Author's Note: Remember when I said one more chapter? I only lied a little. Originally it was one more chapter, but then it broke my "no more pushing 10,000 words" rule, so I split it up. That means the actual last chapter is basically done too and only needs a little polish at this point! Then it's a little epilogue and on to the next story! Much excitement. Any way, continued gratitude to you all for reading, hopes that you'll enjoy the chapter, and added wishes of health, safety, and kindness from me to you!
In all honesty there were several warning signs that Vera simply ignored; a couple of telltales beating just below the floorboards that should've tipped her off. The pain looking at Maka's shining form, this light that was more pillar than human, caused not just her eyes but her entire skull. The sense of unshakable normalcy she felt as if she were in a bizarre dream, enacting a script written entirely by the random firing of neurons. The parasitic connection to Soul, like she was leaching something from him, like separation from his source was the most unallowable thing that could occur under these circumstances. All just shadows to her, figments from a reality she could no longer see. Or perhaps it was nothing so willful, perhaps the fact she hadn't noticed was a flag all its own. Regardless it wasn't until the trio emerged onto the street and Vera felt her first swell of absolute terror in this nightmarish landscape that she began to grasp just how wrong her perceptions were.
For the most part the outside looked like the inside, transparent walls made of red-black goo housing little blue flames like stars in the night sky. The artery of Black Blood domed up from the cobblestone, pulsating slowly, winding through the streets and out into the sand. A thread made of flesh. She could see the vehicles like a mirage, motorcycles and ATVs, and she could see what she assumed to be Soul's friends. Not their bodies (only Soul existed to her in this world), nor their souls, but some kind of symbolic representation of their… what would be a good word… truth? Serene purple mist which kept a raging fire from spreading, two orbs of pink orbiting and balancing each other. And front and center was a towering, horrible, petrifying void with edges of jagged static.
"What's up," Soul asked, feeling her tense in his arms.
"I- um," Vera licked her lips, feeling at once very safe in Soul's arms and deeply uncomfortable. "What's directly in front of us? Or maybe who? I don't know."
"What… you mean Kid," he tried, frowning and looking between the two.
"The Reaper."
The title just slid out, not her word for him or even one she really would've thought to use. But apt nonetheless. It was common knowledge that Death's son went by Kid, and that by extension of being Death's son he too was a Reaper. A natural enemy of magic. It was at that moment that she made the connection between the prey-like worry squirming in her gut and the magic that had to have been flowing through her veins for her to be seeing any of this at all. She had access, true, but just as before she was not in control. A vessel.
"Is there a problem," Kid inquired, stepping forward and frowning as Vera retreated even deeper into Soul's chest.
"Nope! No problem! Everything's fine," she sputtered, shrinking from his devouring silhouette.
Kid couldn't hear Vera's assurances because Vera hadn't actually vocalized them. He just continued to look at the pair, expectant and skeptical. Which, of course, made Vera even more uncomfortable.
"I said it's fine! Now get away from me," she yelled, eliciting a wince from Soul, magic writhing beneath his skin.
"Vera's tapped into the Black Blood," he clarified, tensing himself as the reality of what they were doing threatened to surface in his thoughts. "Not really sure what's happening there, just that I'm the only one who can hear her and she does know how to find Crona. Got anything I can drive with her here? She says she needs to keep contact with my scar to guide us or something."
"Or something," Kid agreed, though his own concern was evident in his tone. "Come with me then. This one should work."
Everyone else watched, restraining comments with varying levels of valor, and then situated themselves on their transportation. Vera didn't have to look to see them. Without turning her head she saw everyone and everything, or at least a version of it. She didn't like having the Reaper flying next to them on what could only be described as a magic skateboard, nor was she particularly keen on Maka staying on their other wing. It was the Black Blood that was upset, she knew that, just as she knew it should concern her how readily the whims of the Black Blood affected her mood. Yet she couldn't bring herself to think about it, to be critical. Soul had said they needed her to let this, whatever this was, happen, and she understood he was right. This… change, this alteration burrowing into her, it was the only way to find Crona. The only way to save him, to undo what she'd allowed her hatred to knot. Her fate, her penance, her rebirth, or perhaps all three. Regardless, by the time they'd woven through the stone outcroppings and arrived at the entrance to Pendra's cave, Vera felt this terrible, freeing certainty that she would never again be what she once was.
"Is this it," Soul's voice brought her back from her musings. "You said at the end of this corridor, but it's a dead end."
"No it's not," she whispered, fixating on the thick, pulsating artery just beside them. "They've all come together, all the threads woven into one, one source, in the cave just ahead. It has to be Crona but he's… alone. Why did she leave him alone?"
"We should've known," scoffed Maka, drawing everyone's attention as she dismounted her bike and shook her head in disgust.
"Indeed," agreed Kid, choosing to remain airborne to avoid getting sand anywhere on his person. "It's an ideal place to hide, just on our doorstep and imbedded with veins of magnetite."
"What are you two going on about," prodded Black Star, lacing his hands behind his head. "What's so special about some dumb rocks? Is Crona here or not?"
"I couldn't tell you," Maka snapped back, snarling. "Magnetite produces magnetic fields which disrupt any kind of wavelength sensing, including Soul Perception. That's what makes this an ideal place. That's why Professor Stein and I couldn't find either of them, even though Pendra's not strong enough to know Soul Protect."
"Vera says he's definitely here," Soul interjected, refocusing the team. "She says there's a cave entrance somewhere in front of us and that Pendra's left him alone."
"Then this is our chance," said Kid, readying Liz and Patty's pistol forms.
"I agree. Now, before the witch can do anything to stop us," Maka nodded, smiling an almost malicious smile at the thought of thwarting Pendra for once. "Soul, can Vera be any more specific than "somewhere in front of us?" What's she seeing?"
"Vera can still hear you," she grumbled, giving Maka her first direct glare since she'd connected to the Black Blood and savoring her wince before returning her opalescent eyes to the stone. "Okay, there's a- a point of magic at the peak of that boulder literally right in front of us. It might be some kind of illusion? I don't know; I don't know what you people can and can't see."
"Kid, shoot the top of that boulder," Soul paraphrased, supporting Vera with one arm and pointing with the other.
Not needing to be told twice, Kid rained down a barrage of soul bullets onto the entire rock. Most seemed to simply pass through, but others made an impact. The stone released a stream of compressed air from its crest, a twinkle of light, and then there was no more stone. Only darkness, hungry and yawning, the cave Vera had told them was there finally exposed. Black Blood pulsed with a quickened heartbeat, urgent, and both Soul and Vera flinched.
"I need you to let go," he whispered just to her, dismounting their ride and setting her feet in the sand. "Whatever happens, Maka's going to need me now. Don't worry, we'll protect you, but you need to let go."
"I know," she breathed back, willing herself to do it, prying her body away from Soul's and the Black Blood within. Or maybe it was something else entirely. "Give me a second, I just- damn, I didn't think this would be hard. Okay, here I go."
And she ripped her palm from his scar, taking a few steps back and pulling the aching limb into her stomach. It hurt, like a cramp in her tendons, pushing it's way up her forearm. She hadn't expected it to hurt. Well, she hadn't expected any of it to be perfectly honest, but especially not the pain. Not the cold. The yawning dark of the cave and the Madness within. The ease with which it corroded her mind without Soul to act as a buffer. To what had she agreed?
"Okay, let's do this," exclaimed Black Star, smiling with optimistic excitement and cracking his knuckles.
"Wait," chided Kid, holding out one arm to indicate Black Star and Tsubaki should halt their approach. "We need some contingency plans. Just because the witch isn't there does not make Crona free of her influence. Will he be amenable to us all storming in at once or should we send Maka first? Would even she be safe if she went in alone?"
"Of course," Maka hissed back defensively, willfully forgetting earlier events that suggested otherwise. "I can handle Crona, especially without that witch around to twist him."
"Soul," Kid pressed, not persuaded.
"It's not like before…" he started, trailing off and squinting at the black entrance as if that might compel it to be more forthcoming. "Usually with Crona the Madness is wild and he's just lost inside this… this vortex that's trying to pull me in too. Now there's definitely Madness but it's controlled somehow."
Eyes within the cave that were less portals to the soul and more akin to the gut in which souls dissolved. In which her soul would dissolve and join the bolus on which the Madness feasted. Where her hands would become the gummy and contorted hands of shadow shot with blood that clawed out onto the sand. Vera shuddered and took an unnoticed step back, shaking her head, wondering why the visions hadn't stopped when she'd disconnected from Soul's Black Blood. And at the same time feeling her answer spread through her body with every convulsion of her hammering heart.
"Somehow controlled… or it's in control," said Tsubaki, bringing a fist to her chest and holding her pain and memory there. "And he's gone past the point of redemption, past where we can follow-"
"Don't say that," Maka yelled with so much force she almost bent herself in half, forcing stillness and unyielding desert light to take the place of strategizing. "Don't say that. Don't you dare even think it. I thought none of us were giving up on Crona, I thought that's why we came."
"No one's giving up on Crona- I haven't given up on Crona," Tsubaki insisted, frowning with only the slightest traces of indignation. "I just- I stand by what I said before, that we must let Crona make his own choices, and I'm afraid of what that means."
The ooze spread forward from the cave entrance, drawn to what now pulsed in her body, called by it. A sinking, paralytic horror twisted around Vera as she watched it come, as she understood its intentions with distance-based clarity. This nightmare, this terror given form, it was Crona's. His Madness and his envoy, a sick greeting or perhaps an insidious first strike. Because he knew they were there. Vera whimpered, willing her body to move away from the advancing sludge and outright sobbing when nothing happened, a dry, airy noise that also went unnoticed. Of course he knew; Crona was the source, the marrow upon which this new power of hers had become reliant. He could sense her as readily as she could him. He could do more- was going to do more than that. There was nothing she could do to stop him, no place she could go to escape. This was part of the deal.
"We've already come this far guys," encouraged Liz's disembodied voice from Kid's left hand. "Sitting on our hands out here arguing isn't going to solve anything. I don't want to go down into some witch's cave of horrors any more than you do and I do not want to see Crona like he was, but what choice do we have?! Let's play it by ear if we have to, but let's do something!"
Cold bit at her feet as the slime reached them, encasing her up to her ankles with dendrites from the main body. The rest coalesced, rising up from the sand and solidifying, growing distinctive characteristics and pigment. Uneven pink hair, near translucent skin, a sharp chin and a tiny upturned nose. Eyes blacker than the blood that raged within. Another shudder contorted her body when his long fingers curled around her wrist, pulling her fist from her stomach. With his other hand he uncurled that fist, revealing a thin, black line like a brand where her palm had made contact with Soul's scar. A mark through which she'd accessed his Black Blood… and been contaminated by it.
"I couldn't agree more," Maka all but snarled, redirecting her aggression to the cave entrance. "The pendant should be saturated with my wavelength by now. Crona designed it himself; it'll work, even if I have to hold him down until it does."
"Please," begged Vera in an undertone, forcing her still opalescent eyes to look into the void of Crona's stare. "I'll tell them whatever it is that you want to say, you don't need to force me."
"Hey Soul, Maka," Black Star said in a low, sharp tone, his narrow gaze sliding to Vera, his body tensing as it sensed a threat his mind didn't yet perceive. "She do this often?"
"Vera, whatever it is, cut it out," Maka scolded hotly without turning. "We don't have time for your drama. Stay back and let us take it from here."
If Vera heard her she didn't show it. She just stood there a few paces away from the group, right hand raised and flat like she was holding a platter. Her body was trembling despite the desert heat and her breath was shallow. Then she jerked, wincing away from something or perhaps straining against whatever force held her still.
"Vera," Soul asked, moving towards her and noticing with mounting alarm that the closer he got, the more his skin seemed to crawl. "Vera, what's happening? What do you see?"
"Please," she tried again, deaf to their calls. "Please, Crona, don't do this to me. You don't need to- more than that, I know you don't want to."
"Why are you still trying," Crona whispered, looking at her with eyes that were both immeasurably empty and immeasurably sad. "Even after everything you've seen, even after everything you've experienced, how can you still not understand?"
"Crona stop!"
She was shouting now, all pretense of calm gone as hysterics took the helm. He held onto her, unfazed by her squirming, pressing his palm to hers, accessing the bridge of Black Blood she had created. Soul froze at the edge of Crona's influence, tensing, excluded from this particular transaction.
"That's alright though," Crona continued, dropping his gaze to their hands and looking even more dejected. "I can make you understand. Now I can make everyone understand. What I want… doesn't matter."
The sheer magnitude of events that occur in a single measurement of time, in one instant by any definition, is outside the human capacity to comprehend. And honestly there is rarely a need for any person to even try. That which is immediately perceptible is sufficient for most moments; however, there are situations in which unchained perception becomes overwhelming and that fraction of events that gets through drowns all thought and reason. There was a sequence, but only because time is unidirectional and events by this definition must cascade. But exactly what that sequence was was anyone's guess.
Crona's mirage seeped through Vera's skin and turned the bulging blue veins climbing her arm pitch black. Soul's head about literally split open and he crumpled. Vera let out a piercing, sustained scream that oscillated like the tolling of a bell. And black, thorny vines burst both from the cave entrance and Vera's back, catching them in a net of blood.
"Soul," Maka cried, skidding through the sand and kneeling beside him, grasping at his chest in an attempt to haul him back to his feet both with physical strength and her Anti-Magic Wavelength.
"What is this," squealed Liz, the face that reflected across her pistol form looking terrified, disgusted, and enraged all at the same time.
"Be careful," cautioned Tsubaki, transforming into a chained scythe in Black Star's hands. "It's beneath the sand too."
"Vera," Soul grunted, forcing himself to look up at her with moderate success, though she did not look back or acknowledge him in any way.
Her body shifted, one arm reaching across her chest to grab the other above the elbow, toes turning inward ever so slightly, back straightening, attempting good posture even as her chin dipped forward and to one side to counter it. The knitting of her eyebrows, the slight downturn of her mouth, the way her hair fell across her face, everything about her looked like Crona. When she looked up at them through her long, dark lashes, her eyes were milky white and swirling with black like a monochrome reflection of blood in water. And when she spoke, it was with Crona's distinctive whine.
"I won't let you kill me. I've decided that much, at least. And if you try, or if you get in my way, I'll have to kill you. You should know that."
"I'd like to see this chick try," scoffed Black Star, always enthusiastic for a fight regardless of the cause or opponent.
"That's not Vera speaking," chastised Kid, the strain of ignoring the absolutely chaotic weave of bloody vines evident in his voice. "It's the Blood- it's Crona! I wasn't prepared for something like this… it's making me sick…"
"Hold it together," cautioned Liz sternly, though her reflected eyes never left Vera and her features didn't soften as they were prone to do when she addressed Kid. "There's no time for that. Just look at the sand."
"Crona," Maka whispered gently, frowning and squeezing Soul. "Crona, why would you think we'd come to kill you? Why would you just assume something like that? What has she done to you?"
"You ask a lot of questions. I ask questions to; I can't stop. That's why I won't let you kill me, because I still have questions."
"Then…" she licked her lips and frowned, trying her best to be cunning and not get too hung up on little things like how Crona seemed to be literally possessing Vera or the following, inevitable consequences. "Then come back to Death City with us and you can ask your questions there. I'm sure the library and Professor Stein can help."
"Yes Crona," chimed in Tsubaki, hope like a silver lining around her voice. "I once told you how asking questions is Professor Stein's hobby, do you remember? You could do it together again, if you like, if you come back with us."
"I won't let you trick me either," Vera- Crona shot back, almost irritated. "You've come to kill me, there's no other reason for any of you to be here. Most of you will dissolve easily, but as I am now, as I have become, the Anti-Magic Wavelength will hurt me. It could kill me and I will not die. I know I should, I know I must, but I can't, not yet, not when there are so many questions-"
"Please," Maka cut him off sharply, imploringly. "Please come out; we have to go back now! Please at least come out and talk to us now, while the witch is gone-"
"Pendra's not gone, she's dead," he corrected, looking Maka right in the face with Vera's haunting stare. He didn't elaborate.
"Then… you're free," it was impossible to tell whether Soul was stating a fact or asking a question, though he did draw Crona's attention.
"Free? No. No I'm not free. I've never been free and I will never be free. I don't know why I ever thought differently, I can't remember why I tried so hard for so long…" he trailed off, looking pensively into the sand for a moment before something there enraged him and he yelled: "Stop trying to distract me! Why are you still here? Go away! I don't want to hurt you- I don't want to hurt anyone! Don't make me do it! Just go away so I don't have to do it!"
"No! We're not going away! We're not leaving, not without you," Maka shouted back, her eyes flicking meaningfully to Soul. Understanding, he pushed himself away from her and transformed into a scythe. "And if I have to beat you senseless to bring you back with me then fine."
"You're so confusing; I don't have time for it. If you want a fight then fine, you can fight. It's better that way, it's better that you don't leave either."
Maka opened her mouth to say something provocative and abrasive, but is seemed Crona had already made up his mind. Vera's body went suddenly lax and she staggered sideways, her hair further obscuring her face as she turned it towards the sand. No one made a move to steady her, no one dared get close enough. For those that could feel it Madness saturated the air, and those that couldn't still sensed a powerful, malicious intent. Her voice returned to her, scratching at her throat in a dry giggle that quickly escalated into brays so loud they had to be vibrating her clenched teeth. Once again she looked up at them with milky eyes stained with black, but this time the black had coalesced over her pupils. It was clearly not a part of her eye, not the actual hole through which light passed to her optic nerve, but it had taken its place, churning in viscous currents and showing her god-knows what kinds of nightmares. Nightmares that didn't disturb her any more; on the contrary, the manic upturn of her lips seemed to suggest she was… enjoying them.
"I can see your future," she hummed, chortling further and taking up a wide, square stance. "Or maybe I should say futures plural, a million deaths in a million ways. Am I the only one that finds this funny? Come on, it can't be just me. What about ironic?"
"Vera," said Soul, sharp and urgent. "Listen to me, what you're experiencing right now is the Madness of the Black Blood. Try to calm down. Don't just believe everything that comes into your head, those thoughts aren't yours. Try to remember yourself, your real self, and what you want-"
"This is what I want," she snarled before her features rearranged into what would best be described and a flirtatious, teasing grin. "Silly. That's why it's so funny. This fire inside me has been trying to come out- needing to come out, and I couldn't let it no matter how desperately I tried. I wanted to hurt Crona- to kill him, but now I am his vector so that's no good. Then I wanted to kill Pendra but he's already done that too. It's okay, I guess, fire's not picky. I'll just have to kill you all instead!"
"If you do that then there will be no going back," Soul pleaded, his crimson eyes made harder by the steel of his blade.
"Who says I want to go back! And a cool guy like you? I'll bet you won't want to go back either. You're so cute when you make that concerned face; it'll be even cuter covered in blood. Blood that I'll turn Black."
Tongue running over her lips as if preparing for something delicious, she held up her right hand, showing them her knuckles and the black plasma that swam around them and between her fingers. Then with an artistic flick of her wrist she held up a palm, snickering at the symphony of gasps and grunts it elicited. Across what palm readers refer to as the head line there was a thin gash and inside that gash tiny vines like baby centipedes writhed. Then began to exit, coiling around her, crisscrossing up to her elbow. For a moment longer she savored their horror, satisfied at last with the pain she was causing. Or maybe it was the pain she was about to cause.
"Don't let them touch you," warned Kid, dodging upwards preemptively as Vera tensed her hand, sending those thorns not participating in the net towards him.
"Too slow," she laughed, redirecting the vines right with her pointer finger and narrowly missing Beelzebub.
"How can he be too slow," taunted Black Star, rushing towards her with Tsubaki's chain in full swing. "When you're not even moving?"
The weight of the chain wrapped around her encased arm, locking into place before she'd even turned towards him. With a sharp tug Black Star pulled her off balance, forcing her to stumble right into his charged palm. Lightning coursed past her hardened blood and through her abdomen, causing her to scream with both rage and pain. Her livid gaze locked with his for just a moment before she redirected her vines. Tsubaki untangled her chain, allowing Black Star to dodge nimbly away at the last second, avoiding the blow but not the wave of sand it kicked up.
"You'll regret that," Vera warned. "Regret and agony, those will be your last sensations. I'm going to make sure of it."
"Vera stop," pleaded Soul, reaching out in the only way he could. "Stop before you do something you can't take back!"
"Don't be boring. There's no reason to be such a buzz kill, just because I'm having fun and you're not. You brought me to this party, remember? Don't get all uppity when I finally start enjoying myself."
"Ignore her," ordered Kid, speeding between them and raining bullets down on Vera before she'd finished with Black Star, keeping her attention away from Maka and Soul. "You both need to get to Crona."
"Vera," he tried again, a note of desperation that was rarely heard in Soul Evans's voice slipping through.
"Soul," Maka murmured, bringing his blade close to her face. "I understand you promised to protect her, but right now the best way to do that is to get to Crona. He's overwhelmed her, but if we can get his Madness under control hers should calm down too, right?"
"Damn it," Soul growled, not looking away from the battle. "God damn it Vera."
Still, she could feel his resignation in their resonance. Noiselessly she took a step back towards the cave entrance, then another. Tsubaki's blade clanged against the crystalline Black Blood, deflecting it and opening up Vera's ribs for another session with Black Star's soul wavelength. More vines burst from the sand at her feet and forced him to redirect, back flipping to a safer distance to avoid contact with their poisonous thorns. Maka turned and decided to make a run for it. Vera noticed, mobilizing the Black Blood in spite of Kid's barrage.
"Oh no you don't," she shouted, calling to the vines at the entrance, bringing the monsters in the dark to life. "He doesn't want to see you! He doesn't want you down there! Stay away!"
There were other voices, yelling, commanding, cautioning, but she didn't hear any of them. Maka kept her focus, sprinting, willing her body to make it. The Black Blood was closing the hole, pulling together like a sphincter, trying to deny her passage and trap her outside. It would not succeed. With a savage cry Maka launched herself, holding Soul out so his blade passed through while the hole was still wide enough for him. Cold seeped from the vines like a dense fog; she could feel it all through her body as she, too, barely made it into the cave. She hit the ground and rolled just as the blood finished its task, blocking out all sound and sunlight from the outside world. Sealing her in with her fate.
