They made short work of packing their things.
"What do you think?" Soul said, shouldering a duffle bag. "Send a line to the others?"
Maka shook her head as she zipped up her own bag. "I think we've got it. The thing's soul is slippery, but it's nothing we haven't handled on our own before. Let's let them sleep in."
"Sounds like a plan."
She shoved something against his chest and his fingers gripped it automatically. It was a packet of pills, and she held out a water bottle with a smirk. He considered protesting on principle, but they had a pre-kishin to fight, and he probably shouldn't go in swinging with nausea and a headache. As he took a swig of water to force down the medicine, he noticed that she hadn't bothered to tie up her hair like usual.
After a quick flight down to the base of the mountain, they stashed their stuff - including their heavy jackets - in a locker at a visitor's center and resonated again to pinpoint their target's location before they headed out. Something in their souls still felt like dragging nails across a chalkboard. It didn't sit well with him. They were banking on things working out like they always did, but he couldn't halt a nagging memory from years ago, when they'd been out of sync and Maka had nearly taken a fatal nosedive off a bridge because they couldn't get their shit together.
Clouds gathered overhead.
They were traipsing through thick rainforest and past the occasional small waterfall when the sky split open and dumped rain everywhere. Soul shook his sopping hair out of his eyes and leaned back to catch sweet rainwater on his tongue. Mud sucked at their shoes and the thick perfume of decaying greenery rose up from the forest floor. At least it would mask their approach.
He cast a glance at Maka and she nodded, pointing. "It's just up ahead. I can feel it."
Between the trees, there was a glint and a light shone directly in his eyes. He raised his hand and blinked, trying to clear the spots. It send a little spike into his head, stirring the headache that was laying dormant.
"There," Maka whispered as they hunched behind a large banyan tree. Soul leaned carefully around, squinting through the rain and mindful of flashing his distinctive hair at their mark. A spindly figure moved between the trees nearby, showing its back. He couldn't get a good read on it. Its skin was all wrong, shifting and glistening in the damp.
He shifted around near Maka and raised his eyebrows at her. "Got a plan?"
"I don't think we even need to resonate," she said. "It's not paying attention. Sneak attack. Wham, bam, done."
"Works for me," he said, taking her offered hand and changing form.
Maka rested him along her arm, letting his scythe stretch out above her head while she scoped the target. Her body tensed for an instant, and then she sprinted across the ground, dodging expertly between trees. The weird, glossy pre-kishin started to stand and turn its head, but it never completely made it. Soul's blade split the air.
The thing shattered into a million pieces, scattering into the undergrowth.
They stood stock still, frozen in the stance of their final blow. Maka blinked once, twice.
"What?" they said together.
Echoing laughter sounded somewhere to their right, then their left, then ahead. Maka whipped around, trying to pinpoint it. Like the decoy's skin, the noise shifted like an illusion, never the same twice.
"Damn it," Maka said, her head going side to side. "Even its soul is moving. I can't narrow it down."
The smallest well of dread started to seep into Soul's consciousness. This wasn't going to be the walk in the park they'd assumed, and their resonance was still a mess.
Shit.
In front of them, a shadow detached from one of the trees, teeth sparkling white in the dimness. Maka gripped Soul more tightly. The skinny creature giggled to the canopy and opened its eyes.
"Ah!" Maka cried as a bright flash of light blinded her. She squinted and blinked, trying to focus.
In scythe form, Soul was less affected. "It went to the southeast," he prompted.
Maka dove after it, holding Soul in front to help keep her from running headlong into anything. The trees were starting to thin when they heard a whistle through the air.
"On your left!" Soul said.
His meister spun and dropped, missing the worst of the first two razor-sharp shards that flew by. The third caught her in the upper arm and she yelled, blood dripping and running over her wet skin.
"You okay?" he said.
"Just a scratch," she gritted through her teeth. "Stings, though."
A cackle stretched behind them and she whirled into a crouch, cutting another dummy at the knees and cursing as it crumbled to pieces around her. She followed the laughter until they hit a clearing. Six smiling glass creatures waited for them in a ring, fingers full of sharpened shards ready to fly. Maka barely managed to bring Soul up in time to block the first assault. She spun her way behind a tree, breathing hard.
"I know I said we wouldn't have to resonate, but..." she said.
He didn't currently have organs to clench, but that didn't stop the flutter of panic flitting through his being. "Maka, I don't know if I can." The words were laced with his own special brand of self-loathing. What the hell kind of Death Scythe was he? He felt fifteen again.
"We don't have a choice," she said.
Their souls reached out and sprang back like they'd been scalded. He pushed hard, fighting himself and growing more and more agitated that he couldn't simultaneously maintain his walls and link with her. His soul turned angry and red all around him.
A creature of shadow and glass darted around the tree and lashed out with sharp, spindled fingers. Maka ducked, but it still managed to catch her hair and yank a lock clean off her scalp. She kept her scream locked behind her teeth, but Soul felt it all along his steel body.
Frustrated and horrified, he flashed back to flesh and let a blade slide out along his forearm, bringing it up to block the thing's next strike. It laughed, shattering itself against every block until its arms were splinters of rain-slick glass. Soul could see his face reflected in its body; a scared little boy playing at being a man. He brought up his leg and kicked it hard in the torso, sending it to crash and break against the tree's roots.
More shards whistled through the air. He retracted his blade and covered Maka with his body, wincing as a sharp edge slashed across his lower back. She was talking to him and he ignored her, shutting his eyes tight and reaching for her soul.
Why couldn't he make it work? He couldn't find her and it was making him panic, making him want to scream at the sky. They were out of step and he hated this feeling, he hated it, had always hated it. Things hadn't jarred and stuck this badly in years. The more he tried to force his heated soul into shape, the more it slipped through his fingers.
She grabbed his hands and pulled him down to crouching in a ditch at the edge of the clearing to avoid the worst of it. They landed in a puddle and it soaked him through.
"I'm here," she said, her voice close to a sob. She furiously tore her gloves off and put her palms flush to his forearms. "I'm right here."
Having her hands on his skin helped, but it wasn't enough, it still wasn't enough. Teeth gritted until he thought they'd break. He was so useless, letting emotion leak out everywhere. He'd let something force cracks into his walls and he was going to get them both killed.
"Focus on me," Maka said. Her hands moved to either side of his head and she made him look at her, rainwater running rivulets down both of their faces.
That was better, but his brain was so hot and tangled.
"I can't," he said, broken. "Maka, I can't make it work. Let me go. Let me protect you."
She stared into him, the resolve on her face hardening. "It's my fault," she said. "I'm sorry for this."
"What're you..." he started.
Then she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. His eyebrows went up a half-tick in surprise before he exhaled through his nose and went with it.
The noise in his ears dulled. There was only her, only him. She drew him in closer with her hands and he obediently followed, drinking her, feeling calm settle into his veins. The knots in him came undone, the infuriating heat cooling and condensing. He didn't think about anything but how right it felt as their souls clicked into place.
The kiss broke and she rested her forehead on his. "Okay?"
"Okay," he said. "I'm good. Let's do this."
She had distracted him just enough to clear the worst of his panic, and he used the breather to build up the blockade against the part of him going more of that, let's do more of that, pretty please.
Instead, their souls spoke to each other without words, formulating a plan through a series of nudges and images. They pulled apart, climbing out of the ditch and moving to separate trees to draw the fire of the five remaining reflections. When the coast cleared while the enemy regrouped, Soul moved around the trunk and walked into the clearing, Maka doing the same and meeting him in the middle. He crossed in front of her, brushing his fingers across her belly and smirking over his shoulder.
"Kick their asses," he breathed into her ear.
His flesh turned to steel and she rolled him in her palms. The monsters clicked their fingers together and cackled. His meister only smiled and sank into a crouch. Rain pattered over the ground as her eyes slid from creature to creature, her Soul Perception searching deep inside to find the real one. Soul could understand the trouble - the thing's soul was a slimy little toad, slipping from body to body, distorting so they could never quite get a read on it.
They'd just have to destroy them all, then.
Maka whirled into action, deflecting projectiles and bounding across the clearing with deer-like grace. She slashed through the air, felling three of the things in seconds and leaving their bodies in pieces on the soaked ground. When she hit the fourth, she slashed upward, shattering it into the air to get lost in the rain.
Too easy, they both thought, and they were right.
Their last target shimmered and disappeared, going invisible in the downpour. Maka poured her perception into Soul and he poured it back again, building it up and stretching it further, but it was no use.
Without warning, the air around them flashed like a hundred cameras going off at once, brilliant light sparking off of water and glass slivers and whatever other reflective surface it could reach. Maka yelled and raised her arm to her eyes, but her sight was temporarily shot. Soul felt her seethe, furious she got taken in again by such an underhanded tactic.
Clacking overhead caught his attention.
"Above!" he yelled at her, and she managed to roll out of the way just in time for the glass puppet to slam down in the place she'd been standing, its sharp fingers sinking into the earth.
She blinked and shook her head, trying to force her vision clear and focus through the spots and raindrops. The thing moved fast, blending into its surroundings and coming at them. Soul rode Maka's instinct and moved of his own accord, shielding her from the worst of it. The cuts she received were minor, and with a combination of his guidance and her skill, she was able to land the first real blow.
A crack appeared in the thing's side, its blood oozing sluggishly down its slick body. It screeched and retreated, going invisible again.
All around them, new monsters sprang into being, their bodies wavering behind the rain like someone stepped in front of a waterlogged mirror.
"Reflections," Soul said, taking in their six new foes. "It's using light and mirror tricks so it can confuse us."
"Great," Maka said, still trying to regain her sight. "Except these things have claws."
"Yeah, that's a problem."
"Come out and fight like a real monster!" Maka yelled as she made a beeline for one of the new clones.
No matter how many they cut down, more sprung up in their place. The clearing was full of flying glass, and the light flashing off it kept Maka half-blind. Her frustration rubbed off on Soul and he pushed her to bring him into full form, to use the keys of his piano to blast them with a sound wave that'd pulverize every last one.
She tried and hit a metaphysical wall.
Both of their minds were tiring, and it took Soul a minute to put the pieces together. Her kiss at the start of the battle had bought him a little time, surprising him into clearing his mind, but now all of the things he was holding back were taking a toll. The two of them were resonating, but they couldn't get over the hump to reach their true power when he was distracting himself.
There was nothing for it. If he didn't let lessen the pressure soon, they were going to end up cut to ribbons. He sent a burst of mental support to Maka before ducking inside.
He opened his inner eye to the smooth black sea, looking side to side. On his right, the room with the red door waited . So many cracks covered its walls that it looked a thousand years old. On his left, he saw the pulsing swirl of all the heated attraction and lust he'd been keeping at bay, contained in a straining orb of fire.
It was time to make a choice. Something had to give. Release the whispering monsters, or the liquid flame? Whatever he chose, Maka would see.
Luckily, the choice was easy.
He walked up to the fire-filled ball, cocked back his fist, and punched it open. He'd explain later. She'd understand that he couldn't help it.
Orange-gold heat spilled around him, through him, filling his soul and immediately flowing toward the path of least resistance - Maka. On the outside, her breath caught, but she didn't let it distract her. They fused more tightly together, his mind sighing in relief at not having to hold so much back.
He didn't expect the tidal wave that followed when she lowered her own shield. It washed over him and flooded his space with crashing blue-green water.
For a long second, he thought that he was misreading, that his own desire was being mirrored back at him. But this was different. There were things there he knew didn't come from him - a heated coil low in the abdomen, a flush of sticky heat, plain teeth worrying a tender lower lip while eyes roved over a bare back - his bare back -as a tank top fell over it in the early morning light. That was coming from her. She wanted him with a capital W, the same way he'd been pretending he didn't want her - viscerally and completely. His inner eye went wide as a hard, tingling jolt shot across his psyche.
Suddenly, her apology at the start of the battle came clear.
If he'd been using his lungs, the sheer shock of it would have torn the breath clean out of them, but there was no time to think about that now.
He snapped back to the chaos on the surface, his entire metallic body hot and vibrating. Maka's hands gripped him tighter and he felt each individual finger, each pulse of her veins, more acutely than he ever had before. Their souls were so closely linked that he wasn't quite sure where she ended and he began. Every movement she made was his own, and they curled and curved together as they fought their way through the clearing. She leaned back into a deep bend to miss the latest volley of projectiles and he balanced her, bringing her up again before she spun him in front and over her head.
They were fluid, they were grace, they were power.
This time, when the lights popped around them, she closed her eyes in time, trusting and confident. Without a word, he guided her, the ghosts of his incorporeal fingers tracing down her arms and legs from the inside, writing music on sinew, blood vessel, and bone. The image of his mouth appeared on her neck, gently nudging her from side to side and letting her know how to move. When she whirled him around her body, he warmed her like palms grazing over bare skin. He was a specter wrapped around her from behind, all sharp grin and hooded eyes. Try to touch her again, his body said. I dare you.
The pre-kishin was panicking. Its laughter went from malicious to manic, and it launched everything it had. The raindrops around them coalesced into flat mirrors, forming a spinning ring of brightness as it rose higher in the air. Maka smiled, eyes still shut and unaffected by the light.
In tandem, they pushed into one another, his orange swirling with her blue. Building, building, building. His blade lengthened over her, familiar keys spreading down its edge. She threw her head back.
The reflections all attacked at once, and Maka sidestepped them with ease, slashing out until they surrounded her in a broken pile. The spinning mirrors grew brighter. She lowered the scythe until her fingers could reach the keys. He whispered what to play and she found the notes, because she was he and they were the same.
Sound blasted through the clearing, threads of music and spirit finding every mirror, every shadow, every danger. They exploded into dust.
Maka opened her eyes.
Right in front of them, the true pre-kishin staggered, its shell falling to pieces around it. Beneath, its flesh was as slimy as its soul. It looked at them with unfiltered loathing and terror.
They leapt into the air, blade singing, and came down hard.
Time stopped when Maka's boots hit the earth, just for an instant, and then the monster cracked apart. It sent a column of light shooting into the sky, its death scream following close behind. When it faded, the only sound in the forest was falling rain.
Maka breathed in deeply and stood with her head bowed. She stretched her arm to one side, reluctantly loosening her fingers from around her weapon, and let him go.
Soul came out of scythe form the way one slowly wakes from a dream - not quite sure what's real and what belongs to sleep. His feet touched down on solid ground and he leaned forward to absorb the impact. Right in front of him, the soul glowed red and shiny like a ghostly apple, and he reached for it automatically. It gave beneath his fingers as he raised it to his mouth, swallowing it down, relishing the airy burn of it.
The rain lessened, turning from downpour to mist, and the residual enchantment of the pre-kishin still shimmered in the air, light leaping from drop to drop. Sunshine diffused through the water and shattered into colorful sparks across the clearing.
Maka made no noise where she stood behind him, and he didn't turn around. The world didn't contain enough oxygen to clear his head, no matter how many deep pulls he took. Adrenaline made him shiver from his heart to his toes. His resolve was a single strand of spider silk, pulled taut and waiting to break.
Everything would change. Everything had changed, and he knew the moment he turned to her, it'd all be over.
But there was no possible way he could stay still.
One foot shifted of its own accord and he followed its lead, turning inch by inch, pausing for one infinite moment before his gaze finally found her standing a few meters away.
Her wet hair fell in waves around her face, her lips parted as she mirrored his heavy breathing, her chest rising and falling in time. Clothes clung to skin that used to belong to a girl, but she wasn't a girl anymore. Eyes greengreengreen as the forest watched him with pupils wide and dark, despite the light that surrounded her. Her mouth moved, testing the atmosphere, and a single word tumbled out, quiet and inescapable.
"Soul."
He moved. He had no choice. Everything went into fast-forward, blurring and spinning and falling, but he didn't care, because he was almost there.
They came together like a clap of thunder, wild and young, lips meeting and universe exploding all around them in rainbow and sunshower.