On the way home, Maka couldn't seem to stop thinking about what the kishin egg had said.

"Soon it will be eternal night and insanity will reign. We'll all dance in the light of the moon and the rest of you will die."

Somehow it felt like an important clue. Why would they dance in the light of the moon specifically? Why exactly would it be eternal night? Of course, it could just be a metaphor. Using the night and moon as a symbol for evil wasn't exactly new. But still.

Also, thinking back on it, when he'd died, he had looked up at the moon. Maybe that was just supposed to be dramatic or something…but maybe it actually meant something important.

To date, no one had been able to find the Kishin. He'd disappeared into thin air. With a soul wavelength that powerful - and meisters and weapons all over the world looking for him - it seemed impossible. Maka wasn't the only person with soul perception. It might be a rare ability, but absolutely everyone they had who possessed it had been looking for him in every country, even scouring the seas. But what if he wasn't on the Earth?

Even though it was a wild theory, she figured it might be worth telling Lord Death. If she was wrong, then no harm done. But if she was right…then they'd finally find him.

So, as soon as they got back to the DWMA, Maka sought an audience with Lord Death. She hadn't even told Soul her suspicions, because they seemed so farfetched.

They were greeted with a wave and, "Hey! How ya doing?!"

She took a deep breath and charged in, "Hello, Lord Death. I had an odd idea that I wanted to run by you. It has to do with the Kishin."

"Okay. Go on."

"When we were on our last mission, the kishin egg said something about there being an eternal night, and all the kishins dancing in the light of the moon, specifically. What if the kishin is on the moon? We haven't been able to find him, and it's been months since he escaped."

There was a long pause, and Soul gaped at her, looking a little stunned. Then he scowled, obviously not pleased with her keeping quiet about this. "Way to keep me in the loop, Maka…" He grumbled under his breath.

"It's such a crazy idea…I just didn't want to talk about it." Maka whispered back, and then turned her attention back to Lord Death who still seemed to be thinking about it.

"Hm…what an interesting idea. Maybe you're onto something, Maka. It has been odd that we haven't been able to find him, even when our best are on the case. Tell you what; I want you to look into it. You are excused from all missions until you can verify whether or not your theory is correct."

"Wh-what? How am I supposed to find out if the Kishin is on the moon?"

"To be quite plain, you have the strongest soul perception ability I know of. If anyone were able to figure it out, it would be you." Lord Death chirped happily. "You may have to work up to it, but I believe that if you try your soul perception while resonating with Soul, you might just be able to stretch it that far. Good luck!"

They left feeling gobsmacked.

After a while of walking quietly, a somewhat lazy voice broke the silence. "Hey, congratulations, Maka."

"Huh?" She turned to Soul and gave him a confused look, not understanding why he was congratulating her.

"He said you have the strongest soul perception…that's pretty cool in my book." He gave her a big toothy grin, and she slowly returned it.

To be honest it had shocked her so much she hadn't been able to enjoy the compliment, but at Soul's words of praise, she began to feel a little pumped up. "Yeah, he did. I can't really believe it."

"I can." He said simply, and she felt a warm bubble of happiness bloom in her chest area.

"Thanks…But I don't know if I can do this. I mean, all the way to the moon?"

"Hey, don't worry about it. You've never even tried far distance soul perception while we're resonating before. You've only used it on the enemies we've been fighting. I know we can do it."

His encouragement served to boost her confidence, as it always did, and she smiled at him. "Yeah, you're right. We can do anything we set our minds to!"

"That's the spirit!"

Both of them were so enthusiastic about it, that as soon as they returned home after classes, they decided to try it – after dinner and the proper amount of digestion time of course. Two hours later, found them in the living room standing in front of each other.

"Ready to try?"

"Yeah." Maka nodded, and closed her eyes.

She reached for his soul and he met her in the middle, resonance following fluidly afterwards. It was as easy as breathing for them now and they sunk into a medium level resonance, the kind where they would be fighting in his normal form. It was their base-line resonance.

"Alright, let's see where my limit is like this first."

"Sounds cool to me."

With her eyes closed, she reached out with her soul perception. The darkness behind her eyelids was suddenly lit up as she perceived the yellow glow coming from her chest and then Soul's followed instantly, his blue melding with her gold. She dimmed her perception of their souls, so she could see others. Stretching her senses, she started with their apartment building and located each easily enough. She knew that without resonance, her limit was about a mile – not that she'd ever truly pushed it before. It would be interesting to see just how far she could stretch it.

Gradually she pushed her perception to its previous limit, and then past. As expected, resonating with Soul gave her more power to use and she leaned heavily on him, boosting her perception with the strength of his soul bolstering her own. She expanded to two miles, multicolored orbs flashing past faster and faster. She flexed her soul, stretched her perception, and got up to three miles, then four, then five, then six. At about ten she slowed down and started having to really strain to see anything beyond that. With some stubbornness she pushed herself to see another two miles, but then she had to pull back.

She probably would have pushed herself harder, but Soul could feel her stretch too hard. There was such a thing as pushing your soul too hard and injuring it, which was something to be avoided. Like a tendon, if you stretched too much too quickly you'd tear. With a spark of his soul against hers - which felt like getting popped by a particularly snappy rubber band - he attracted her attention.

"Back out Maka! You're going too far!"

She got the feeling that he'd been trying to get her attention for a little while, based on the slight edge of desperation in his tone along with a healthy dose of fear and anger that said she'd scared him. Suddenly feeling how lightheaded and woozy she really was, she very slowly pulled back – worried that going back too fast would be bad as well.

It took a moment, but eventually she got back to just seeing their souls, and noted how hers sputtered like a dehydrated firefly. That couldn't be good.

Opening her eyes, she winced as everything warped and was blurry for a moment. "Whoops."

"Whoops? WHOOPS?! That's all you have to say after nearly ripping yourself in half?!" Soul growled, obviously going more for the angry part of the spectrum.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I promise I won't push myself so hard again. I didn't realize how absorbing it could be, I've never gone that far before." She paused and then her excitement returned to her full-force and she couldn't resist adding, "It was incredible, Soul!"

"Well that's great, Maka, but you've gotta be more- Whoa!"

He had just disengaged from their soul resonance and suddenly it felt like she was a car whose battery had been removed. She almost face-planted right into Soul as her body went limp and tilted towards him. He caught her of course before she could break her nose on his collarbone, or something equally stupid.

Instantly his soul reached out and grabbed her sputtering soul, as quickly as his arms grabbed her falling body. The energy and pressure of his soul cradled hers and held it up above the dark water that it suddenly felt like she was drowning in. She would have passed out if he didn't forcefully keep her awake through resonance. All anger drained out of him and the only thing left was fear.

"I'm gonna be okay…just…keep holding me…until I stabilize…" She managed to gasp, her breathing a little labored now.

"Right! Of course, Maka! I'm right here, don't worry."

She nodded and let herself go limp in his hold as he lowered them both onto the couch. She ended up sitting curled up in his lap with her head on his chest, her ear pressed against his heartbeat. The steady rhythm – slightly faster though it was – soothed her, and she counted the beats to keep her mind alert. His soul propped hers up, much as his body was to hers, and slowly her strength returned, though some of it was probably given to her by him.

Naturally, after that little misadventure, it took a great deal of convincing and promises that she would be more careful to get Soul to let her try again, though he insisted she needed at least one day to recover.

So, the day after their first attempt, they found themselves once again in the living room. Like before, Maka closed her eyes and they initiated resonance, but this time Soul kept closer to her and she stayed in touch with him instead of getting so absorbed like before. It was almost like he tagged along with her on the journey. Stretching her perception, and thus her soul, this far… it really did feel like she was traveling outside of her body.

She hit her previous limit and instead of pushing herself, she instead called on Soul and their resonance amped up another level.

This was high level resonance, the kind needed for flying. Suddenly it was easy to stretch her perception way past the previous limit, until she could see the whole city. It was like she was drifting above, looking down on all the little lights… but every light was a soul. The sight was truly beautiful….

Suddenly Soul cussed, and she was snapped back to her body rather harshly, giving her a nasty case of whiplash. His arms grabbing her tightly had brought her back, although why he would physically grab her while they were doing this she had no clue. The sensation was comparable to being woken up from a deep dream, but the displacement was much worse and nearly made her queasy.

"Ugh, don't do that Soul!" She sputtered into his chest, since her face was mashed into it. "Grabbing me like that snapped me back to awareness too fast! Now I'm so…dizzy…"

"I can feel it too ya know, we are still resonating." He groused. "But would you have rather fallen over? Because you suddenly started teetering."

"I started falling? But I didn't push myself too hard this time! Why in the world would I fall? I didn't even feel it!"

"Hell if I know."

After a moment of thinking about it – once she'd removed her nose and mouth from Soul's shirt – she came up with, "Maybe I traveled too far from my body or something."

"Who knows? But I suggest we try it like this next time." He turned her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "This way I can prop you up."

"Okay. Let's try it."

"What? Right now? Shouldn't you rest?"

"I'm a little tired, but not too bad. I just wanna try one more time okay?"

With an exasperated sigh, Soul gave in. "Fine, but don't push yourself."

"I know, I know."

His chin hooked over her shoulder and his arms tightened snuggly around her midsection. Resonance seemed to come even easier than before, and for some reason it was stronger as well. That took her by surprise, and she spent a moment analyzing the quality of it.

"You know…I think we resonate stronger the closer we are physically." She mused.

"Makes sense."

With their enhanced resonance, she was able to regain her vision from above the city easily, and then some. It was a good thing the Kishin had such a massive soul thumbprint, because if she had to pick out a normal soul amongst all those teeny tiny lights, it would take her forever. That was training for another day she supposed. At the very least, she could confidently say that the Kishin was not in Death city.

She pushed it further until she could see the next town over. That was a stretch though, and soon she had to return to her body. Afterwards, she didn't feel faint, or sick, or like she was going to die. However, she was hungry and tired, so they made a snack and watched a movie – which she fell asleep in midway through.

On their next attempt, they amped up their resonance rate to Witch Hunter level, and she expanded her perception dramatically once again. She stalled out though at the edge of Nevada. Death City was centralized, and she could stretch her perception in a single direction to see the border any way she pleased. But she couldn't go much further than that without going into dangerous territory again.

The time after that, they resonated at their highest level, Demon Hunter. That allowed her to expand shockingly further. It took almost a week of practice - and Soul amping them up with his piano - but eventually she was able to almost stretch her awareness all the way across the United States, plus that same distance up into Canada, down into South America, and out into the ocean. Of course, she could only do one at a time. But that was fine, she just needed to stretch her perception in a straight line far enough to reach the moon. Starting terrestrially gave her a sense of distance though, so that was how she was measuring it.

It was impressive, but they were still far from reaching the moon.

After pushing it hard for the fifth day in a row with similar results, Maka exhaustedly came out of it and flopped onto the couch. "Maybe Stein would have an idea of how to enhance our resonance rate and my soul perception abilities." She mused.

"Worth a shot I suppose. But I draw the line at any experimental surgeries – even if he does say they'd help."

"Agreed." Maka added in a shudder for good measure.

And so it was, that after their last class of the next day, they stayed and Maka approached her teacher with the request. He seemed intrigued and thought about it for a moment. "Hm…I can think of a few ways. Come and see me this weekend, we'll do some experiments and see if we can't get you working at your full capabilities."

"Okay. But no medical procedures."

He sighed. "Fine. If you insist. We'll leave those as a last resort."

"Not even then." Soul said firmly, stepping up next to Maka.

"We shall see." Stein said ominously and rolled out of the room on his chair backwards.

After sharing a nervous look, they followed.

That had been in the middle of the week, so Friday rolled around more quickly than they would have liked. Neither of them was particularly looking forwards to these, "experiments."

"Hey, maybe we could try one last time, and see how far you can get just with us resonating. Maybe if we're lucky, you'll see all the way to the moon and we can skip getting "help" from Stein." Soul made sure to air quote the word "help," to express his dubious feelings about it.

"I doubt it, but it can't hurt."

They initiated resonance, and ramped it up to Demon Hunter level right off the bat. To get that high, Soul had to play his piano of course, but this time he tried something different as she stretched her soul perception. Along with playing to ramp up their resonance rate, he also twined cords from her soul song within the key strokes. It strengthened her soul even more, and allowed her to go a little further…but still not far enough. She pushed, strained, but had to pull back eventually before she overdid it. She'd made it almost to Alaska this time.

By this point, she wanted to try aiming her perception up towards the moon, to see if she could even get close. So, they tried once more, and she turned her gaze upwards.

It was a little disorienting…. on the earth she could go from soul to soul, but up in the sky she just had to keep stretching her senses, not entirely sure she was even getting anywhere. All she got was a sense of meaningless clouds. By her estimate, she maybe got halfway there, but it was really hard to tell. She might have fallen much shorter, or gotten closer.

Either way, they still had to go see Stein the next day. They arrived at his large lab at the DWMA, both of them rather tense and on edge.

"Welcome." He intoned, and they jumped, not even having seen him in front of his computer.

They both mumbled some sort of greeting, and he rolled his chair over to them. "Let us start, shall we? No use in wasting time."

"Uh, right."

"First, I want you to show me how you've gotten the furthest so far. I want you to do exactly what you've been doing and push yourself to your limits of soul perception, Maka."

She glanced at Soul, feeling a little uncomfortable. Stein had seen them resonate before of course, but those had been in battle situations, and Soul had been in his weapon form. It was more embarrassing to do it the way they had been lately, with Soul pressed up close against her and holding her up while she went soul hunting. Unfortunately, it was necessary, so with a slight cringe she stepped in front of Soul and he gingerly wrapped his arms around her.

She closed her eyes, both so she wouldn't have to see Stein's sharp clinical gaze, and also because it was what she normally did. Soul's grip around her tightened and his soul nudged hers, reminding her what they were supposed to be doing. She accepted the resonance, and instantly felt all of Soul's discomfort matching her own. He was about as enthused as she was over this show and tell business. They shared an empathetic cringe with each other and then resolved to try and put it out of their minds.

Switching on her soul perception, she saw Stein's soul, hungry with curiosity and tinged with madness, watching theirs closely. But she could sense the good intentions as well behind the madness, so that eased her a little bit, and she tried to dim the awareness of his soul so she could stretch her perception.

Outside, Stein watched as Maka and Soul resonated. He used his own soul perception to watch their souls. Out of all his students, these two probably had the highest resonance rate. They were absolutely perfect matches… as if they'd been made to fit together. It was a far cry from about a year ago when Maka refused to even synchronize with Soul properly. Now they fell into resonance like it was their natural state of being.

Stein wasn't normally one to feel pride in his students' accomplishments, but he couldn't help but be impressed with these two.

He calmly observed as their resonance level steadily crept upwards. Physically, they began to glow from the combined power of their souls' wavelengths, and the glow reflected off the shiny floor in a circle around them, quickly growing brighter and brighter as they hit the resonance needed for flight and then crept up towards Witch Hunter. Both of their eyes were closed. Once they'd hit flight level resonance, Maka's Grigori soul was activated, and her golden wings spread and curled around them both while a golden glow suffused her body.

As they edged into the next level, Soul began to take on that iridescent sheen that his weapon form did when entering into Witch Hunter, but he remained in his human form. Their glows combined, making a golden and blue aura as their power disturbed all the atoms in the air around them and caused the space in their vicinity to crackle. It seemed almost as though a powerful wind kicked up around them, even though it couldn't be felt. Maka's ponytails were picked up and moved in the unfelt gale, as was any loose clothing.

Once they got to Demon Hunter, their resonance level was through the roof, and Stein had to scoot back a little to avoid the almost electrical pops of neon blue that crackled around them. He was mildly shocked that they didn't burn a hole in the floor.

Tracing Maka's soul, he was impressed by how far she'd stretched her soul perception. In fact, he was quite frankly astonished. When she'd come to him and told him about her assignment to try and see all the way to the moon, he'd had his doubts – but after seeing this, he could easily believe it would be possible with some training and maybe some help.

Based on his calculations, she had made it five/eighths of the way there, so all he had to do was get her the last three/eighths. After a moment of holding where her limit was, she slowly retracted her soul.

As for Maka and Soul, they both came out of the resonance feeling less awkward, but still somewhat embarrassed about it.

"Excellent. You're farther along than I had expected."

"Really?" Maka asked, feeling hope bubble up in her gut. "So, do you think it's possible?"

"Oh yes. I believe so."

A sigh of relief escaped, and she sagged against Soul a little.

"A question. Does being in close physical contact increase your resonance rate?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. And I also tend to fall over if I go too far, so it helps to keep me upright." Maka replied, trying not to feel awkward about the question and failing a little.

"Interesting. Most pairs resonate while in weapon form, so this is not well researched material. Based on that, I would hypothesis that removing all barriers between you might also increase your resonance rate."

"Pretty sure we don't have any barriers anymore, right Maka?" Soul quirked an eyebrow at her and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"I don't mean between your souls."

Maka blinked at him, confused by what he was getting at. Glancing at Soul, he looked similarly befuddled.

Seeing this, Stein sighed. "Your clothes. Removing them might be beneficial. Since physical contact increases your resonance rate, it would follow that skin to skin contact could increase it further."

It took a moment for her to absorb the suggestion, and then another moment to analyze it and verify that he really had just suggested they get naked.

"You're joking right?" Soul drawled, and failed at trying to look coolly bored. His eyes were a bit too wide.

"When have you ever known me to joke about anything not related to dissection?"

"He's right; his comedy repertoire is pretty limited." Maka reminded Soul, wincing at the memories. Then she turned back to Stein. "But I agree with Soul, you can't possibly be serious."

"Oh I am. If it makes you feel better, this is the least invasive method I have thought of thus far."

They shared a look. Somehow neither of them found that difficult to believe.

This was going to get a whole lot more awkward than Maka had anticipated. "Um…Soul?" She muttered, asking him with her eyes what he thought of this unexpected suggestion.

He grimaced and then shrugged. "It's up to you Maka. I'm willing to give it a try."

"Excellent. Shall we begin?"

"Wait, now?!"

"Well yes. That is why you're here, correct?" Stein asked, crossing his arms across the top of his rolling chair, on which he was sitting back to front of course.

"I am not getting naked in front of you, Dr. Stein." She responded firmly and crossed her own arms across her chest.

"I wouldn't suggest that either. There is a private room that you may go into to conduct the experiment. I can watch your souls through the wall easily enough and observe your resonance rate from out here."

"Oh."

Awkwardly they shuffled in the direction indicated and stepped into what looked like a small examination room. The door shut behind them, and Maka was left alone with Soul, wondering just how she'd gotten herself into this mess.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and then her partner just slouched his way over to lean up against the wall, his hands shoved into his pockets and his "cool guy" bored expression firmly back in place. If she hadn't known him as well as she did, she'd have thought he didn't give a flying fuck about the proceedings.

To properly accomplish this particular task presented to them, she knew she was going to have to talk herself into it mentally, so she quickly proceeded to do just that.

Really, this wasn't that big a deal. He'd seen her in nothing but shorts before, and she'd seen him in just his boxers plenty of times. Yes, this was awkward and uncomfortable and sort of embarrassing, but they were a couple now, so it shouldn't be too bad…right? The setting was certainly uncomfortable, but at least they were alone. To make things a little more secure, she turned and locked the door.

That was the best she could do really.

Crossing her arms, she turned to walk into the room and then looked at Soul. She fixed the best determined look she could muster onto her face. "So, you ready to do this?"

He pushed off the wall and lazily walked over to join her in the center of the room. "Sure."

She nodded and shed her coat, the easiest article of clothing by far to remove. Her shoes went next, and she practiced some slow breathing techniques and reminded herself this wasn't a big deal.

If they'd been at home maybe she wouldn't be having as much trouble with it, but here – in Stein's examination room of all things – she felt amazingly vulnerable and exposed, which wasn't exactly a feeling she relished. Being watched from the other side of the door didn't help at all. He undoubtedly could see how awkward and embarrassed she was, and it just made her feel even more self-conscious.

She and Soul were facing each other, but she wasn't really watching as he undressed. Her attention was firmly focused on unclothing herself.

Her shoes, socks, and skirt came off easily enough, until all she was wearing was her underwear and her button up shirt. At that point, things got a little bit more difficult, as she suddenly realized that her fingers were trembling. Frowning down at the row of little white buttons, she willed her fingers to unbutton them and stop fumbling around like an idiot. It was both frustrating and humiliating. Of course, that just seemed to make the fumbling worse.

The sounds of clothing being shuffled off ceased and there was a moment of tense silence, which made her mess up even worse. After a second, Soul's hands appeared over hers, and he stilled her.

"Easy there. You're shaking like crazy."

She pursed her lips and then reluctantly glanced up. To her surprise, Soul wasn't as naked as she'd expected. It seemed he'd been dragging his feet a bit as well and had been undressing slowly. He was in about the same state of undress as her, except his last significant article of clothing was his unbuttoned jeans.

When she didn't respond to his observation, he asked, "You scared? Cause we can stop. We don't have to do this."

"He said this was the least invasive method."

"Well yeah, but there's always the option of just practicing really hard to see if we can increase your perception that way."

"Eventually it would probably work, but who knows how long it would take? The sooner we can find the Kishin the better. Lord Death tasked us with this, and basically said we're the only ones who can. We have to do this, Soul."

"Okay. If you're sure." He mumbled. His fingers pushed hers out of the way and he proceeded with unbuttoning her shirt.

She dropped her hands and let him, her eyes sticking to his chest, though she wasn't really seeing it. After a moment he spoke up again. "Are you scared? You seem pretty freaked."

"I'm not scared exactly. This is just really awkward and it's making me anxious. If it was just us, I don't think I'd have too much trouble, but being in Stein's office, with him watching, it's…it makes me feel kind of vulnerable in a way I don't like." She grumbled.

"I get what you mean. It's definitely not cool."

"Yeah. Definitely."

They shared a small grin, and then finally he was done with the buttons and she was shedding her shirt. That just left her in a bra and panties, and she shivered, both from the slightly chilly nature of the room and the discomfort. With his hands free once again, Soul shoved his thumbs in his jeans and shoved them down to kick them off.

For a moment they stood there in their underwear, looking at each other in both horror and amusement. Both their eyes stayed pretty much stuck on their partner's face though, which helped ease Maka's tension some.

"You know, if someone had told me we would be standing in Dr. Franken Stein's examination room in our underwear, I would never have believed them."

Soul snorted. "Yeah. No shit. It certainly wasn't on my to-do list."

They both laughed uncomfortably, and then Maka took a deep breath and firmed up her resolve. "Alright, let's just get this over with."

He nodded, and in short order both of them shed their last barriers. Maka risked a quick glance, and then snapped her eyes away from his hips.

"Soul! Seriously?!" She hissed quietly, shocked and flushed. If she'd bothered to look at his groin area before he shed his boxers, she would have been prepared for the sight, but as it was she was beyond surprised.

"I'm a guy, Maka. These things happen. Especially around naked women."

She groaned quietly. "This is going to make things even more awkward."

"Just try and ignore it. That's what I'm doing."

She just shook her head, not really sure what to say about it. So, she just turned around and waited for him to step up behind her. His hands landed on her waist, and she forced herself not to flinch, but couldn't help the way all her muscles stiffened. All that was left now was for him to embrace her, but when he tried, things went a little awry.

As he leaned in closer, she jumped when something got in the way and poked her in the behind before he could pull her flush against his front.

"Shit. Sorry about that. Hold on." He muttered, his voice tight and embarrassed. One hand left her waist, presumably to adjust himself.

Somehow, the situation struck her as amusing – shocking and disturbing and uncomfortable, but also kind of funny. She muffled the laughter that tried to sneak out, and her chest convulsed. A few snorts escaped though.

"It's fine." She sputtered, rolling her eyes up towards the ceiling to try and find some of her sanity.

He didn't miss her laughter and she heard him grumbling under his breath behind her. "It's not that funny."

"It kind of is."

He heaved a sigh, and then chuckled. "Yeah, okay, I guess it's kinda funny."

By that point, he'd gotten himself arranged properly and suddenly his body was pressed to her back. She jumped a little again at the feel of all that warm skin in contact with her own. His knuckles pressed into her behind where he'd held himself flat against his belly, but his hand quickly wormed out from between them … leaving the problem to fit itself snugly against her. It lay along the crack of her butt up to her lower back, and she winced at the feel of it.

"Again, sorry. I really don't have any control over it."

"At least it's not stabbing me anymore." She coughed, doing her very best not to move around too much.

Really though, to fit her body properly against him and get comfortable, she did have to shift around a bit, and that got his hands tightening on her stomach while his head buried in her shoulder.

"Could you not move around like that?" He gritted out, sounding perturbed.

"Sorry. I was trying to get comfortable." But she froze as per request.

Closing her eyes, she tried her best to ignore the situation, and activated their resonance. Soul was somewhat reluctant – though he did go through with it, just slower than usual – and she quickly realized why. As soon as they resonated, Maka was swamped with a wave of Soul's problems. He was grappling with a rather intense mess of lust and was trying to shove it down as much as possible, but it was proving unwieldy and gave him more trouble than she'd thought.

Soul's problem was very distracting to Maka, and was absolutely impossible to ignore. It was like someone shouting in her ear, "I WANT TO FUCK YOU!" There was no way she could pretend like she wasn't hearing it. Frankly she didn't know how he handled it without going crazy or jumping her. The iron band of control he had on himself was impressive.

Resonating meant she was filled with his lust, and that triggered her own which made her uncomfortable. It was much easier for her to shove it down though, and she had a lot more success than Soul was currently having. But still, even though she could control hers, he undoubtedly could feel it just as clearly as she could feel his, and that was certainly very awkward.

At first their resonance was a bit on the wobbly side due to their discomfort and the newness of this particular situation, but after a while they finally harmonized. They both looked past their problems, and Maka could finally zone out into her soul perception state. As their resonance level increased through the normal stages, Maka found herself going further than ever before. As awkward and strange as it was being skin to skin, there was a level of intimacy there that – as soon as they got past their initial reactions – undeniably drew their souls closer and increased their resonance level exponentially.

She could see far and wide, more so than before, and wondered just how close she was to the moon. Directing her perception upwards, she strained to see the moon. This time, she got a vague sense of getting close to a large mass, and something else, but she just couldn't go that last little bit to get a clear picture.

This was their highest resonance rate to date. They were resonating so tightly that she could plainly feel every little sensation, thought, and feeling of Soul's, as if they were one and the same person. But she still couldn't quite reach her ultimate goal, and the failure discouraged and frustrated her to no end. Frustration boiled up in her chest and soul, hot and angry and disgusted with herself for the perceived weakness – blown out of proportion considering just what it was they were trying to do. They had gotten close to the moon, a feat probably impossible for anyone else, but Maka still wasn't satisfied. It was ridiculous, and she knew it. However, she just couldn't help but feel the sting of failure tug at her tear ducts as she returned to her body.

The saving grace, as always, was Soul. His wavelength cooled and calmed her own, soothing her and telling her that she was doing great, and they'd make it, and just be patient. She could feel his own frustration, but it was a temporary thing, quickly replaced with exasperation at her for being so ridiculous. It was a warm, fond exasperation, one tempered by his affection for her, but it still gave her a little slap which helped to clear her head.

Their souls slowly disentangled from each other until they were once again separate people.

As soon as they were fully back to themselves, they instantly became highly aware of their naked states once again. Maka quickly stepped away, and hastily dressed, chagrin and amusement tempering her irritation from before. The amusement stemmed largely from how Soul had flared hot again as soon as he came back to earth with her and re-realized their naked bodies, and how his body responded instantly. She felt the rebirth of his hard on prod her - which had prompted her to step away - but she also had to force back amused chuckles.

Sure, she was embarrassed, and it was still awkward and arousing, but somehow the situation just turned her into a stupid giggly girl dealing with her first naked boner. Her tummy fluttered, and the last dregs of frustration eased from her chest, though it hung around in the subconscious tightness of her muscles. She'd definitely end up with knots. It was a small price to pay though, to rediscover that dicks weren't disgusting. Soul's wasn't at least - and hadn't been for a while now - but this just reaffirmed that notion.

After this, she felt a newfound confidence.

So, it was with a calm expression that she turned back around and met Soul's eyes. Sending him a small, awkward grin, she cleared her throat and said, "Well, that was interesting. Not exactly how I'd imagined us to be naked together for the first time, but it was certainly educational."

He just rolled his eyes and then grumbled. "At least you aren't freaked out."

"It was a little disconcerting." She admitted, and then shrugged. "But it turned out to not be so bad."

Her comment was met with a snort and he shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched over to the door. She hurried to join him, and they exited together. Stein was waiting outside of course, his glasses gleaming.

Author's Note:

I hope everyone enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I had fun writing it. It's probably one of my favorite funny scenes when they are naked.

So, a little fluff before the storm. We've got a couple more fluffy chapters and then the shit will hit the fan.

As always, a huge thanks to everyone who reviewed. You guys are all absolutely amazing.

Speaking of reviews, I'm gonna start implementing a new rule on all my stories, and just see how it goes. I'll start low though so no worries. If I get five reviews on a chapter, when I post the next chapter I'll put a sneak peak for the one after that - and it will be a good sneak peak, something funny or epic. Then, as unlikely as I think it is, if I get ten reviews on a chapter, I'll post the next chapter early. I just figured I would try this out, since I've seen so many other authors do it. :D