A/N - :O Wow, and this chapter didn't take me almost a whole month to get out. There can be miracles! Still not out as fast as I'd have liked, though. Oh, well. Take your victories when you get them, I guess. The reason that it took this long in the first place is because I had a lot of ideas for this chapter that I had to alter because, while they were cool in my mind, I couldn't make them work within the context of the scene. So, there you go.

Not much else to be said about this chapter without spoiling what occurs within, so I'm just going to skip to the review responses. Thank you to little101, SmolderingBlackRose, Sda209, TheManInTheHat, and Drachegirl14 for reviewing, and thank you all for a total of over 50 reviews! That's as many as five tens. And that's awesome.

To little101: You certainly won't have to wait long! Much badassery is to be had in this chapter. Fight scenes are very fun to write in that regard. :3

To SmolderingBlackRose: Hahaha, sorry for the cliffhanger! (I'm not actually that sorry. Cliffhangers are my main method of sustenance.) I hope this chapter was worth the wait! :D

To Sda209: This review is beautiful and I'm going to marry it. I'm also going to be honest and say that looking back on my earlier chapters does make me cringe a little. I don't think they were all that bad, but I've grown so much as a writer over these past 100k that the difference between then and now as a little stunning. The joys of always moving forward and getting better, yea? Occasionally I do think about going back and rewriting the early chapters to make them better, but I know that if I start doing that then I'll never be able to stop and continue with the story itself.

To TheManInTheHat: Ah, it seems I've caused some confusion. My apologies! ^_^' Let me clarify: No one besides Tempus really knows that Alecto's first language is Latin. They know she speaks it. They know she's got a bit of a weird accent that's apparently Roman (according to her childhood speech therapists, anyway, and those childhood speech therapists could be wrong.) But all she tells people is that she knew Latin and English when she was adopted by her parents. As far as they know, English is pretty much her first language, and for all anyone knows her birth parents were probably just a pair of fancy assholes who spoke grammatically-correct Latin around the house for the sake of being fancy assholes (which is very possible). Alecto doesn't tell them otherwise because she doesn't really like the idea of being gossiped/talked about, and boy howdy would "Latin is my first language" cause a lot of gossip. I'm pretty sure she mentions this in her narrative POV when she first officially meets Kid, but I may have contradicted that in earlier chapters because I was still fine tuning the details of Alecto and Tempus as characters back then.

Also, I haven't brought this up in the story itself, but fun fact: Alecto actually learned a fair bit of her Latin through research due to interest in the subject of "I knew it when I was a toddler and that is weird but interesting." As for the hows or the whys of how she knew any Latin at all…well, I couldn't tell you that just yet, could I? That would be spoiling it. ;) Beyond that, I'm really glad you're enjoying the story!

Drachegirl14: Oh man, everyone's talkin' about Alecto's Latin-speaking abilities and the weirdness thereof, and I'm just sitting here with the biggest grin on my face because I know exactly why Alecto speaks Latin and I can't tell any of you. Being a writer is an evil,evil hobby and I love every second of it. Beyond that, I'm really glad you enjoy my fanfiction! Especially the parts about molding Alecto and Tempus into the Soul Eater 'verse without turning the plot spotlight on them and them alone because that is a goal I have been trying to achieve basically from day one, so I'm really pleased that I succeeded in that regard.

Thank you all for the absolutely lovely reviews!

Notes and translations of the Latin will be at the end of the chapter.

DISCLAIMER: Soul Eater is the intellectual property Atsushi Ōkubo. I have no intention of monetizing my fanwork, and this is merely an enjoyable passer of time.

Chapter Twenty-Six - Forty Whacks - A Collaboration Effort Between Two Meisters, Part 3

Tick.

Alecto let go of Kid and bolted for the staircase, practically tackling Tempus and dragging him into her bubble of desynchronization with her. He acted instantly, turning into his weapon form with a flash of light and attaching himself to Alecto's hand with a practiced ease. Still moving, Alecto used the momentum to pivot around and face her foe.

She hadn't seen Lizzie Borden coming. She hadn't even heard her coming, which was a miracle, because the footsteps of small children were as loud as the thunders of Jove, broadcasting themselves to everyone in earshot. But with Lizzie, there was no such warning noises. She, Liz, and Kid had been examining a piece of old and worn out machinery, discussing its possible purposes (or, in Kid's case, discussing its "repulsive" lack of symmetry), and Alecto didn't notice the little girl sneaking up on the three of them until a glint of steel shone in the corner of her eye. She had turned to see an axe's head swinging on a collision course with Kid's head.

She'd reacted on equal parts adrenaline and instinct, pulling time out of synch for a few moments to get the time she needed to grab Kid by the shoulders and yank him out of the way, letting out a shocked expletive in Latin alongside Liz's startled shriek. Even now, with time to relax and assess the situation, she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, threatening to beat its way straight out of her ribcage.

Tock. Still shaken, Alecto allowed time to resume. The little black-haired girl in the bloodstained nightgown blinked in confusion, staring at the space where Alecto had been with wide, sunken eyes. "Wow, where'd the pink girl go?" she asked, a faint indeterminable accent tingeing her voice. "She was just there!" The girl pouted, crossing her arms. "I didn't even get to give her any whacks."

Kid didn't seem too concerned with Alecto's apparent disappearing act; Alecto could see him quickly glancing up to the staircase where she now stood alongside Patti. "Axe killer Lizzie Borden," he declared, "your soul has turned into a Kishin Egg and is pure evil, so now we have come to claim it!" He held his arms out. "Liz, Patti!"

"On it!" the Thompson girls exclaimed, changing into weapon form without hesitation and spinning through the air into Kid's hands with an accuracy that, quite frankly, awed Alecto. It was a sharp reminder that she was working alongside a weapon-meister trio that was much more experienced than she and Tempus were.

Lizzie Borden tilted her head to the side, her lips pursing together in an expression of bewilderment. "Evil?" she said. "I don't understand. The lady with the red hair said that I could do whatever I wanted."

Lady with the red hair? Alecto and Kid exchanged a concerned glance. Was there a witch behind this? It would explain quite a bit; young children very seldom became Kishin Eggs of their own accord. There was usually a witch or another Kishin Egg behind it.

Lizzie continued speaking. "All I did was eat; I don't think that's so bad," she said, rocking back and forth on the heels of her mud-stained feet. "Well," she added, her pout stretching into a mischievous grin, "I also gave them some whacks. Sometimes I gave them lots of whacks. Like mommy and daddy! I gave them lots of whacks. I gave mommy forty and daddy forty-one. They were so messy when I was done!" She giggled and darted over to the axe still embedded in the machinery, grabbing its handle and firmly tugging at it. "I'll give you all lots of whacks too! Won't that be exciting?"

BAM. With twin gunshots echoing in simultaneity, Kid fired at Lizzie, hitting the head of the axe and causing the diminutive pre-Kishin to let out a shriek of terror and stumble back, pulling the axe with her. Despite rationally knowing that this thing was a monster, Alecto couldn't help but feel a sharp pang in her heart. To her ears, that had been the scream of a frightened little girl. Lizzie regained her balance and glowered at Kid, letting out a disapproving hrmph. "Wow, that was pretty rude of you!" she huffed. "I'm going to give you lots of whacks for that. Maybe even a hundred!"

"I don't think so," Alecto growled. "Tempus, now!"

"Right!"

Tick. Time slowed to a nigh standstill. Alecto lunged forward, reached out and grabbed Kid by the shoulder, dragging him into her time bubble. "I'll keep her distracted for you," she suggested. "She won't be able to focus on both of us at the same time."

Kid nodded. "Be careful," he warned her. "She's fast, and that axe isn't going to be easy to dodge."

Alecto felt a sharp wave of resolve wash over her, and she couldn't help but shoot him a small smirk in response. "You don't need to worry about me," she said. "When it comes to speed, I've got the advantage." Without waiting for a response, she let go of Kid's shoulder and ran towards Lizzie Borden. "Ready, Tempus?"

"Yes, but if I said 'no,' would it really make a difference?"

"Nequaquam," Alecto replied, and promptly swung Tempus towards Lizzie in a wide underhand arc. "Six-thirty position, now!"

With a whirring click as his gears spun into place, Tempus turned his hands so that they were both pointing the same direction, locking into place at the exact time that Alecto's strike landed. Tock. Time realigned, and the shafts of both spears collided with the handle of Borden's axe, sending the little girl tumbling off-balance once more.

"Hey!" she complained. "That's not fair! You don't get to use magic like that!"

"I'm not here to play fair," Alecto said flatly, shifting into a defensive stance and raising Tempus's shield to block the axe as Lizzie swung it towards her face. Tick. She ducked away from the axe and moved a few feet back, heels digging into the stone floor and heartbeat pounding in her ears. Tock. "And it's not magic," she added. "What do I look like, a witch?"

Lizzie stared perplexedly at the spot where Alecto had previously stood for a brief moment before turning to face her. "Idunno," she said. "You don't look old, though. Witches are old."

Alecto could faintly remember Tsubaki telling her about a little girl witch quite a while ago, but considering that Lizzie was charging towards her with startling speeds, she really didn't think it was the time for correcting that particular factual error. She flung her shield arm upwards just as the axe came down, barely able to block the rusty blade. "Vae!" she exclaimed, bracing herself as Lizzie pushed the axe down harder. "Non!" she spat through gritted teeth. "Non vincēris meum!"

Lizzie paused for a second, tilting her head and opening her mouth to speak. Before she even had the chance, though, an audial storm of gunshots echoed across the derelict machinery and broken windows, and Lizzie was barraged by a hail of Kid's ammunition as he opened fire on the undersized Egg. She let out a scream of terror, pulling the axe away from Alecto and Tempus and raising up to her face as a makeshift buffer against the attack. "N-no fair!" she wailed, her voice laced with pain. "That really hurts!"

"Like I said," Alecto said, pulling her spear arm back and aiming Tempus directly at Lizzie's heart, "we're not here to play fair." She'd expected this to be a far more difficult fight, but she wasn't complaining if it was quick. Thrusting her arm forward, she cried out, "Axe killer Lizzie Borden... tuus anima mea est!"

She struck empty air, the momentum of her attempted attack sending her toppling forward. "Quid?" she managed to stammer just before she solidly hit the ground.

"She's vanished!" Tempus exclaimed inside her head.

"Really," Alecto replied, her voice muffled by the weather worn floor. "Non animadvertī." She pushed herself to her knees, rubbing at the sore spot where her forehead had collided with wood. "She really is fast. Hey, Kid, did you see where she ran off to?"

"No," Kid replied, his sharp amber eyes scanning the surrounding area, "but she won't have gone far. We should keep our guard up."

"So much for that advantage in speed," Tempus remarked as Alecto staggered to her feet. "I don't think I've ever seen a Kishin egg move that fast. Or, well, not seen, I guess. Where d'you think the little brat scampered off to?"

"How should I…"

Alecto trailed off as a sense of unease behind to creep over her. It was too… quiet. Not in the traditional sense; there was the distinct sound of Kid's footsteps as he looked around for their quarry. No, this was the sort of quiet that resulted when a bratty child stopped throwing a tantrum suddenly and without warning, the kind of quiet that made a person wonder just what the hell that kid was up to.

As if to answer her growing suspicions, every machine in the mill turned on at once. The building was filled with deafening, disorienting noise that threatened to overwhelm Alecto's sense of hearing."Quid hōc est?" she exclaimed, whirling around and desperately searching for the source of the sudden commotion. There was a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, and she turned to see a Lizzie borden, almost a blur with her speed as she charge towards the unaware Kid, axe held high. "Kid, behind you!"

Kid reacted instantly, pivoting about and aiming one of his pistol partners at Lizzie. Bam. Without pause, he fired, the compressed wavelength shooting out and putting a clean hole straight through her shoulder.

"Yow-ow-ow!" Lizzie cried over the din of old machinery. "That was mean! You were mean! Why did you do that?"

"You disgust me," Kid replied, and for a moment Alecto was confused as to what he meant before he continued, firing another wavelength through Lizzie's other shoulder. "Look at you. You perpetuate imbalance without even giving a single thought to order or symmetry! Just look at your hair!"

"Wow," Tempus muttered, sarcasm dripping from his words like venom from a snake's fang. "I'm so glad he has his priorities in order."

Alecto couldn't help but agree with her partner on some level.

Lizzie tilted her head and fiddled with a lock of her pitch black hair, which hung just above her shoulders in choppy, uneven strands. "'Symmetry?'" she repeated. "What's 'symmetry?'" Alecto swore she saw the corner of Kid's eye twitch violently at this. "And besides, there's nothing wrong with my hair. I whacked it all off myself!" she added, puffing out her chest proudly. "It used to be really long, like her hair over there is! But…"

And suddenly, so suddenly that Alecto had no time to react, Lizzie Borden had run forward and grabbed her thick carnation curls and yanked her backwards. "But all that hair was just a pain," Lizzie said. "It was always so easy to get grabbed when your hair is that long, you know?"

Alecto crashed to the ground, vision splitting and fireworks of pain exploding behind her eyes as she collided skull-first against the solid wood planks. Everything began to sway and spin, and her thoughts began to blur together. Amidst the roaring of machines, she could hear someone shouting her name in her brain, but in her dazed state, she couldn't connect the voice to a name, or face. All she could think was, it's always the head, isn't it? She didn't even know why she thought that.

A glint light hitting metal caught her attention amidst the dark blur that was the rest of what she could see. Squinting, she tried to focus her vision on that one glint. It was the rusted and scratched-up head of an axe, raised high in the air by tiny, red-stained hands. What…?

Then the axe began to fall.

Adrenaline shot through Alecto's body, and her senses snapped back into coherency. She flung her shield arm upwards, blocking the blow just in time. The recoil knocked Lizzie back a few feet. Tick. Taking advantage of this, Alecto desynchronized time jumped to her feet, moving away from the Kishin Egg and her dangerous axe. "That was close," she said, grabbing the edge of the nearest machine to steady herself as her vision split and merged repeatedly.

"Too close," Tempus agreed. "For a moment there, I thought… Are you okay, Ally?"

"Bonum sum," Alecto said. "My head feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it, but I'm not bleeding and I'm pretty sure that I don't have a concussion, so bonum sum."

"How sure?"

"...Seventy percent."

Tempus swore.

"Hey, could be worse. I can still fight." On wobbly feet, she made her way to where Kid was standing. Tock. "So," she said, catching the attention of the young reaper, "not the best idea I've ever had." She looked up to glare at Lizzie, only to find that the little girl had once more disappeared.

"It would've worked better if Borden weren't so damn fast," Liz said from Kid's left hand. "I don't think I've ever seen a Kishin Egg move like that."

"Yeah, me either!" Patti agreed emphatically. "It's almost like she was moving around like Alecto was!"

Alecto shook her head. "No," she said. "It's definitely not like how I move around. If she was using temporal desynchronization, I would definitely be able to feel it." She'd always been able to feel that tugging sensation when Tempus used his wavelengths to desynchronize time separately from her, even before the two of them had established their current rapport. "There's nothing going on temporally, she's just… really fast."

"And resilient," Tempus added. "Seriously, how many times did you guys shoot her?"

"A lot," Liz replied flatly.

"I wonder if a witch is behind this?" Kid murmured, a thoughtful expression flitting across his pale features. "Borden did mention a red-haired woman… It certainly would explain why such a young girl turned into a Kishin Egg, and why she's so difficult to kill."

"Makes sense," Alecto said. She looked around, hoping to find any hint of Lizzie Borden amidst the working machines. "So, any ideas on how to kill her, if a straight up fight won't work?"

"We're going to have to impede her movements," Kid said. "If she shows up and I shoot her in the legs, that might be able to slow her down enough to…"

Slow her down…

...of course!

"I have an idea!" she exclaimed, before lowering her voice so that any eavesdropping little demons couldn't hear what she had in mind. "I'm going to draw Lizzie out, get her to attack me," she explained. "Just be ready to shoot when its time, all right?"

"Yeah," Liz deadpanned, "because that worked out so well last time, didn't it?"

"Okay, yeah, but this time it will work," Alecto retorted. "Because this time I'm going to stop Borden dead in her tracks."

"How do you plan on doing that?" Kid asked.

Alecto shot him a confident smirk in response, hoping to hide the seeds of doubt that had burrowed into her thoughts. "You know that I can use my soul wavelength to speed up my time in relativity to everyone else," she said. "But did it ever occur to you that I can do other things with it, too?"

Kid's brows knitted together, but before he could reply or inquire further, Alecto ran out into a more open area of the mill's floor, charcoal gaze scanning the moonlit room. "Hey, Borden!" she called out. "I'm really sorry for us trying to kill you and all. We were just doing our jobs, we didn't stop to think about how unfair it would be to you."

Tempus's face appeared in the back of her head, staring at her in disbelief through his loose golden bangs. "Ally, what the hell are you doing."

"Hush up and play along," she hissed at her partner before raising her voice. "Lizzie, are you there?"

A few long seconds passed without a response. Then the machines slowed to a stop, and a tiny head poked out from the far end of the room. "D'you really mean that?" Lizzie asked. "You were being really rude. All I wanted to do was eat and give people whacks, and you come to try and kill me!"

Alecto shot the Kishin Egg what she thought was a reassuring smile, raising her hands up to shoulder height in an act of surrender. "I mean it," she said. "And I'm willing to make it up to you." She hoped that her attempts would work. Unlike Tempus, a silver tongue was not one of her talents.

But the gullibility of a child was a tragic thing, and Lizzie moved out further into the open several yards away, her face illuminated by the thin beams of moonlight streaming in from the broken windows. "Your stupid friend there hurt me a lot," she accused, eyes narrowed suspiciously as she nodded at Kid, who shot a cold glare in return. "What could you do that would make up for that?"

Alecto spread her arms outward, meeting Lizzie's stare without fear. She wasn't afraid, she wasn't… "I'm going to give you a free shot," she said. "No tricks, no traps. You wanted us to play fair, right? Well, the way I see it, this is as fair as it gets. Promise?"

"Alecto…" Kid said behind her, the wariness in his voice evident. She glanced at him over her shoulder, pleading with him with her gaze to trust in her plan.

Lizzie looked unconvinced. "How do I know that this isn't a trick right now?"

"Well, I suppose you can't be sure," Alecto admitted. Her voice trembled slightly, and she cursed herself for it. "And there's no way I can convince you for sure. You'll just have to take my promise at face value, won't you?" She raised her left hand, displaying her littlest finger to the Kishin Egg. "Pinky swear, okay?"

"Well… all right!" Lizzie said, raising her axe up. "I'm going to give you the biggest whack I've ever ginning anyone!" Eyes widening with malicious intent and a wicked grin stretching across her face, the little girl charged, the axe a brilliant steel blur amidst the darkness as she swung it towards Alecto's throat.

Tick.

Tock.

Clang.

Lizzie's eyes widened as the blade of her axe collided against Tempus's buckler. "B-but…" she stammered. "You pinky swore!"

"Yeah, well," Alecto said, reaching out and grabbing the handle of the axe with an iron grip, "id mendacium erat."

Tiii-i-i-ck-ck-ck.

Soul wavelengths bouncing off of each other harmoniously, Tempus and Alecto shifted their time out of sync, but not in the way that they usually did. Alecto felt a heavy sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as their personal time ground to a near halt. To the world, it would have looked like they were frozen in time.

And, in a way, they were.

Lizzie stared at Alecto, opening her mouth to speak. Four words flew past the young girls words, four baffling words:

"You sound like her."

Then her entire upper body was obliterated by a wave of fuchsia soul wavelengths, leaving nothing else but quickly-dissipating black ribbons and a small crimson soul where she had stood. The force of the wavelengths sent Alecto falling backwards, landing on the ground with a stunned gasp. That was the exact outcome she'd been hoping for, but the suddenness of it all still left her a little dumbfounded.

"Wow, that was… surprisingly easy," Tempus remarked.

"Yeah," Alecto said, letting out all of her previous tension and doubt as she sighed the word. "She really was a child, wasn't she?"

"Mm-hm. We gonna drop the desynchronization or what?"

It was then that Alecto noticed the blurring, unclear figures moving about in her peripheral vision. "Oh, right. Yeah."

Tooo-o-o-ck-ck-ck.

Time returned to its natural flow, and Alecto was able to make out what was going on around her. Liz and Patti had returned to their human forms and were standing nearby alongside Kid, with Patti crouching next to the two of them, her rosy face inches from Alecto's own.

"How long?" Alecto asked.

Liz blinked. "What?"

"How long was I… preoccupied?"

Kid spoke up. "About half an hour," he said, holding his hand out to Alecto. She took it, and he hoisted her up off the ground. "What was that, that you did just now?"

"Desynchronization," Alecto explained, brushing the dust off of her jacket. "Same as I was doing before just in… reverse. I can slow down my time as well as speed it up. It's not very useful, though, so I don't use it that way often." She reached her hand behind her and behind to poke gently at the back of her head, where she'd hit against the floor earlier. She winced as her fingertips grazed the spot and sent of shock of pain through her skull. "Honestly, I think that's the first time I've ever used that as a combat tactic."

"Yeah, well," Liz said, "It would have been a lot easier if you'd told us exactly what you were going to do. We spent five minutes trying to figure out what the hell happened."

"Pfft." Tempus shifted into his human form, stretching his arms above his head as he did so. "Don't take it personally. She never tells me what she's up to, either." Shoving his hands into his pockets, he glanced over at the tiny soul that was still bobbing a couple feet above the ground. "At least Borden's been dealt with."

Liz nodded, a grimace crossing her face as she shuddered. "Next time, can we go after a nice, non-creepy axe-murdering little girl? Please?"

Patti laughed. "She wasn't that scary, sis!"

"Wha…? Patti, she was terrifying!"

As the Thompson sister fell into a debate about the appropriate amount of terror to be expended on the late Borden, Alecto fell into her own thoughts. What did she mean…? Alecto wondered. Lizzie Borden said I "sounded like her," but who is this "her?" Is she referring to this mysterious redhaired woman? An old family member? She mentioned a mother, didn't she? Or maybe a teacher, or a friend… there's no way to know for sure, she was just too damned vague. She shrugged it off as the ramblings of an insane child in her last moments.

Alecto's contemplation was interrupted by Tempus's voice. "So… who's going to take this soul?"

…

"Dibs!"

A/N - No, I didn't pull that time-slowing solution out of nowhere. I don't remember if I mentioned it in previous chapters or not (probably not), but being able to slow down her personal time bubble has always been a planned skillset of hers. It's just never really been utilized before because, well, it's not very useful in combat situations. I'm sure it'll show up in the future. Just not often. Because it's pretty useless.

Also, I want to say that I do not condone the breaking of a pinky promise in any situation. Pinky promises are Serious Business and must be upheld at all cost. AT ALL COSTS.

Also also, I've been watching the English dub of Attack on Titan and holy crap I forgot how brutal this series was. This show is messing me all kinds of hells up. On the other hand, Bryan Papenbrook (Eren's dub voice actor) is totally my headcanon Tempus voice.

Latin Time!

Nequaquam: In this context, it means "not at all" or "not in the slightest.

Non vincēris meum!: "I will not be defeated!"

Tuus anima mea est!: "Your soul is mine!" Well, she had to say it at some point, I suppose.

Id mendacium erat: "It was a lie."

Chapter twenty-seven will come soon, and will mark the end of this arc. After that, who knows? Well, I know, but I'm not telling. In the meantime, feel free to favorite and leave a review!

- Diana "Nocte"