't disagree that would be effective, but..." He waves the hand with drying blood in her line of sight. "Might be a little too-effective, don't youthink? You don't want to kill the poor sap, he's been wondering what to name your future smelly human babies."
"What?" Maka chokes out.
"What?" Marie shrieks from her hand, but Maka doesn't reply. He could be playing with her emotions- in fact, it's probably a given- but her attacks are hurting him, and by proxy, Soul's body. She may accidentally kill him before she can figure a way out of this mess.
"Here's the deal," Oni starts again, picking up a curled end of her soaked hair and toying it between fingers that are not his. "You can try to get sappy lover-boy back, but you mustopen yourself to me."
"Fine." She doesn't even need to think twice.
"Maka!" Marie shudders in her hand.
"Excellent. I'm going to have to ask you to drop your bulldozer, of course."
"Bulldoze this!" Marie cries, transforming out of Maka's lax hand and aiming a steeled punch to Soul's face, but without Maka's wavelength backing her, she bounces off like rubber. The demon gives the woman a charming smile as she recovers.
"Sensei, you should back up Stein and Papa," she says to the side, keeping her eyes on the obsidian ones before her.
"Maka-chan-"
"They may need it," she admits grimly, observing the Oni's pleased, feral grin. "Soon."
He laughs outright as Marie hesitantly backs away. Maka knows it's another trap, or the same one it's always been, but she only has two choices and the other one risks more than she's willing to give, and there's no time to study anymore. Courage is all she has left.
"Let's make a deal."
Her anger boils as the demon holding her partner's body hostage moves even closer. "Yes, my meister."