His whole index finger is transformed into a flat, sharp blade – curved towards the ground.
She reaches out to touch it, almost in a ghost-like trance, and when her fingers first contact the cold, hard metallic substance, she gasps. An electric shock crackles through her entire body, her soul, and her hand whips back as if she's been stung.
She stares searchingly up at his face
"W-what the hell?" she chokes out.
His fingers transform back into human fingers and she swears, loudly, running a shaking hand through her hair. "Fuck, Soul. What is this?"
"Ever heard of Shibusen?"
"Yes, of course I've heard of Shibusen. I thought it was a myth! Everyone thought it was a myth! Are you seriously telling me that the stories of are really true? There's actually…" she swallows, pausing in between her sentence. "You mean there's actually people out there who can…"
"Who can turn into weapons, yeah." He sighs. "I didn't want to tell you. I thought you'd react this way-"
"You're a demon! You're an actual demon, shit, Soul, I trusted… I trusted you," she chokes out, terrified. She backs away as Soul pinches the bridge of his nose, frustrated. "Stay away from me!"
"Maka, I'm not going to hurt you," he says quietly, his voice a little hoarse.
"Why should I believe that? I'm not an idiot. You…" realisation dawns on her. "That's why you never use a gun when you hunt. That's why you joined the 'military' at fourteen. That's why… that's how you cut open my arm."
"I didn't mean to do that, Maka, I was trying to save you," he pleads. "Please, listen to me."
"She backs away further. "I need to get out of here. I need to go. I can't be with you."
"Fine, fine." He says, giving in. "Just… let me drive you somewhere where you'll be safe, please." He eyes her for a second, desperate. "Just… for me."
"She scowls and shakes her head. "No. No. I have to go…" she sets off to leave but after a second, realises where they are. They're in the middle of nowhere; nothingness spread out around them for miles at a time.
"Maka. Please listen to me-"
"You lied to me. You're evil." She spits.
He's got to admit, he has a pretty high threshold for pain, these days. Even so, that had hurt.
She's not sure why she's so angry suddenly, but she is. She's angry, and panicking, and her mind is clouding with thoughts as her vision begins to warp.
His fists are tightened balls of stress but his voice is outwardly calm. "I never lied."
"You lied by omission. I never would have travelled for so long with someone so dangerous," she blurts. "You could have killed me."
"I would never have intentionally hurt you."
"Maka stumbles and steadies herself on a nearby tree, her breathing erratic. Soul doesn't step forward but tries to calm her. "You're okay, Maka. You're just panicking. It's gonna be okay."
"Okay. Okay." She breathes.
"Just focus on your breathing, yeah?" Soul asks, his eyebrows still tightly woven together.
Yeah," she replies, breathlessly. "Got it. Gimme… gimme a second."
It takes a few minutes before the world stops clouding over and the panic centre in her brain decides to once again give way to her prefrontal cortex, and she stands up straight, straightening her dirty jacket as she does so. She's embarrassed. Especially seeing as Soul just witnessed that entire breakdown and is still, for some reason, waiting for her to calm down.
"You're a little better now?"
"Yeah," she replies, awkwardly. "Sorry. I, uh… I don't know. My brain…"
"It's actually a pretty normal reaction to seeing something like that for the first time, believe it or not." He chuckles. "Imagine my reaction when I first found out, age fourteen." He muses. Then, his tone turns serious again. "I understand if you don't trust me anymore. But Maka, if you think that I'm going to abandon you in the middle of nowhere, you've got another thing coming. You're getting in my truck and I'll drive you somewhere safe. Then, we can decide what to do."
She swallows.
And then, they walk back to the truck together.
She stares out of the window the entire way to Salt Lake, not saying a word.
He doesn't really try for conversation either. His driving speeds up in tandem with the heaviness of tension buzzing almost audibly between them. The roar the of the engine is the thing that Maka focuses on to keep herself from hurling herself out of the window.
She feels alone, again.
No, that's not it – she doesn't feel alone. She should feel alone, because she's currently sitting in a car with someone who could snap at any moment and slice her from head to toe, and she'd be completely defenceless – but she doesn't.
She wants to hate him, she wants to fear him, but it's not quite that.
She's terrified of the feeling of electricity she felt when she touched him.
What had that feeling been?
She's never felt anything like it.
Maybe it was a weapon thing? She doesn't know how it worked, it was entirely possible.
It was also entirely plausible that Maka's hallucinating mind had made the whole thing up. There was, she realised, a distinct possibility that she was sitting in her bathtub back in Colorado, foaming at the mouth, having completely lost her marbles.
She studied solipsism, she studied existentialism. She knows that there's no merit behind those one-way tickets to paranoia-avenue.
Besides, it's not like she'd never heard of people becoming weapons, before. It was the sort of thing that was treated the same as religion, or ghosts. Some people believed in it, some people thought it was a load of nonsense. Personally, Maka had been on the side of nonsense; with all three.
A strong part of her is itching to know more about it, but an even stronger part holds back.
A third, more tender part of her knows that she's hurt his feelings, and that she should apologise.
She holds back that one, too.
