Soulbound heroes

by shados960

During the battle on the moon to save the world from the kishin. Maka and soul traveled inside asura’s very being to try save crona who planned to make the ultimate sacrifice to redeem himself. But instead the three are taken from their home and sent to a different world; One filled with heroes and villains. (Chapters 1-4 rewritten)

1. Chapter 1:Three displaced souls

DISCLAIMER: I do not own soul eater nor do I own my hero academia, both are respective properties of studio bones.

Also just a heads up, this story is a crossover of my hero academia and the MANGA version of soul eater; not the anime most authors use.

Why am I using the manga version? Well not only is it regarded as the true canon of soul eater, but I overall believe it to be superior to the anime.

Plus the manga did deliver a far more satisfying ending and was overall more grander than the anime which sadly got a terrible ending. Thus why I prefer to use the soul eater manga, because it nowhere near resulted in the same bad ending as the anime.

Otherwise I hope you enjoy my first story and can satisfy both MHA fans and soul eater fans who probably haven't read a good soul eater fanfic in a LONG time.

If you do enjoy my story please give this fic plenty of reviews, favorites and follows; As well recommend this story to others who are fans of either series'.

And with that let's get the show rolling with the first chapter of soulbound heroes.

---

Chapter One: Three Displaced Souls

Everything had been happening so fast. Maka and Soul never thought they would ever be in this situation, one in which the whole world was at stake, swimming within an endless abyss of black blood inside the kishin's very soul itself. They had always thought, after achieving their dream of becoming a meister/death scythe pair, they'd be like all the others, protecting the world from powerful witches and kishin eggs. It seemed like the destined life for the two students of shibusen, one that they technically accomplished. Just not in the way either one of them ever thought it would be done.

Yet here they were, on the actual moon fighting the kishin himself, with shibusen, and even the witches temporarily aligned for the sake of survival. Both factions were fighting together to save the world from being consumed by madness. It truly was incredible, how a single common enemy could unite two factions no one would ever think could possibly fight together. Witches had always been hunted by shibusen due to the sway of magic always turning them into agents of chaos; who desired only to cause destruction and misery in their power mad frenzy.

That destructive occurrence resulted in the organization's meisters being taught for generations to kill witches before they could cause any disasters. But somehow, Death The Kid (now the new Lord Death) had managed to reason with the Grand Witch, to cooperate in order to defeat that which threatens both the existence of witches and mankind. Such a threat was none other than Kishin Asura, the powerful demon god of fear and madness, who desired to plunge the entire world into eternal insanity; under the twisted belief that his madness of fear would "free the world from the tyranny of the Shinigami".

With shibusen and the witches working to help end the apocalyptic crisis, the 7 best students of shibusen that made up the elite team known as "SPARTOI" fought an epic battle against the kishin God on the moon. After a long climactic fight Maka Albarn, the two-star meister and her Death Scythe Soul Evans; had managed to land a decisive blow on the kishin though their use of the black blood. A powerful and cursed bodily substance, that would grant great power and augment the strength of its users; but at the risk of driving the host into a frenzy of madness.

Soul had become infused with the corruptive substance after their first encounter with the demon swordsman Crona. The death scythe had gained a portion of the sinister blood flowing within his veins though his wounds from that battle. The death scythe was forced over the recent months to try and master it without succumbing to its maddening effects. While there were hiccups here and there, the demon weapon and his meister managed to eventually gain a foothold over the black blood; allowing them to use it to their advantage throughout future battles.

With this very battle against asura being one such fight.

While at first Maka had very briefly succumbed to the black blood's madness, she almost instantly overcame it and regained control of herself to create her new black Grigori dress technique. A black blood armor that granted Maka and Soul a major boost in power, they'd synchronize with Asura's madness wavelength to injure him. Their friends helped the pair in the risky endeavor, hoping it would give them a chance to defeat the kishin once and for all. But for Maka and Soul, it was also to save someone who had once been, and hopefully was still was a good friend. That person being Crona gorgon, son of the snake witch Medusa, a vile woman who had birthed him for the single goal of turning him into a kishin like asura.

Maka's indomitable desire to help Crona was due to how she truly knew that Crona isn't pure evil like his mother. Having entered his soul, Maka witnessed his memories and how he'd been turned into a monster by the horrific past he'd lived through since birth. Medusa wanting to make sure her offspring was physically and mentally suited for her goals, started by experimenting on him and replaced his own blood with the black blood. Medusa going a step further, merged Crona's body with a demon weapon melted into black blood, known as Ragnarök to turn them into the ultimate meister/weapon type being. Afterwards Medusa made her son's life a living hell, forcing him to kill animals and endure other horrific acts of inhuman abuse; for the sole intention of molding him into a mad killer.

With every time he disobeyed or disappointed his "mother", she would lock him up in a dark cold room for weeks without any food or water. This horrific abuse continued until eventually, Crona's sanity had finally broken. Finally when he'd lost his mind from the torturous abuse, he became the living weapon Medusa always wanted. He would go on for many years to slaughter and devour the souls of hundreds of people.

But in the end, Maka knew despite all the blood he'd spilled and how far he'd fallen into the depths of darkness that most people considered him beyond redemption; a chance lingered to save him no matter how small it may be. He was not born a monster, he was broken into one, and thankfully she always believed hope remained for the boy. She had saved from the madness once before. Having gone as far as to purify Crona using her anti-demon wavelength synced with his soul wavelength. But the only way that was feasible was if maka had a madness wavelength of her own to link with crona's...

Indeed, Maka had literally allowed herself to go insane from the black blood's corruptive madness within Soul to save Crona. Using the black blood temporarily bridged their souls together, and allowed for Maka to enter the swordsman's soul on the night his mother successfully resurrected the kishin. Yet even with such a catastrophic event had occurred at the time, it was the very night their close bond had been forged.

The previous Lord Death, before his son very recently ascended, must have seen the same thing she did. As after telling Lord Death the memories, she'd seen within Crona, the reaper had given Crona a chance to be rehabilitated as a trial student in shibusen. Maka along with her many friends helping him to try and live a happier life surrounded by people who truly cared for him. But despite showing great promise of reforming into a normal boy, his wicked mother Medusa had returned to snatch him back. Using her venomous manipulations, she made him betray shibusen and then later brought her son back under her control. All of Maka and Shibusen's work was then undone as she somehow buried his memories of the time, he lived free in Death City. Thus being reverted into the demon swordsman under Medusa's command.

Once Crona had returned to Medusa, he sunk to even deeper levels of madness than before. By fusing with a madness weapon known as the black clown, Crona became much more formidable than before. Later, by using his evolved powers he drowned an entire Ukrainian city in a dome of black blood known as mad blood. Several thousand people were killed in the process; Along with a death scythe and his three-star meister that were stationed there. And later on, after they finally met again many months later, the shibusen student found out to her immense shock that he'd killed his own mother Medusa.

Crona told her how the "Snake Witch" showed motherly affection towards him for the first time in his entire life. But Maka knew better, eventually she figured out why the sick witch had done such an extremely uncharacteristic action. It was so that Crona, due to not being able to handle anything like what Medusa displayed, would make him snap and be fully corrupted by the black blood. Thus, he'd become the monster that Medusa had hoped to create after all those years.

Maka betted even now, as Medusa was rotting in the pits of hell, she was laughing at her and shibusen. Mocking them for having successfully driven Crona to this dark path, and creating the very thing she strived all these centuries for.

A mortal turned kishin.

Indeed, Crona had been able to achieve his dead mother's sinister wish.

His madness wavelength became so powerful, it was able to harmonize with Asura's wavelength. And through his "mad blood technique" he'd absorbed the demon god, becoming a kishin himself as a result. Immediately Crona planned with his newfound power to drown the entire world in madness. But not before Maka, Soul, Blackstar, Tsubaki, and her father Spirit fought Crona to stop him from bringing ruin to the world. All while trying to bring back their old friend to his senses, and save him from himself.

But before they could attempt to reason with Crona, something happened.

Crona suffered a mental breakdown during a critical moment in the heat of battle. Reasons for it were either due to Asura deeming the boy a failure to his expectations or because he took advantage of his moment of weakness. The fallen shinigami had quickly overcome the swordsman's will and taken control of Crona's body. Then Crona's body warped back into Asura's original form, and he resumed his desire to consume the world in his own madness.

Yet in the end Crona may have opened an opportunity for the warriors of shibusen to end the conflict. As Maka and soul realized that the only way to interact and harm the kishin, was to have a powerful synchronized madness wavelength with the god of madness.

And through the black blood the scythe duo developed a controlled madness wavelength in order to sync with asura's own; without succumbing to its corruptive influence. Allowing them to pierce through Asura's transcendent flesh, using their newest death scythe technique "kishin hunter". Creating an opening blow, they charged straight into the kishin's soul. So, while the pair performed their mission to rescue Crona, and find a way to end asura; Blackstar and Kid continued to hold off the kishin on the moon. The prodigy ninja and the newly ascended god of order were giving all their might to fight Asura while Maka and soul tried to find Crona within asura's very being.

Now everything had come full circle to this very moment in the present. Maka and Soul using chain resonance, allowed themselves to dive through a seemingly endless sea of black blood in order to locate Crona's soul wavelength. Hopefully they would be able to both restore their friend's humanity and put an end to the nightmare of the kishin once and for all.

After searching for a short time, Maka through the use of her soul perception managed to spot a familiar robed figure floating aimlessly in the distance of the black void.

---

ASURA'S SOUL

The place was what many would consider to be a primordial void of nothingness. Nothing but emptiness and lifelessness, where the only thing that can be ever seen or barely counted as existing, is the black blood that filled its infinite space. Normally this is what would ever be within a being of fear, a realm of emptiness, where any living soul trapped within would be driven insane; by the fear of such suffocating isolation and nothingness, it was very fitting really.

But that was not the case here.

For where there should be only nothing, there was instead a single figure floating within the sea of blackness. A young, tall statured yet thin boy with short pink hair that possessed several long, large clumps, with bangs straight-cut and ended above his eyebrows. Along with Two long pieces of hair extended from the bangs and hung low over his lavender colored eyes. He wore a long smooth, purely black coat that hid underneath an equally long black robe that tightly fit and ended at the mid-calf level on his legs; completed with large white cuff-links at the ends of each sleeve and a tall white button-up collar at the neck, with a pair of black slipper-like shoes on his feet.

This young man trapped within the abyss was not like any other unfortunate soul caught in it. Especially since he was the one who wrought this upon himself. He was the cause for all of this, the who'd chosen this winding path through the unknown. For anyone else, this would be hell, but for Crona gorgon, this seemed to be a well-deserved punishment as he continued to ponder his situation within the black blood sea.

'Fear, madness, darkness...my soul has been eaten by this darkness, consumed by the fear of the soul eater himself.' Crona gloomily thought, now realizing his current existence here and ever since Asura absorbed him. He'd been able to think deeply on what led him here, along with why he'd driven himself to such actions. 'I tried to escape this grinding feeling...but it was impossible.'

'I wasn't able to overcome the fear by doing that, so I tried to make the fear my own.' Crona continued to deeply ponder, reflecting on everything his actions because of this fear and why he did this, to begin with. Remembering why he'd set himself on this path and why he threw away everything he had begun to cherish.

'I think I just wanted to prove I wasn't the worst... by becoming the lowest of myself.' Crona shamefully admitted as he pondered further into what he's done. 'I betrayed all my friends, killed my mother...and ripped away everything precious from so many people.' Crona recounted, thinking back on all the heinous crimes he'd committed since he began all of this.

But to what end? That single question plagued his mind, he was still trying to understand this feeling inside him.

'I guess it doesn't mean anything, this is nothing more than an excuse.' Crona concluded in despair. He'd seen that while he didn't want to be deemed the worst, it would never excuse his sins. No, his choice was nothing but an excuse to avoid blame, nothing more and nothing less.

"Really... there is no meaning at all." Crona somberly said to himself. In the end he knew there was no point to deny his actions, to try and defend himself.

'How many times... just how many times am I repeating this?' The demon swordsman questioned the cycle of his pathetic behavior. 'Forever it would seem... after all, it is impossible to get away from this darkness... there's nothing for me ahead this way.' Crona accepted in bitter sadness, it seemed there was no hope in resisting his fate. He believed in nothing else but to suffer here within the void for the rest of his existence.

'But I'm still clinging onto this body, yearning for something.' Crona took note of the feeling inside his heart, while he stared at his left hand. The same hand that killed so many people, and somehow this limb along with his body, mind, and soul was still here.

But why?

'Everything else was engulfed by the kishin, blended in completely without leaving any form...yet I'm still clinging on to my own.' Crona wondered why he retained his individuality within the sea of black blood, among the countless souls assimilated by the kishin.

'Medusa's already dead, so I could join her and also die. Isn't it all good if I end this already... nothing is binding me anymore?' Crona thought in a matter-of-fact manner. And he wasn't wrong, there was truly nothing left to live for; he already severed all the connections he had. No one was left that would give him a reason to continue existing... so why not just end it already?

'I could simply throw this body away and say goodbye to my pitiful sense of self. Yet for some reason I'm refusing to do so.' Crona wondered, puzzled by the thought of what kept him from ending his shameful existence already. Then he grimaced in realization as to what kept him hanging by a thread.

'Shameless, aren't I?' Finally, he'd discovered why he allowed himself to continue his existence in the world.

'What a laughable persistence, I do take after my mother after all.' Crona thought with a bitter smile. It was truly hilarious at what kept his meager existence together within this void. Stubborn instincts for survival inherited by his mother were all that forced him to retain his existence within the kishin.

And the mere knowledge of knowing he possessed his parent's tenaciousness disgusted Crona to his very core. Even in death, his mother refused to let his torment end. The child guessed it was in shape or form, one final punishment from beyond the grave for killing her.

'But it doesn't feel like that at all.' His inherent instinct to survive shouldn't have been enough to keep him alive. It was something else, but what? What could possibly be keeping him from dying?

'There's still something I just can't let go of, something I'm still clinging on to.' Crona thought in confusion. But what was it that kept him from finally fading out of existence?

what's keeping him from ending his life?

Then suddenly he realized what it truly was that prolonged his existence, Crona immediately became ashamed by the answer.

'Even I'm repulsed, by this frightful obsession of mine.' That was the answer, it was an obsessive desire for something. Something, or more specifically someone remained that he desperately needed to see and look at one more time. It was that person who filled his hopeless life with such warm light, the person whom he cherished the most and would give anything left in his soul just to see one last time.

"I want to see you once more... Maka." Crona said longingly as tears welled up in his eyes. He began to truly understand just how much he wanted to see her again. Maka was the only thing left that kept him living, what was truly keeping him from losing his sense of self within the kishin's soul.

Despite everything he'd done, and the many vile acts in the list of sins on his conscience, he held onto one pure desire. The one thing Crona truly regretted and wished to undo with all his ability, was when he severed his ties to Maka. For he'd never realized until now, just how much he missed being with her. Thanks to Medusa's magic that altered his mind being undone when he killed her; he was able to finally remember all the happy memories he had with Maka before leaving shibusen to go back to Medusa. Times of happiness, like when he'd played basketball with Maka and her friends, or the night he went with her to death the kid's party.

Crona truly wished he could relive them over and over again, all of those times along with his few other joyous memories. It was the only thing he desired for more than anything now; to be able to see that caring face one last time.

He only wanted to simply see his first friend once again...

And as he raised his head, he witnessed something he thought would never see again. Merely a few feet away from him were two very familiar people, both of whom stared right at him.

Just a short distance away from him was a petite, flat chested teenage girl around his age, with light taupe hair kept in pigtails and she had green emerald eyes. She wore a white blouse with a yellow sweater vest, a green striped tie, a red plaid skirt; Along with black boots with white buckles. Beside the girl was a teenage boy of a similar age as both of them, with spiky albino white hair, droopy red eyes and a set of pointy, shark-like teeth. The boy wore a white shirt with blue pants, a white belt, and white shoes.

To Crona the very sight of the pair who seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost gave him a heart attack.

For these two before him were none other than Maka Albarn and Soul Evans.

---

'It can't be...' Crona thought in stupefied shock, completely unable to process what his eyes perceived.

There was no way this could be happening.

His wish had somehow come true.

It was impossible, completely unbelievable. How on earth could he be seeing these two?

But as Crona was dealt with his shock at the impossible sight before him, Maka finally spoke up.

"Crona..." Maka said happily at the sight of her dear friend.

"Maka?" Crona said back, still unsure if what he saw was real or just a hallucination created by his broken mind.

Yes, it had to be a mirage in his head. There was no way he'd be given this kind of miracle right now; it was just impossible.

"I guess I meet my end now, after all...I've started seeing hallucinations of Maka," Crona said solemnly with a bitter smile, now seeing it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

Then suddenly the 'hallucination' grabbed a book, one she'd pulled out somewhere. And with a smile on her face, raised it over his head and did what was probably the softest Maka chop known to man.

"Crona..." Maka warmly said again with that same kind smile on her face.

Crona blinked, so this truly wasn't a hallucination. It was really Maka. Somehow she came all the way here along with Soul, which proved even more that this wasn't a cruel trick of his mind; but a wish for a miracle that had been answered, and he could barely handle believing it.

Yet the pink haired boy was still in complete disbelief, he raised his hands and began touching Maka's face inspecting it to see if this truly was her.

"Are you real?" Crona said with remnants of tears in his eyes, still not fully convinced of what he saw.

...

...

At that moment, a brief moment of awkward silence had shortly lasted before Maka answered him.

"Of course, I am!" Maka said in surprise, dumbfounded that Crona would say such a thing.

"If you are real Maka, your obsession is incredible as well." Crona responded to Maka, who furrowed her brow in confusion at her friend's response.

"Obsession?" Maka questioned, not sure as to why Crona thought she did this for obsession.

"Isn't it so? You came all the way here to see someone like me. I too showed all the same unseemliness waiting for you... What a miserable obsession." Crona reasoned, yet all it did was baffle the scythe meister further.

"But isn't that called believing?" Maka in bewilderment answered back.

"Believing?" Crona said confusingly, unsure of what she meant.

"You and I understood each other and became such good friends once, there's no way the second time happening is impossible!" Maka optimistically told Crona, she tried to make him understand the feeling of belief they both shared in him. Maka carefully took the pink haired boy's hands and held them close to her. Crona felt the warmth of her presence, he knew it would calm him down enough for him to listen.

"So, you believed in me too! Otherwise, I would've just been a creepy stalker otherwise." Maka explained to the stunned Crona, hoping to get the point across to him.

"Tha…that's." Crona tried to answer, but he was still coming to terms with what she meant. He just couldn't wrap his head around what they were trying to tell him.

"We believed too." Soul said finally putting his input in this conversation.

"Well...I guess it was more like we wanted to believe in something Maka believed in." Soul corrected himself, then he continued.

"Just Like how kid believed in the witches. When you go through things with someone dear to you, you can accept even the ones you can't understand. Through Maka, you have fewer things now that upset or scare you." Soul explained in more detail. "It's something impossible for the kishin to understand, he's simply full of doubts and paranoia. This is true human strength." Soul assured the shocked Crona, who was utterly frozen by what his friend was explained to him.

"That's right." Maka instantly agreed with her death scythe.

Crona just continued to stare at his two friends in stunned bewilderment, his mouth slightly agape by what Maka and Soul told him. Their words gripped his heart in a tight yet warm embrace, as he began to finally comprehend what Soul and Maka explained to him. Both of them and possibly even himself, all just simply believed in the best for each other. Yet how could something so simple be hard to believe in?

Perhaps he realized that maybe he hadn't severed all his ties as he'd thought. Maybe he could still get back the bonds he threw away, and rebuild the bridges he burned down all those months ago. As this feeling continued to grow, Crona began to wonder if this is what it meant to have hope, and if so, he didn't think he could handle letting it go.

"Come on, let's get out of here and go outside! Everyone's waiting." Maka said excitedly, she took one of Crona's hands and urged him to follow her.

"O-outside?" Crona muttered, his eyes widening slightly at the suggestion. Should he really accept it? Would it be a good idea to go back with Maka and Soul?

Yet despite his doubts, the overwhelming joy he was feeling at the prospect of finally rejoining Maka and her friends was extremely enticing. He could make a new start. One that would him to make more happy memories with his beloved friends, he just needs to go back to the outside world and he can be together with them.

But at that moment his thoughts snapped back into reality, immediately realizing what Maka had meant by going 'outside'. Going back outside to the rest of the world, a world where he'd committed unspeakable sins. Where people would despise him if not even more so now than they did before considering, what he's done. He'd killed thousands at this point, and when he was drunk with madness, he tried to destroy the world before his sanity could be restored.

No...no he couldn't go back, as much as he wanted to more than anything to be with Maka, he knew that it wasn't that easy. Defending himself for his actions would just be another excuse, and the people would no doubt take their anger out on Maka and the others when they would defend him. He just wasn't worth the effort. He would not dare endanger his friends because they tried to protect a man, who deserves every ounce of punishment.

Not only that, but Crona had also remembered just what was currently going on outside. At this very moment, the kishin was still loose, with his other friends who remained outside still fighting for their lives against this evil threatening the world. He couldn't just pretend this wasn't happening, his mother's schemes were responsible for all this happening.

And he only helped this apocalyptic scenario occur, even make it worse, he couldn't just not take any responsibility for all this.

Something had to be done.

If the battle continued then his friends would eventually fall, no matter how strong Maka and his friends were together, they just wouldn't be able to land a truly decisive blow against Asura. Not without some help. At that moment, Crona knew what needed to be done. He needed to fix his mistakes and atone for his actions; it's the only way to make some form of amends, and he knew exactly how to do it.

It would be risky, but he may have a way to end the battle, but the only problem was that it would come at a great sacrifice. One he knew full well there would be no escape from.

Crona's chest, once filled with bubbling excitement moments before, had deformed into sorrowful pain. His eyes became downcast, as he accepted what needed to be done. With a heavy heart, he pulled his arm out of Maka's grip.

"No." Crona declared, having given his answer to them. Maka and Soul simply froze in shock, confused by what they'd just heard come out of Crona's mouth.

Soul and Maka turned to Crona to ask him, but before either one could say anything more, the pink haired warrior beat them to it and spoke first.

"I'm sorry... but I can't return with you." Crona somberly replied, and gave a pained look towards Maka and Soul. For a moment, the scythe duo were left completely speechless. They wracked their brains to understand just why Crona wouldn't come with them, why would he want to stay here? Maka couldn't believe or understand what Crona had just said. She and Soul had put so much effort into coming here, risking their lives to pierce into the kishin to save him from within asura's soul. Both of them wanted to finally have Crona come back as their friend again.

Only for him to suddenly reject their aid. But why? why on earth would he not come with them? It made no sense whatsoever. Maka needed answers, she would not leave until she understood why Crona refused to come home with her. So, after calming her temper down enough, the scythe meister managed to give Crona a forced smile before she carefully spoke once more.

"What?...Come on Crona, I came all the way to a place like this just to get you out." Much to her internal annoyance, Maka tried to explain and hopefully find out just why he wouldn't go with them. She went through so much just to save Crona from being trapped here. Not only had she been stabbed in the chest by the kishin, but she'd nearly became corrupted with madness once again by using the black blood to wound Asura.

And now she and Soul had entered, to what many would regard as the most dangerous place possible, just for their friend. So Maka hoped for Crona's sake that he had a damn good explanation for this. Otherwise, she'd pull him back outside by the scruff of his ear. There was no way she'd ever let her good friend be stuck here in a place like this.

"It's because you came all the way here for me." Crona claimed, much to the spartoi student's confusion.

"Crona...what are talking about?" Maka asked nervously, frantically wondering just what would keep him from coming with them. She racing to figure out one question plaguing her mind.

Just why on earth, would Crona want to remain here?

After a short moment of silence Crona finally began to explain himself.

"I've committed what people would call unforgivable sins. To return so simply like this isn't right, I need to place proper burdens on my heart first before I could even consider doing that." Crona explained to his two stunned friends before him.

"I was so h-happy...that you came to somewhere like this just for me." Crona said almost tearfully, yet still refused to show weakness or tears. He would not falter now, he still needed to do what was right. "And I think there's something only I can do with this courage I got from you." The pink haired warrior concluded, now prepared to begin his first steps towards atonement for his sins.

"Something only, you can do?" Maka repeated what Crona had said in confusion. What exactly did that mean? Was it only he that could do such a thing with his courage? But from the way that he'd spoken of it, the notion didn't sound good at all.

"Crona...What are you planning to do?" Maka cautiously asked her friend, now becoming more nervous as to what the boy was preparing to do. Soul also felt the same dread in his gut that Maka did; that whatever Crona planned on doing, it involved him committing some sort of great sacrifice.

"I've realized while being trapped in here that it's impossible to just simply kill the kishin." Crona explained in simplified yet shocking detail. "The kishin is the incarnation of fear itself. As long as there is life existing in the world, the fear that is born from them will not disappear. And in turn, the kishin cannot disappear as a result." Crona concluded in a sagely manner.

That sense of understanding was due to his fusion with such an eldritch entity as the kishin. As a result, Crona understood its essential nature in the fabric of existence itself. Along with its very place in the natural order of the world as they knew it, the entity of madness was basically immortal.

"But it's also wrong to just let him run wild and rampant like this, if he isn't stopped the world will fall into ruin." Crona countered, he also understood that at the same time, Asura was a necessary evil in creation; It wasn't one meant to be free in a world like this. And thus, there was only one option left to stop him.

"So that's why we're trying to do something about this." Maka retorted, but Crona ignored her response and spoke once more.

"Hey Maka, where did you get that book, you used for that Maka chop? Can you lend it to me for a minute?" Crona asked his friend who was hesitant at first but decided to go along with it for now.

"I picked it up on the way here." Maka said as she handed Crona a thick book with a large "S" in the middle of its brown leather cover. Yet Maka still wondered just what Crona planned to do with the book, and why it was suddenly so important now.

Crona slowly opened the ancient looking book in the middle part of its spine. Once it was opened, a glowing light emitted from its pages. As it died down, a hand-sized cube with various markings and sigils on all four sides revealed itself to Maka and Soul. To any other person, it seemed to be a weird trinket. But for spartoi member students like Maka and Soul, they knew that this strange cube was none other than the legendary demon tool of Eibon simply known as BREW.

The two then gasped in shock as they immediately realized what the object floating in the book was.

"Wait is that-" Soul began in shock before Maka cut him off and finished for him.

"The book of Eibon? The demon tool BREW!" Maka exclaimed in shock. She had unknowingly held two of the most powerful objects in the world in her possession for all this time. But now more than ever now, both she and Soul wanted to know just what Crona would do with so much power in his hands.

Crona then took the floating BREW from the book of Eibon, watching with a calm expression as the cube hovered gently above the palm of Crona's left hand.

"This object is the pinnacle of Eibon's wisdom, he was the creator of the demon tools and the ancient god of knowledge." Crona explained to Maka and Soul, both of whom simply continued to look at the relic in awe.

"I know this because I saw it's power first hand, when Noah used this to create that neat fusion out himself and all his ants." Crona stated matter-of-factly, having seen the power of the object before he absorbed Asura.

Thus, Crona knew full well just how he could use it to end all of this madness. Maka knew this of course, that the tool BREW, which been forged by Eibon himself, was an object capable of performing many mystical feats. Some of which she had already seen, such as creating powerful fusions, accelerating the development of anything its target desires; or more importantly, greatly augment Soul wavelengths.

Suddenly Maka's thoughts came to a screeching halt. Her eyes widened slightly as time seemed to have slowed down to a crawl. The SPARTOI meister froze in fear for what she'd just figured out while she stared at Crona is disbelief.

'No...' Maka thought in horror. Her skin paled and her heartbeat began to increase, with sweat forming on her forehead; all of which were spawned from sheer panic. The panic from just realizing what Crona could very well be planning to do with BREW. She felt sick to her stomach at the mere possibility of the notion even being remotely true.

Maka thought back to what Crona said before, that the kishin could not be destroyed due to being the essential embodiment of the world's fear. But at the same time, the kishin cannot be allowed to run free and destroy the world.

Asura cannot be destroyed; so that left only one possible solution, which the previous Lord Death had performed. To seal the kishin away again just as it had been done ages ago, but Kid only just became a true Shinigami and he still wasn't as strong as his father. Certainly he lacked the power to pull off the same method so easily.

So, what could be used to seal Asura away again instead?

Maka quickly realized it, as the answer was all around them. The sea of black blood within Asura was the perfect medium for Crona to create a durable prison for the kishin due to having such mastery over the substance. This would allow him to do so by using one of his most powerful techniques; to shape the black blood into a prison that, when augmented with brew's power, could mean only one thing.

'Crona please...please don't tell me you're going to...' Maka desperately prayed to be wrong, her fists clenched tightly as they began to lightly shake. Maka hoped, she prayed, that she was wrong and Crona wasn't going to do this.

However, it seemed luck wasn't on her side. Her hopes shattered when Crona spoke a single sentence.

"So, I'll use BREW to empower my mad blood and neatly seal the kishin." Crona revealed in all seriousness, without stuttering or missing a beat. His face was filled with a sense of great determination, a flame of resolve burned in his heart to see this task done.

In that moment time froze for Maka, what was mere seconds in reality, felt like hours for her as she stared at the determined Crona in stunned horror... he was going to do this. One of her best friends actually planned to sacrifice himself by doing this. He'd be trapping himself with the kishin for who knows long? Months, years, decades?!

No...no, no, no, NO! Crona couldn't do this, he just couldn't, she wouldn't let him. She would not stand around and let Crona doom himself to this horrible fate. She had failed to save him from Medusa before, she would not lose him now while he prepares to imprison himself with the kishin in a void of endless darkness such as this.

Not now, not ever.

"What! But what about you Crona!? You'll be trapping yourself here as well! Just what the hell are you thinking!?" Maka shouted with panic very evident in her voice, as she grabbed him by his shoulders. She desperately tried to make him realize just what he was about to do. What such a decision would entail for him was madness, she had to at least try and talk him out of it somehow before it was too late.

Crona's expression softened a bit, giving Maka a small smile to comfort his panicked friend.

"I just want to pay you back Maka, you just gave me courage after all." Crona said softly the look of determination still in his eyes as he turned to soul.

"Soul, you understand too, right?" Crona asked the teenage death scythe.

Soul gave no response, instead the Death Scythe blushed and looked away slightly.

Dammit, what the hell was wrong with him? It wasn't cool at all to blush like some schoolgirl in front of everyone, especially with Maka here no less. Although Soul knew exactly what Crona meant, something that he knew his own meister had always been capable of doing, ever since the day he met her. Maka was always brought out the courage in the hearts and souls of people, helping them do anything they set themselves out to do. Even if it meant doing the stupidest of things, so as long as it meant protecting what they loved the most, then it was worth it.

He had done the same thing, so many times for Maka and his other friends that he'd lost count a long time ago.

A moment passed before Crona darted over to Maka, and hugged her in a warm yet tight embrace. Maka quietly gasped at the sudden display of affection, but slowly yet surely returned the hug; wrapping her arms around his back in equal tightness, as they tried to let this moment last as long as possible.

"To be honest the world doesn't really matter to me." Crona bluntly admitted. "Maka, you were the first person who ever dealt with me. In fact, I don't even understand what these 'sins' are that I need to atone for." Crona candidly stated, as there was only one thing that gave Crona his reason for doing this and gave him the will to stop the kishin. "I simply want to fight and live for you, Maka. For that, I can suppress both this fear...and the kishin's madness right here and now." Crona declared, having meant every single word he spoke. So long as Maka was alive he could do anything for her, even if he didn't understand why his crimes were truly wrong.

But in the end, it didn't matter, all that he cared about was Maka's happiness. As long as she had a happy life, he would be content...even if he couldn't be a part of it.

Tears began to well up in his eyes, pain struck him at the mere thought of that outcome, but Crona held them back. He wouldn't back down now, not after everything he needs to make amends for. The pink haired swordsman had already figured out from their reunion what he was truly trying to atone for, and it wasn't really because of what he'd done in the world. Honestly, the only reason why Crona had dubbed his previous wrongdoings as "sins", was because it had hurt the one person he cared for the most.

He had done so many horrible things against his best friend, such as betraying her and going back to being a mass-murdering monster. He even tried to kill her back on the moon too, that alone told him what he had done was beyond monstrous. Anything he or anyone else did that made Maka upset or hurt her was by his definition a sin.

Sins which he would do anything to atone for.

---

Maka was left utterly speechless at Crona's declaration to her... she had no words for it.

The scythe meister couldn't believe there was any possibility of someone so willing to sacrifice so much just for her sake. She should be angry at how Crona casually disregarded everything in the world, at how he didn't even know why his actions were wrong. But at the mention of how Crona described being so willing to fight for her, just for her happiness was too much to ask. Here she had done the most dangerous thing imaginable, by going inside the literal soul of the kishin to save him. Only for Crona to reject it and instead prepare to save the world by sacrificing his freedom.

It was almost like something from one of the storybooks her papa would read to her as a child, with Crona playing the role of a tragic anti-hero of the story. The protagonist preparing to sacrifice his life to kill the villainous dragon, and save the kingdom of his dear beloved. It was hilarious at making such a fantastical comparison, but it felt so similar given the familiar circumstances.

But Maka knew this was no fairy tale, and this was not the ending someone like Crona deserved. It wasn't fair...Why did Crona have to endure so much pain? Why couldn't he be allowed to be happy for once, like when he was with them at shibusen? Maka would have given so much, just to have kept it that way, and to continue having him living a peaceful life with her and all her friends...so maybe then it wouldn't have led to all this. It just wasn't fair at all. And yet if what Crona said was true, then she really couldn't figure out any other way to do to stop the kishin if he couldn't be killed.

It didn't even matter if Asura could be harmed, if someone had a madness wavelength to synch with the dark god's own. He'd simply be an ungodly punching bag that would eventually shrug off any damage done.

It would all become nothing more than a fruitless struggle to kill that, which cannot be killed.

So, if a sacrifice truly was what Crona truly thought needed to be done, then so be it. Even if it filled her with so much pain and sorrow to leave her friend behind. But Maka refused to just cry and wallow in misery, she would find a way to free him from this place. The scythe meister would never leave the person who cared so much for her to this fate. Even after all the destruction he'd wrought before, even after he nearly tried to destroy the world; she knew Crona never truly wanted this.

He just wanted to prove his worth to the world, that he could be more than just existing to suffer. That deep down he could handle having such affection robbed from him, the madness and his amnesia had only clouded that feeling of longing.

Maka knew he didn't need to prove anything more. He had already earned that affection, being worth so much more than he ever realized to the spartoi meister and her other friends. And the thought of losing him was a heartbreaking tragedy, but one that she would never let Crona be forced to endure forever.

'I don't care how long it takes Crona, I will come back for you. I won't abandon you here, I'll find a way to free you from this burden, I swear it!' Maka declared with all her heart and soul.

She would one day come to save Crona, no matter what.

For now, she continued to hold onto Crona for what could very well be their last time. Both of them only desired to share their tender moment with each other for as long as they possibly could. It simply could not last though, she had to hear what Crona needed to stop the kishin once and for all.

After cherishing every last second of their heartwarming embrace, Crona finally let go of his dear friend and simply held onto Maka's shoulders with both hands. He felt more than ready to tell her what she and Soul needed to do to help him end the nightmare.

"To do this, I need you to-"

Unfortunately, before Crona could finish what he was about to say, the book of Eibon suddenly flew upwards from his hands. The book shot up until it floated approximately two feet over their heads with an ominous aura.

"What the- Crona what's going on? is this a part of your plan?" Maka asked as she warily looked up at the floating book above them; but judging by Crona's very confused and outright shocked expression, it wasn't very likely.

"What? N-No, this...this isn't what I-I planned at all." Crona muttered in confusion, with his now crystal blue eyes wide like dinner plates. As he along with Maka, and Soul continued to stare at the floating book of Eibon in shock. Each of them was unsure of what was going on.

"Then what's the deal wi-"

Soul was interrupted before he could finish his sentence, the book of Eibon opened itself as a golden light burst through its pages and lit up the black blood sea within Asura. The three were quickly blinded by its intense light, trying to protect their eyes from its gaze.

But as Crona tried looking at this unknown light, he felt something fly past him. Slowly the pink haired warrior looked down and gasped to see BREW had seemingly jumped from his hand, right towards the book. Setting itself between the middle pages of the book, BREW began to rapidly spin until its form became a barely visible blur.

"The hell is going on!?" Soul shouted while using his left arm to cover his eyes from the blinding light.

"I don't know! This wasn't supposed to happen!" Crona shouted back, holding Maka away from the light. He used his own body as a shield to protect her, should the light be revealed to be deadly.

Meanwhile, Maka tried to figure out a reason for whatever the hell was happening now. Questioning as to why both BREW and the book of Eibon, are acting on their own like this when the literal world is at stake? At first, Maka thought they were being sent inside the book, just like when she, Soul, and the rest of SPARTOI did when they had to rescue kid from Noah and the table of contents.

But that theory immediately went out the window, as this was not even close to how they were transported inside the book before. Especially since they didn't need BREW for it, so this was something else entirely. The only two questions that remained for the three, was what was causing the book and brew to act like this out of nowhere? And what exactly were the two artifacts doing? There was one thing Maka was sure about though, the two relics of Eibon were preparing to begin something powerful; whether it was good or bad she couldn't tell, but all they could do now was brace for whatever was coming.

For half a minute the blinding burst of light continued to shine, only dying down when BREW had finally stopped spinning. Glowing like a bright nightlight, the legendary demon tool froze its position for one moment until it shot downwards like a shooting star. Flying straight towards the opened book of Eibon; and as if it dove into a pool of water, the cube disappeared inside its pages. Immediately afterwards a gold-colored liquid mass with mysterious purple-glowing scripture on its surface rapidly covered the book. Gold mass spread itself until the book's entirety was encased in a smooth shell, with the mysterious writing covering every inch of the book.

All three teens gazed in stunned silence at the bizarre sight before them, the now golden cased book was riddled with tattooed writing. Next, as if it was a piece of stretching rubber, the book of Eibon expanded until it grew to the size of a wide door, 2X the size of an average door.

The trio who floated within the abyss of black blood that was illuminated by the anomaly, now stood before the wide, door-like book. Each of them was completely shocked while they tried to comprehend the sight that appeared in front of their eyes.

Now their minds raced to figure out just what was going on, and what was about to happen.

Soon enough they finally broke out of their shocked stupors, and a deep voice spoke from the enlarged book of Eibon.

"Forgive me, but this must be done. When the time is right everything will be explained...but for now your time here ends, and begins anew someplace else." An ancient voice spoke loud yet at the same time in a soft tone almost sounding like it was in regret.

'Our time here ends and begins anew someplace else? What's that supposed to mean?' Maka anxiously thought over what she and her two closest friends had just heard. It definitely didn't sound like it was the Table of Contents from within the book of Eibon. No, the voice sounded far more ancient; as if it belonged to some kind of higher power, wielding some kind of command over the book even that entity didn't have.

Maka turned her head to look at both Soul and Crona, the latter's wide crystal blue eyes were briefly filled with shock and fear. Most likely he was afraid of what that voice meant by its ominous message, yet seemed to calm down as with a shaken yet still serious look now on his face prepared for what may come for them. While Soul was in a similar state as Crona, he unlike the robed boy, however, had immediately steeled himself; now ready to use his death scythe blades or turn into his weapon form if a fight would happen.

the middle of the book then glowed a violet color as Maka eyes widened, immediately feeling something coming.

"Look out!" Maka tried to warn her friends. But before they could even be able to heed Maka's warning, three large paper-thin tendrils, each one with a hand the size of a man; composed of the same mysterious writing on the book's surface, shot out like lightning. The tendrils fired out of the book in the blink of an eye and before any of them could even react, had managed to grab all three of them.

Maka fought to rip herself from its tight grasp, but the tendril just seemed to get tighter with each attempt, like some anaconda coiling itself on her body. Maka looked to see Soul struggling with the second tendril gripping his body. Soul had already sprouted his blades like a porcupine but they didn't seem to do anything, as the death scythes blades simply caused scrapes and scratches on the tendril. Even if Soul had managed to carve away any chunk of the tendril, it quickly regrew back in seconds.

Obviously at this point Soul couldn't escape its grasp; he was already too far from her to transform into his weapon form, which left their chances of escape even worse than before.

Suddenly she heard struggling grunts from Crona, and Maka turned her head to see him trying to summon his merged weapon partner Ragnarök out of one of his arms. But the giant arm clenched his body too tightly for Crona to move even a finger, yet it didn't stop the pink haired swordsman from fighting back. Immediately he tried summoning his thorns to gain leverage over the tendril in an attempt to break free. Except the tendril's hand just clenched even harder on his body, which stopped his admirable resistance in its tracks. Crona cried out in agony shortly after the strength of its death grip increased on his thin body.

"CRONA!" Maka cried out in horror at the sight of Crona in such pain, her mortification quickly flashed into boiling anger as she began to fiercely kick and push against the hand that held her. But in the end, Maka's fiery resistance didn't seem to do much except merely delay her fate ever so slightly. The hold each hand had on the teens was too strong for any of them to break out of, as the tendrils had now reached mere inches before the giant book's glowing entrance.

'Why...why couldn't I have been able to do something right for once in my worthless life? Why am I not allowed to atone for everything I've done? All I wanted was to make you happy Maka, but now look what I've done. Now you, soul along with my pitiful self are being dragged into whatever this is; all because you two tried to save someone like me.' Crona thought in despair, while the tears he'd held in before finally leaked out of his eyes. But instead of helping his friends defeat the kishin, he may very well have caused their demise. They had risked so much on trying to save him from this place and all they received for their efforts was possibly their deaths. Or perhaps they'd suffer something worse from whatever lies beyond the glowing veil they were being dragged into.

"Maka...l-I'm so sorry for this! If it wasn't for me, you and soul wouldn't be in this mess, p-please, please forgive me!" Crona cried, his voice wobbly and full of sadness, as rivers of tears slid down his face. Now he began to lightly sob in sorrow for what he'd brought upon her.

"Don't say that! None of This is your fault Crona!" Maka said matter-of-factly, refusing to let Crona blame himself for their predicament. She knew that no one could have ever seen this coming.

"Maka's right, stop playing the blame game on yourself man. No one is responsible for this, especially you, since you were trying to help us before this crazy shit started." Soul sternly stated to a regretful Crona.

"B-But I-" Crona tried saying but was quickly cut off by Maka.

"But nothing! I swear if you try punishing yourself anymore for this, I'll Maka chop you till I finally snap some sense into you!" Maka scolded the tearful swordsman. "I couldn't care less if this did or didn't happen, If I had come here to save you here a million times over and over I would do it instantly." The scythe meister said sincerely. Maka meant every single word she said, and truly did not regret a single thing that happened since coming here for Crona. The only thing she did regret however, was that she wasn't able to get him out of this place, nor was she able to help kid and Blackstar defeat the kishin.

Who knows how long they'll be able to last against asura? Although the two boys and their weapons may be very powerful together, but even they still have their limits. And now Maka, Soul, and Crona wouldn't be able to get out to help stop the kishin, as all three of them were being taken by the book of Eibon to Death knows where! But no matter what happens now, she'd be at his side to see this through until the end.

"Guys, look..." Soul trailed off as he nudged his head towards the glowing entrance. Maka and Crona turned their heads toward the light and saw they were now mere seconds away from crossing the point of no return.

There was nothing else they could do now to stop this except for bracing for whatever fate awaits them beyond this gate-like entrance, as they have begun to be pulled into its light.

'Well, this is it then... I'm not gonna lie, after everything Maka and I have been through this is not the way I was expecting it all to end. Being dragged by a magical book into wherever the hell this thing is taking us wasn't even on the list. But whatever comes for us, I'll be sure mop the floor with them. After all, it's what a cool guy like me does.' Soul thought all while giving his iconic shark smirk at the face of the unknown danger, ready for anything that came after.

'Maka...I-l hope you can forgive me for all I've done, not that I deserve it but if this is the end, then all I can say is thank you. Thank you so much for being my friend and for doing so much for my sake even now. And if we're still alive after this, I promise to protect you for as long as I live.' Crona said somberly, his eyes were closed with a few tears that still lingered on his cheeks, having accepted their fate. Yet his heart and soul were still ignited with the same courage he had before, granting him the will to fight against anything that would dare hurt the one person he cherished more than anything else in this world.

'Crona...soul...no matter what happens now, we're in this together and I'll be dammed before I let some stupid book be the end of us. Whatever comes our way we'll be for each other...and Crona I promise that I won't leave you, not ever.' Maka declared in her thoughts, ready for whatever challenges that awaited beyond the mysterious glowing gate. Gathering all the courage within her heart, she prepared to face whatever laid beyond the portal before them.

Maka then shut her eyes tightly as she, Crona, and Soul were finally sucked into the book's glowing entrance; but just as they were being submerged into the bright substance, Maka heard ever so faintly the same voice from a minute ago.

"Till we meet again children." The mysterious voice said in eerie finality.

And with a quick flash, everything went dark for the trio as they were all taken inside the book's portal. With its goal accomplished, the book's middle stopped its illumination of the dark void within Asura. Then in a few seconds, the book suddenly began crumbled away into golden dust, leaving the endless sea of black blood back empty as it was before. However if someone looked closer, they could see what appeared to be a small bright sphere of light where the book of Eibon was before. Floating ever still in the black void until a pillar of energy shot from the sphere, and then seconds later it exploded like a supernova until there was nothing but white.

---

UNKNOWN LOCATION

Darkness, Coldness, And empty Silence...

That was all Crona could sense at the moment, he thought he'd be writhing in unimaginable agony from entering the book's gate, instead he just felt so numb and tired.

He attempted to open his eyes and stand up, but try as he might he just couldn't, it was like a weight was put on his body and his mind drained of all energy. So Crona just laid on the ground in the blind darkness, blocking out everything around him in this pseudo coma. His thoughts drifted to Maka and Soul, which caused his mind to immediately rejuvenate from it's drained state. Quickly his head filled with questions about if they were okay, or if they were in the same condition as himself. All the while his heart flooded with a growing feeling of regret and guilt, he was praying over and over that nothing bad happened to them.

'Maka, Soul I'm so sorry for dragging you into this. Just please be okay.' Crona thought somberly.

The thoughts of worry and guilt continued to run rampant in his mind…Until he suddenly felt someone shaking him, along with the muffled sound of a voice calling out to him.

"C na" Crona faintly heard a familiar voice speak, yet couldn't figure out just who it was or what it said.

"What?" Crona muttered groggily, as whatever was shaking him increased its speed. Slowly the numbness began to fade more and more as his senses started functioning properly once more.

"Crona!" He heard the voice call out his name again, now it clearer and more feminine like a certain girl he knew so well.

'Wait...that sounds like...' Crona trailed off, began to realize who the voice was. Could it be her?

Not wanting to waste any more time, he shook off the waves of drowsy numbness as he pushed himself up. He was hesitant to open his eyes, fearful it could be some illusion playing tricks on him. But the chance of this actually being her and figuring out what happened; overwrote any sense of fear in his body. Thus, Crona began to very slowly open his heavy eyelids, only to instantly shoot them wide open as he heard the familiar voice shout his name again.

"CRONA!" Maka shouted one more time while shaking Crona by his shoulders. She stopped once she finally was able to wake up the demon swordsman; having desperately tried to so for what felt like ages. Maka had woken up from a similar state thanks to Soul, who was the first to regain his senses. Once she awakened, the pig tailed meister found Crona lying unconscious right next to her; immediately running to his side to wake him up.

Maka had made several repeated attempts to awaken him since then, primarily by shaking and shouting his name for ten minutes straight before it finally paid off as the pink-haired boy slowly sat up. Though Crona was still a little dazed from what she could tell, but he was awake nonetheless. Carefully Crona took in his surroundings, he saw that numerous green trees covered the sky with their size before he turned towards her direction. Light gasps escaped his mouth as his eyes widened in stunned surprise at the sight of the very two people whom he thought he'd doomed. His vision was still a little blurry from such a sudden awakening, but no matter what state his vision was in, Crona could never mistake the two people in front of him as his eyesight cleared up.

Leaning against a nearby tree was Soul, with his arms crossed and a calm expression on his face. The death Scythe had seemingly been there waiting for him to wake up. Maka meanwhile, was knelt right next to him on the grass-covered ground, staring at him in great relief before she quickly tackled him into a bone-crushing hug.

"Thank goodness! Do you have any idea how scared you made me!?" Maka scolded Crona, but given how her voice was filled with immense relief, she sounded sound much less angry than she made it out to be.

"Ma-Maka? Are you okay?" Crona asked quietly as he trying to speak louder, but he was distracted by Maka's tight embrace that his lungs feel like they were being squeezed together. On top of that he sensed that her face also dug into his shoulder, causing a cherry red blush to form on his cheeks as he registered the pleasantly warm sensation.

Soul noticed his friend's blushing expression, and gave a knowing smirk to Crona. But the pink-haired boy was too distracted by Maka's affectionate hug to notice the death scythe's friendly gesture.

"Well look who's finally up and about. Took ya long enough; and here I'd thought you bit the dust for a minute there. But thankfully for you we got princess charming here to snap you out of it." Soul said gave a thumbs up with a widened grin on his face.

Crona's blush deepened further at the teasing statement, his face now red as a tomato while he looked down shyly at the ground. Maka, having heard the death scythe's little comment, stopped hugging Crona and turned to angrily glare at the Soul. Yet a small blush was actually visible on her face if one looked hard enough.

"Well excuse me, but at least I didn't make him soaking wet like a certain idiot here." Maka angrily retorted, much to Crona's confusion by what Maka meant by that.

Soaking wet? What did Maka mean by that?

But Crona instantly realized as his vision cleared that Maka looked a bit soaked like someone splashed a puddle on her. In fact, his robe was feeling a bit damp now from Maka hugging him so tightly.

But how did that even happen?

Soul in response scratched his head as he looked away from Maka's peeved gaze in embarrassment, knowing full well just what she was talking about.

"Look I was freaking out I thought you died or something, I mean give a guy a break." Soul complained with Maka rolling her eyes at the death scythes excuse.

Crona simply continued to stare at the pair in total bewilderment, trying to figure out just what the heck happened while he was unconscious. But after taking a closer look at Soul, he managed to see that the albino now sported a small bright red bump on his head.

Oh... so that's what happened.

Crona at that moment, instantly put two and two together to understand what happened. Soul must have been the first to wake up, and having seen Maka lying unconscious; panicked and decided to splash water from a nearby pond on her to wake up. And while it did work, judging by Maka's angry expression she didn't appreciate the sudden wake-up splash at all, Soul received a swift Maka chop from her fist as a result.

Poor soul, Crona can tell he had good intentions but should've remembered such overreactive actions would lead to Maka's wrath. But despite the comedic violence that ensued while unconscious, Crona was at least reassured that this was truly real and that his beloved friends were safe and sound.

'Wait a minute...' Suddenly Crona's head shot up as he quickly remembered what occurred inside Asura's soul, how the book of Eibon and BREW sprung to life and took them inside some door-like portal. But given the fact of how they're still alive, it meant they were teleported somewhere... but where?

"Wait... what happened? Maka where are we?" Crona asked in worry and panic, his eyes pleading to know the answer to two legitimately good questions.

Upon hearing Crona's questions, Maka's face suddenly shifted into a serious yet unsure expression. Soul did the same as his meister as it was finally time to address their current situation, and what to do from here.

"In the reverse order, I'm not sure exactly where this is exactly. We all pretty much woke up in the same spot here." Maka clarified as she turned her head towards Soul, who remained in the same spot as he was when Crona woke up.

"Soul's been looking around while I was trying to wake you up, and when he came back said he found a couple of benches and a fountain; so, I guess we're in a park. One in a city too from all the car noises we've been hearing, so thankfully we weren't sent inside the realm in the book of Eibon." Maka clarified with soul nodding in confirmation.

"As for what happened back in Asura's soul, with the book of Eibon and BREW... your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea why this happened, heck I didn't even think the book could do that, but Crona did you know?" Maka asked curiously yet the swordsman was quick to answer.

"No! I-I had no idea the book was capable of doing something like that either, even less on what caused it." Crona confessed in a minor panic. "If I knew that I would have tried to do something instead of being so useless." He said somberly as his face scrunched with great guilt, still he felt responsible for all of this. But Maka wouldn't have any of it, as she held on to his shoulders and gave him a scolding look.

"Crona please, I've told you before and I'm telling you again now, this isn't your fault. Don't blame yourself for something that was out of your hands." Maka told Crona, who after a moment sighed as he nodded in response to the young Albarn.

"If anyone should be blamed for this, it's whatever caused this to begin with." Maka assured the boy, yet the thin veil of unsureness in her voice, she was still clueless as to who was responsible for this whole dilemma.

"Speaking of which, that leads to a damn good question; just who the hell did this to begin with?" Soul questioned finally putting his input in their conversation as he left his spot, and walked towards the two to join them in figuring out who pulled off that craziness with the book of Eibon in the first place.

"I'm pretty sure the answer is obvious soul, no doubt it must have been that voice that spoke to us before taking us here," Maka answered the albino death scythe.

"Yeah, but who's voice was it specifically?" Soul retorted.

"That's what I'm still trying to figure out, but whoever did this must be extremely powerful and must've known how to use both the book of Eibon and brew in a way no one has ever seen before." Maka concluded. "The only one who could possibly have such knowledge of using them, would be either the table of contents; but he doesn't seem to have enough control over the outside world to do what he did back inside Asura. And for that matter, that voice we heard didn't sound like him at all, so he's out. So, the only other possible suspect I can think of that's left is-"

"Eibon?" Crona finished for Maka as they both turned to look at Crona with surprised expressions, Soul more so while Maka quickly recovered from her surprise faster than her partner did.

"Yes." Maka answered in blunt simplicity.

"Wait, wait, wait Eibon?! The literal old one of knowledge? Why the hell would he be responsible for this?" Soul asked incredulously, raising his hands and shaking his head simultaneously as he tried comprehending what Crona just said.

"It makes sense. Remember what I told you before? Eibon is the god of knowledge, the one who made both the demon tool BREW and the spell book literally named after himself. If anyone could have such control and mastery over them it would be him." Crona reasoned as the students of shibusen thought over what he said. They realized he was right; it did make sense and it would explain a lot but at the same time still left a lot of unanswered.

"But if Eibon is really behind this, why would he take us away in the middle of the battle against the kishin?" Maka asked the swordsman, who in response simply slumped his shoulders while he shook his head.

"I'm sorry...I-l have no idea why he sent us away when the world is at stake; it just doesn't make sense to me." Crona admitted, completely clueless on the reasons why this happened.

Maka clenched her fists as she stared at the grass she been kneeling on. She kept trying to figure out an answer, any answer to the reason for this displacement. But despite her efforts, it seemed she couldn't find anything to justify the situation.

"Dammit there's so many questions and so few answers to this, just why the hell did this happen now of all times? It doesn't make any sense, none of this does!" Maka vented in growing frustration at the lack of answers to this mess.

Yeah, it really didn't make any sense to Soul; just why would Eibon take them out of the fight to save the world, and send them to some random city back on earth? Meaning they're a million miles away from where a battle for the fate of the world is taking place, but to make things worse somehow they've been knocked out for hours. Sunlight from above revealed it was the middle of the day at the moment, when the battle with the kishin had been going on during the middle of the night.

And Soul doubted kid and Blackstar could last for hours on end against the kishin. They were probably still expecting them to pull off some miracle to end the battle, but Soul knew it would only be a matter of time before they were eventually overwhelmed. Worse yet, Blackstar was fighting handicapped no less. The ninja had suffered a terrible blow to his arm by the kishin; which forced the star clan descendant to fight and wield Tsubaki with only one arm.

And kid may have finally become a fully developed Shinigami like his father. But his power was literally just awakened, and still didn't compare to his older brother Asura; who's been around for thousands upon thousands of years, giving the fallen Shinigami more than enough time to develop his powers.

Things...weren't looking good, but he decided to hold off reminding Maka and Crona of such information. Panicking wasn't going to do them any good right now, especially while they still have no idea where they are. Finding out their location was something that needed to be dealt with immediately.

"Guys look, sitting around here burning out our brains to figure out questions we don't have answers to isn't gonna solve our problems. We still have no idea where we are, so I think we should put this on hold until we find out where the hell we landed; then find where the nearest shibusen is located. We'll figure things out from there, that sound good?" Soul reasoned with the frustrated Crona and Maka as the two thought over the death scythes words.

'Soul's right. We can't just sit around here and waste time figuring out what we don't have answers to yet, let's just find out where we are and go from there.' Maka thought in resolution, believing it was finally time to discover just where the book sent them to. With her mind made up, Maka sighed as she stood up and went over to Crona then reached her hand out to him.

"C'mon Crona. He's right, we'll try figuring this all out later when we have the time. Right now we should probably see where we are already and then we'll plan the rest out later." Maka said calmly giving a gentle yet assuring smile to the young boy, subtly telling him 'Don't worry, everything will be okay'.

Crona hesitated for a moment, feeling uncertain about all of this, but he immediately remembered he was talking to Maka. The girl who'd done so much for him and whom he felt forever indebted to. After all, he swore back in Asura's soul to fight…to live for her until his last breath; a promise he would never break and planned to keep for all of eternity. Thus, with the immense trust and faith he had for Maka, Crona would do as she said. Internally he saw it as the first steps towards earning her forgiveness.

Nodding in response, the pink haired boy took her hand as she helped him back on his feet. With all three of them standing now, they began to walk out of the forest clearing, straight into the city which the park was in. But as Crona began walking a couple of steps forward, a sharp pain hit his back. Crona fell to his knees, recoiling and shouting in pain as he felt something was moving inside him and up through his body.

Maka and Soul heard Crona's cries of pain and turned around to see Crona clutching his upper body in agony. Not wasting a second, they immediately ran towards him to see what was wrong.

"Crona what's wrong!?" Maka shouted in panic while she examined him in an effort to find out what was causing Crona so much pain. Maka's eyes were wide with fear and great worry for whatever triggered such agony in her friend.

Crona turned his head to look at Maka, the muscles in his face tensed as his eyes were squinted shut in the pain.

"I-argh! I-I don't know what's-something's-AAAHHH!" Crona tried to speak but the pain in his back was too much to talk through, whatever caused his agony felt like it was trying to burst out of his body.

"Dammit! what the hell is happening now!?" Soul exclaimed, also trying to see what was happening to Crona.

The pain in Crona's spine continued for a few seconds but to him it felt like an eternity. Despite feeling such excruciating pain, Crona was still trying to think of what was causing this. Could there be something inside of him? But what could possibly be the cause of this?

Unless...

At that moment a horrifying thought popped up... was this Asura? Had a piece of the kishin latched onto him before being taken here, and now was taking over his body again!? No, no, PLEASE GOD NO! He frantically prayed that it wasn't true, that it's just impossible. But a small part of his mind fueled the intense fear, causing it to fester and spread like a cancer.

His heartbeat quickened and his breaths sped up as he felt like on the verge of a panic attack. It had to be Asura, what other explanation was there? he should have known it was too late to save his worthless life; and now he was going to assimilated by the kishin again, thus in the process get Maka and soul ki-

"UGGGGGGHHHHHH"

Crona's train of panicked thoughts immediately stopped in its tracks, as his eyes opened after hearing that groaning sound come out of nowhere. Just what was that? Crona didn't know why, but it sounded so familiar...

Maka and soul momentarily stopped their efforts to help their friend. As they too heard the groan come from Crona, judging by its source was coming out of Crona.

"...Oh daammmiiittt." The groaning voice now spoke, and even if it was just one word Maka, Soul, and especially Crona began to immediately suspect what or who it was.

'T-that voice I remember it now! But Its c-couldn't be...' Crona thought in shock, as there was only one person whom he'd known his whole life who'd sound like that.

"Maka did you-"

"Yeah, Soul. I heard it too, is that who I think it is?" Maka questioned in astonishment, beginning to quickly figure out just what or more specifically who this thing was.

The trio's suspicions were all proven correct, as suddenly a small burst of black blood spewed from Crona's upper back; beginning to take form into that of a certain infamous weapon partner.

Slowly the black blood began to take shape and solidify, morphing into the form of a teddy bear-sized creature with a spherical body and mouthless head; with its face being a large x in the middle and large ping-pong ball-like eyes with smaller x's to act as pupils. It also had a little spikes on each of its small shoulders, with its cartoony arms having gloved ball-shaped hands. This small creature attached to Crona is known as Ragnarök, Crona's weapon partner that's merged into the boy's body; acting as both his blood and demon weapon to summon out of him in battle.

And he was someone who hasn't been seen for quite a while.

The three just continued to stand there, still utterly stunned by what they were seeing as Ragnarök yawned, stretching his little arms and back while doing so.

"Goddamn! Felt like I've been in fuckin hibernation, I think I can go for a couple of souls about n-wait a minute..." Ragnarök cut himself off as he inspects his body, realizing what was wrong, he screamed in fury as a result.

"SON OF A BITCH! I'm back in this shitty plushie body! What the hell! You damn dumbass! I take a nap one time, and like that, shit immediately hits the fan; the fuck did you do now!?" Ragnarök ranted waving his little arms in fury before he began pounding his meister's head. But Crona simply Ignored the hits thrown at him as he continued to stare at Ragnarök in pure disbelief.

"R-Ragnarök...is that you?" Crona asked in a quiet yet still audible volume. His voice quivered as he looked up to see someone whom he thought he would never truly see again, the demon sword was back to his old self.

"No, I'm goddamn Santa clause, here to give you presents for being a good pansy this year!" Ragnarök sarcastically retorted rolling his ping pong eyes while doing so.

It... It really was him then, Crona had thought Ragnarök's mind was absorbed fully by the black blood's extreme levels of madness when they evolved it further. Becoming nothing more than a mindless maddened weapon inside of him. Ever since then he'd believed that he would never hear the rude comments of that scratchy voice again. That same scratchy voice brought tears to the pink-haired teen's ebon eyes.

"The fuck's wrong with you? You look like someone pissed on your-HEY!" But before Ragnarök could finish, Crona grabbed Ragnarök to the best of his ability and pulled the little imp into a hug.

"RAGNAROK!" Crona cried out in tearful joy.

"The hell?! Get off me you damn homo!" Ragnarök thrashed about as he cried out, trying to escape his meister's tearful embrace. But his little body wasn't strong enough to free himself from the crying meister's hug.

"I-I thought I'd never see y-you back to yourself again, I...I missed you so much." Crona choked out through the tears flowing out of his eyes, as he continued to softly cry and hug his weapon as tight as he could. Maka and Soul all the while only stood there as the swordsman had his tearful reunion with his brazen weapon. Maka had a small smile on her face as she saw the tearfully happy expression Crona wore from seeing his old weapon return.

Even if said weapon was one of the biggest, loudest assholes she had ever met.

"The fuck are you talking about? I've been sleeping for a couple of hours at most!" Ragnarök yelled indignantly, yet Crona was too caught up in his crying from his weapons return to hear the demon weapon's ranting.

"It really is you then, I honestly thought we'd never see you again." Maka remarked with one of her hands placed on her hip.

Ragnarök, after hearing that familiar voice, turned to look at the sight of Maka and Soul standing nearby. His 'face' immediately shifted to what they had to guess was a scowl before he finally broke free of Crona's hug and accusingly pointed one of his ball hands at the two.

"Oh, great just what I need, the cow's back! Along with her sidekick shark junior!" Ragnarök snarled, he was not at all pleased to see the two he'd figured were responsible for this.

"Good to see you too buddy." Soul said sarcastically, not having missed Ragnarök's comments one bit.

"Don't you buddy me, bastard! You and the cow are responsible for this aren't you, who else would it be but you two!" Ragnarök harshly accused.

"Ragnarök, stop it. They aren't responsible for anything bad, if anything I-it's the complete opposite, so don't start trouble now." Crona shakily reprimanded as he calmed himself down from his tearful outburst. Already he remembered his weapon's obnoxious behavior that he would usually deal with. That behavior which was something that he both hated and right now missed dearly.

"Us, responsible? FOR WHAT!?" Ragnarök shrilled. "Why, because we ditched their prissy school and fought that blue haired idiot? Cause that's all I remember us doing before going into my nap." Ragnarök told his meister, but Crona didn't respond at all. The boy only stared at his weapon in utter shock from what was just said.

A moment of stunned silence passed in the park's forest, as the three children gave Ragnarök strange looks as if he had grown 3 heads out of nowhere.

"What?" Ragnarök said, not understanding just what the hell was these wimps' problems.

"Ragnarök...what's the last thing you remember?" Maka asked cautiously.

Ragnarök looked like he was about to say something, but stopped as he scratched his head. Releasing a small annoyed groan before responding to Maka's question.

"Fuck...Um...I...Shit, I can't remember much actually. Honestly, the last thing that comes to mind was when me and this wimp fought that dumbass ninja and his sexy ass weapon partner... everything else is nothing but a damn blur." Ragnarök admitted, unsure of anything else after that. Answers now received, Maka and Soul looked very surprised at this new information, while Crona's jaw dropped at what he just heard.

"W-what! you-you don't remember anything after that?!" Crona said in complete shock at his partner's words, which apparently painted the picture of his merged demon weapon not being able to remember anything from the months before now.

"Well, I still remember you being a little whiny pussy, so it's good to know that hasn't changed yet." Ragnarök replied. Crona moved to grip his right arm tightly as he looked at Maka and Soul in concern, unsure of what to say.

Crona wished he was like Ragnarök right now, unable to remember anything else shortly after betraying shibusen and fighting one of Maka's friends. To simply pretend and forget like nothing after that had ever happened would be a luxury. But in the end, it just wouldn't be right, and besides, he couldn't keep the truth away from his merged weapon partner forever. As Ragnarök wasn't that dumb to fall for anything he could come up with; plus, the fact he was a terrible liar didn't help one bit in this situation, so really there was only one option left.

He just hoped Ragnarök could handle what he was about to say.

"Hey, are you gonna keep on doing your emo stance? Or are any of you gonna tell me what the fuck is going on already?" Ragnarök said impatiently making Crona snap out of his thoughts and nodded as the three began walking out of the forest of the park with Crona along the way explaining everything that happened after their fight with Blackstar.

---

20 MINUTES LATER

Thus, Crona told Ragnarök all that happened to them after the events his partner last remembered. Being surprised by how Ragnarök had stayed quiet most of the time, aside from a few colorful 'comments' that he would throw now and again. As Crona spoke, he along with Maka and soul continued to walk, the two of them remained quiet during his explanation. Both of them only really spoke when he needed help explaining certain things that occurred or just overall wasn't comfortable saying. After 6 minutes of walking, the four of them had finally made it out of the serene forest and into the park's main area.

Outside of the maze of trees, the kids were greeted with blue cloudy skies that heavily shielded them from the sun's presence and its heat; as they headed to the nearest exit into the city with Crona finally reaching the end of recounting his tale.

"-and after that...we all just woke up in that forest the b-book of Eibon sent us to, leading to where we are now." Crona finished explaining everything, as the three stopped walking momentarily. Crona still was holding his right arm, while he shrugged as if it was a completely average topic. After a long pause, Ragnarök finally spoke.

"Okay... okay, I think...I think I need a minute... to just take this all in." Ragnarök said sounding like his brain was about to explode if they told him anything else.

"So...just to recap, we committed mass fuckin murder on an entire city...WHAT THE FUCK CRONA?!" Making Crona, as well as Maka and Soul, flinch at the weapon partners high pitched screaming.

"r-Ragnarök I-" Crona tried to speak but was quickly cut off by his partner as he continued to vent.

"And then what else happened… oh yeah, we MURDERED a three-star meister! And not just any meister mind you, but one with a GODDAMN DEATH SCYTHE! Where the hell did you get the balls to do that!?" Ragnarök shouted, as he once again demanded for an answer.

The two meisters and death weapon all simply sighed in exasperation, clearly realizing this was gonna take a while so they moved over to the nearest bench. Crona and Maka sitting next to each other while soul simply leaned on a nearby lamppost, as they waited for Ragnarök to finish his full-on freak out moment.

"Also, just what the hell did merging with that clown have anything to do with us!? like all, I can remember from doing that shit was that it gave you a goth fashion upgrade, and letting you rent my arms with two more swords! But because of that jester fucker...we gained more black blood powers. One in particular that apparently let you and me create A FLOOD OF BLACK BLOOD TO DROWN A GODDAMN CITY WITH!? I needed a creepy fucking clown inside me to do all this crazy shit!? Even now that still doesn't make any damn sense!" Ragnarök shouted again as he frantically inspected his body to see any other 'changes' that might have happened while he was dormant inside Crona.

Crona in response looked down to stare at his hands, wondering just how human was he at this point after all he'd done to himself and to so many others. Just how much did the madness affect his body until now? He'd willingly allowed so many changes to his body than ever before, such as fusing with the black clown and then with Asura, albeit temporarily for the latter. He'd gained so much power from it in the end but at what cost? Was all the innocent blood he'd spilled, and the lives he'd ruined or ended worth it all?

Could he even be considered a human being anymore? Well half-human technically considering he was already half-witch. But the question still remained, could he still consider himself as a real person or just some ungodly monstrosity appearing as one? Before he could think of this further, he felt a warm hand place itself on his shoulder. He turned his head to see Maka giving a gentle smile as she rubbed his shoulder in comfort telling him silently that it was going to be alright.

Crona gave her a small timid smile, nodding as a sort of silent thanks to her, then he turned back to face Ragnarök. At the moment Ragnarök was still freaking out over what his meister had explained to him.

"Then you tell me we apparently Killed Medusa, and while I'm glad that the bitch is dead; I'm just trying to not freak out any more than I'm already am at the fact of you how explained that shit to me!" Ragnarök shouted hysterically.

"Well, I- it's …" Crona stuttered as took a verbal beating from Ragnarök's rant. Not that he could deny any of it, even if his explanation of certain recent events had been extremely disturbing.

"I mean goddamn! I always hated that barefoot hag with a passion, always dreaming of ways to kill that snake eyed whore. But do you know how close I was to throwing up when you told me EVERY DETAIL OF HER DEATH?! All while being so calm as hell like it was nothing, I mean why aren't you fazed by this at all!? yeah, the bitch had it coming for all the shit she put you and me through but still. How in death's name can you explain every detail of me being stabbed into her until she was nothing but bloody chunks and not feel a damn thing!?" Ragnarök loudly demanded.

Maka continued rubbing Crona's shoulder, retaining her calming smile the whole time; but she couldn't deny the very unsettling and almost disturbed feeling she got from Crona's detailed explanation of killing Medusa as well. She knew about the very unwell state his mind was in at the time, and as Ragnarök said, she knew Medusa more than deserved such a gruesome death. Despite how twisted this was, Maka actually considered what he did as a "good" thing in the end, by finally killing the witch who caused so much pain and destruction to both him and the world.

"I-I'm so sorry if I freaked you out Ragnarök. I know how I explained it was...m-messed up, but I didn't want you to think I was lying." Crona said guiltily turning to look at Maka and Soul "And I'm sorry Maka if I scared you and Soul." He apologized to the two, but Maka simply gave him a small understanding nod.

"It's okay Crona, you weren't yourself back then. That woman used you as a tool your whole life, it's understandable for such a breakdown after years of torment. I-I'm not gonna lie Crona, it was quite honestly very disturbing how you described what happened." Maka admitted, pausing for a moment as she saw Crona shrink from her gaze in shame.

Crona listened as Maka tried to delicately calm him down from his depressed state. Maka had to carefully ponder her words so as to not drive her friend further into his corner of shame.

"But I sort of agree with Ragnarök, yes it was very messed up, but in a way, you really did free yourself from her control. Now that your back to your old self, you can finally turn in a new leaf for good this time; and I along with everyone else will be there to help you along the way, you're not alone in this anymore." Maka assured Crona as she grabbed his hands and held onto them, and the pink-haired boy blushed profusely as a result. Meanwhile Soul gave him a thumbs up as Ragnarök rolled his eyes, scoffing in disgust at the sweetness.

"Ugh, At least I know you aren't lying about Medusa being dead considering pigtails here knows, plus there's how you told me every detail of how much of her blood and pieces of her guts were all over me and...oh god I think I'm gonna be sick again." Ragnarök says nauseously with a shudder, covering his nonexistent mouth with his ball-like hands at the end.

Small chills trickled up Crona's spine, he never thought he'd live to see his former bully Ragnarök react almost fearfully towards him. But to be honest, who wouldn't feel disgusted to hear such things? Considering all the nightmarish details he explained to the demon weapon, it seemed like a logical response.

Giving himself a quick shake of his head to get rid of the feeling, Crona moved his legs up to his chest and called out to the Demon weapon. "Ragnarök, I know what I've said isn't pretty but p-please, calm down, this isn't the time for this." But he along with Maka and Soul could just feel Ragnarök was nowhere near done with his ranting, and they opted to just continue sitting around while they waited for him to vent his frustrations out.

"It's not the time!? ITS NOT THE TIME!?" Ragnarök screeched in frustration, much to the pain of Maka, Crona, and Soul's ears "Okay then fine! Moving on from...that, how could it not be time to talk about the biggest bombshell you've dropped here so far?! Like how you FUCKING ATE. A. GOD!" Ragnarök shouted as he threw his little arms wildly around in both excitement and anger.

"Ummm...but-" Crona tried saying before being cut off by his weapon partner again.

"And after having a crybaby session on the freakin moon, you ended up getting absorbed by the three-eyed fucker." Ragnarök summed up his voice oozing with disappointment, causing Crona to turn his heads downwards as he hugged his legs tightly. Maka harshly glared at Ragnarök and was about to say something, but a pleading look from Crona kept her anger towards the demon weapon at bay.

"And I'm still trying to wrap my head around how we flew to the moon, the moon! But I think it's best, not open that whole Pandora's box any further; I got enough shit in my head to deal with as it is." Ragnarök said in exasperation from all the insanity he'd heard in the last ten minutes or so.

"Pandora's box? What does a story have to do with any of that?" Crona asked tilting his head in confusion as Ragnarök groaned in frustration. Maka meanwhile, sweat dropped at Crona's ignorance at the meaning of the imp's reference. It was baffling how Crona could be smart and knowledgeable at certain times, only to be completely clueless for other times which mostly involved social norms.

"It's okay Crona I'll tell you about it later." Maka offered as the pink haired teen gave a quiet thank you in return.

"And to top it all off, these two decided to try and save your sorry ass by slashing the kishin and going inside his soul, something that I'm not gonna lie was...pretty cool, for cow like you." Ragnarök begrudgingly admitted. Maka smirked at how it almost physically pained the obnoxious demon weapon to say praise about her. "Only for some magic book that was possibly controlled by a divine bookworm, to grab us all and take us to a random city for no goddamn reason other than for shits and giggles." Ragnarök summed up.

"I Wouldn't have said all of it like that, but yeah that pretty much summarizes everything that happened until you woke up." Soul confirmed.

"Well then if that's the case, what now?" Ragnarök questioned the trio.

"Well, we're planning on heading to the city outside this park and hopefully find the nearest shibusen. Once then will head back home and work our way from there." Maka explained to the little demon attached to Crona.

"Well then, just what the hell are we waiting for? Let's get out of this green thumb dump already." And with that matter finally settled, the four carried on from where they left off and continued their path towards the city.

---

Seeing how Ragnarök was finally wrapping up his freaked-out ranting, they got up to continue walking towards the park's exit and into the city. Leading to them walking a tranquil pathway with mighty oaks above them providing shade from the skies summer heat and the refreshing gust of wind every now and then. It wasn't until a few minutes passed did Ragnarök speak again.

"Alright, I'm done holding this in. I need to ask you, back when those two went in to save your hopeless ass inside Asura...was there really nothing else you could have possibly thought up in that pea-sized brain of yours; other than to royally fuck us over?" Ragnarök asked impatiently while plopped on his meisters head, waiting for a response as they all walked towards the park's exit.

"Ragnarök what do you-" Crona tried saying but for the 3-4th time already Ragnarök interrupted him, continuing to interrogate his meister.

"Don't play stupid with me! You know damn well what I'm talking about. Acting like some big ass hero, ready to sacrifice yourself and save the whole freakin world all out of some emo as hell reason, as to 'atone for your sins'...you are by far the biggest fucking dumbass to live. And here I thought that the retarded ninja was the dumbest guy I've ever met in my life, but somehow you out-stupefied him." Ragnarök said sarcastically.

Crona simply gripped his right arm tightly, kicking a small pebble while he walked behind Maka and Soul, looking at Maka with affection and care. Crona knew full well why he was prepared to trap himself with the kishin, and he would do it again instantly so as long as it meant not only redeeming himself, but to make sure Maka would be forever happy.

"Seriously what the hell is wrong with you! I still can't believe you'd go ahead and try to do something that idiotic, and end up dooming us into what basically counts a hell! And all for that tit-less cow over-" And just like that, the tables turned as Crona cut off his weapon partner, shooting his head up to look at him with a fierce glare.

"Don't you dare talk about her like that! I won't allow it!" Crona shouted, let go of his right arm and clenched both his hands into tight fists. He absolutely refused to let anyone especially Ragnarök talk bad about Maka.

Unbeknownst to Crona, Maka had secretly heard his spout of anger as she briefly turning her eyes to look at Crona, her expression mixed between stunned and surprise. She never thought she would ever hear Crona, the shyest and timid person she ever met display such anger, and to top it off stand up against his bully of a weapon Ragnarök. But the fact it was all to defend her, and her alone, was just so heartwarming. Her cheeks began having a light blush fill her cheeks, as she was completely flattered by Crona's willingness to immediately defend her.

Honestly as crazy as it sounded, despite the messy situation there were all in the one good thing, she can safely say happened because of this. Crona was finally back to being the sweet gentle boy he was before Medusa took him away from her. She may not be sure what would happen next for them all in the immediate future, but she sure of one thing; that she will never allow him to fall back into madness again, nor let anyone for that matter ever take Crona away from her again.

Ragnarök just stared at his meister in shock for a brief second before scoffing in annoyance "Well, well looks like things DID change then, after all since when did you suddenly have the spine to talk back to me huh!?" Ragnarök prompted by pushing his face towards Crona. Except Crona remained silent, he continuously gave the little demon attached to him an ice-cold glare. Their standoff lasting a few moments until Ragnarök finally let up raising his little hands in defeat and sitting himself back on his meisters head.

"Ugh fine forget it, but back on track, I'm actually glad that book decided to kidnap our asses to wherever the hell we are, otherwise You and I would be fucked in an eternity of nothingness no thanks to you. But still, you can't even begin to imagine just how pissed off I am that you'd have the balls to pull that shit, without my consent no less!" Ragnarök said furiously.

Crona in response looked down, the muscles on his face tensed with minor guilt at how he was going to sacrifice himself without paying to mind for Ragnarök, who was a bystander in the situation to the same fate with him. Honestly, his weapon did have every right to be angry with him.

"Look, I understand you're mad at me and you have the right to be. But Y-you have to understand you weren't around back there, and... I-I wasn't myself at the t-time." Crona admitted to the angry demon sword.

"Yeah, no shit, I mean besides the fact you forgot I even existed. I'm pretty sure the parts where you destroyed an entire city, killed your mom, and then talk about her death in nauseating detail like it was an everyday conversation was enough to convince me otherwise. Cause at this point, you've made the worst serial killers look like everyday joes in comparison to the twisted shit that went through your head at the time." Ragnarök retorted sarcastically before finally retreating within Crona.

Crona simply shrugged in response, but be couldn't disagree with his partner, he was just as if not even more messed up before Maka and Soul came to save him. While he couldn't say he was completely sane even mostly sane at best, he did swear he was going to make things right. Even if it meant preparing to sacrifice himself again for sake of the world, and more importantly for Maka's sake as well.

Meanwhile, as Crona and his weapon had their argument, Soul and Maka began a brief conversation of their own on what exactly they were going to do.

"So, once we make it into the city and to the nearest shibusen academy, if there even is one here, what do we do?" Soul asked the scythe-wielding meister.

"I think that's pretty obvious Soul, if there is shibusen academy in the city we'll speak with the headmaster there and contact Death City immediately. And if there isn't one here, we'll just head in the direction of the nearest one." Maka answered.

"But now that I think about it, why haven't you used your mirror to contact everyone?" Maka questioned her weapon partner, who sighed in exasperation.

"I already did but it's not working, I tried everyone's number but not a single one got through, and I got a feeling yours is probably in the same shape." Maka had then decided to pull out her mirror to see if her death scythe was right. And only after trying Kid's, Blackstar's, and even Stein's numbers did she conclude that it wasn't working at all, exactly like Soul's mirror. The handheld glass didn't respond to any of the numbers written on and it simply acted as an average mirror.

"That's odd, this should be working just fine." Maka frowned as her mirror just didn't work at all, no matter what she tried. Seeing no luck with it, Maka then put the mirror back in her pocket.

"Maybe whoever sent us here using the book of Eibon, caused our mirrors to get all messed up in the process. Whether it was on purpose or not I got no clue, but if I were a betting man, I'd say it was the former." Soul concluded, wishing that possibility wasn't the case, but it seemed too likely at this point to deny.

"Well, that's just great, now we have no way of contacting anyone back home can things get any more complicated." Maka said in exasperation, completely missing Soul's subtle cringe at what was about to come out of his mouth.

"Actually Maka...they might." Soul said sounding like he was not looking forward to speaking about whatever this was at all.

"What are you talking about?" Maka asked in confusion and worry, just what else could go wrong now?

"Look, Maka...I've been avoiding the subject cause I know how much our friend behind us means to you but...you and I both know things aren't gonna be pretty when everyone back home sees Crona. The same especially for the people in this city, so I'm just asking you in full honesty; what the hell are we're gonna do with Crona? Cause I promise you right now, no one's gonna be a feeling drop of pity for the guy considering all he's done." Soul bluntly explained to Maka as her stunning face soon became scrunched in frustration and worry. As much Maka didn't want to admit it, she knew full well soul was right, Crona had already been a subject of wariness and distrust when he was a trial student at shibusen.

But after all the terrible things he'd done when he returned to Medusa? At this point the world wanted his head on a pike, but why couldn't they understand that Crona didn't want this? He didn't want to become a monster, he was forced and tortured into being one by his demon of a mother. He wasn't completely at fault for what happened in the past, yet the people didn't seem to understand or want to comprehend that, no matter what was told to them.

"B-But Crona didn't want to do any of that, Medusa drove him to do all that before we met him. And in the end, he was willing to trap himself with the kishin for all of us...for me; shouldn't that matter in the end and earn some form of forgiveness?"

Soul simply shook his head while sighing in response, looking up to give his meister grimaced look. "As much as I wanna say yes, I can't. People unfortunately aren't gonna see past that anymore Maka. The only thing everyone in the world is gonna see in Crona at this point, is the same guy who's killed a city full of innocent people. How he'd fused with the kishin to try to destroy the world, out of some deranged need to prove his existence." Soul started to say to his partner.

"What are you saying Soul?" Maka asked in shock.

"He's caused too much pain at this point for anyone to forgive him. It won't even matter anymore that Medusa put Crona on that path, as even after he killed her Crona still tried swallowing the world in madness. People, in the end, are still going to deem him as some unforgivable monster. One that should be in their eyes killed once and for all." Soul explained with a pained look on his face towards the end, almost as if it was hurting him to say something that horrible about someone, he still considers a friend; but as the old saying goes, the truth hurts.

Maka recoiled at what Soul just said about the possible ending to Crona's bleak situation. Her emerald eyes widening in fear of how likely that was, unable to even imagine that scenario playing out for a moment without feeling faint. her heart began beating faster and faster, as she was almost on the verge of panicking from such a fate befalling her dear friend. She tried telling herself they wouldn't do something like that to Crona. That it was simply wrong for someone like Crona to die after the needless cruelty he's endured his entire life.

But the cold logical part of her brain kept drilling into her skull that it could and most likely would happen, considering Crona's actions before now. And worse yet no matter what she or anyone else would say in his defense, the world would still hate him and want him dead for decades to come.

Still, she didn't give a damn about what they thought of Crona. People didn't seem to want to leave the black and white perspective they had viewed the whole situation with and accept it wasn't like that at all. That Crona's true personality isn't that of a bloodthirsty monster, but merely of a gentle, timid man who had been broken by a cruel life he had been forced to live in. She didn't care what they would think of her defending him, Crona was one of her best friends. If Crona was willing to fight for her, then she'd do the same for him in return.

After all, it was only fair.

"I don't care Soul. To hell with what they all think, I won't let anyone hurt him." Maka growled in anger before facing her weapon with a fierce glare. "Crona was willing to do so much for me and everyone else at last minute before we got sent here, I'm not giving up on him not now not ever!" Maka firmly declared, her face filled with the immeasurable will to protect her friend with all her might.

Soul in response chuckled in agreement at his partner's declaration. "I kind of figured you'd say something like that, which is why I'll be there to back you up. After all, it wouldn't be cool to leave you to protect Crona all by yourself, without a death scythe to back you up, would it?" Soul retorted with a fearless smile on his face, that already told her the loyalty he had for his meister.

Maka smiled warmly at her death scythes instant willingness to help her, no matter how impossible or insane the situation was she knew he'd always be by her side.

As a reward for such loyalty Maka ambushed him and a gave her weapon quick yet warm hug. Soul lightly blushed as a result of Maka's embrace, much to the demon weapon's own embarrassment. 'For Death's sake, what the hell is with me today? If this keeps up, people really are gonna see me as the uncool guy who blushes like a goddamn schoolgirl!' Soul thought to himself.

Maka noticed her weapon's embarrassed blush as she hugged him, and giggled in amusement before she finally let go, but still held onto his shoulders.

"Alright, I've tortured you enough as it is." Maka playfully teased the death scythe. "Now c'mon let's keep moving, we got friends to get back to." Soul only answered back with a simple nod, and with a calm smile he followed his pig-tailed meister through the forest. After that, the three continued their trek through the park and straight towards the growing sounds of civilization.

---

The group continued walking for a minute finally nearing the park's entrance/exit and left the park, entering the bustling city. The three were immediately met by the rows of traffic, and seemingly endless crowds of lively people. Before them were colossal yet colorful skyscrapers and buildings that loomed over the clouds and blocked a good view of the afternoon sky with their sheer height. Many of which were adorned with colorful commercial screens that lit up the city further, as the sound of cars in traffic filled their ears.

What caught Maka's attention was the screens on some of the buildings that displayed a foreign language. Upon seeing the letters of a different language she instantly knew the answer, which solved their question as to where they were yet also opened a whole other can of worms in the process.

"Hey, Soul. I think I know where we are, look up at that screen on one of those buildings." Maka said, pointing towards the screen while doing so.

Soul did exactly that and looked towards the screen, his eyes widened as he saw none other than Japanese kanji digitally written on the advertisement which the billboard screen displayed.

"Holy shit, is that...?" Soul trailed off before Maka answered for him.

"Yeah, it is. No doubt about it...we're in Japan." Maka grimly concluded, meaning they were practically on the other side of the globe. This unfortunate news instantly complicated things for the trio and their mission. Even if there was a shibusen here, it would take days before they could get back after contacting death city.

If they all decided to fly themselves back via Crona using Ragnarök to sprout wings, and herself using her Grigori wings through Soul, it would be too far to travel in a single day. At least not without her and soul passing out from sheer exhaustion. Maybe Crona could keep up and last much longer, but considering all he went through before, the result would inevitably be the same.

'Dammit, could things get any worse?' Then suddenly before she could think of what to do next, she felt Crona nudge her shoulder with a trembling hand.

"m...m-Maka, I- I think y-you need to see th-this..." Crona shakily stuttered with a quiet yet very fearful tone in his voice. Maka turned to look at Crona and was immediately stunned at his expression. The pink haired teen's eyes had widened to the size of dinner plates and his pupils shrank to tiny specks. His body trembled like a leaf while he stared at something, a sight that caused him to suddenly become frozen in place. But just what had rendered him as a stuttering mess on the verge of panic?

When she looked to ask Soul if he saw anything off, to her surprise she found her albino haired weapon partner frozen in the same amount of shock as well. His jaw had dropped and his wide-looking eyes were pointed in the same direction as Crona's. 'Just what the hell are they both seeing?' She looked to see for herself just what exactly was causing Crona and Soul to have near panic attacks. Maka turned her head to her frontal direction like Soul and Crona, immediately her forest green eyes nearly blasted out of their sockets at what she saw.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" Maka shouted in utter shock, now seeing exactly what had caused Crona and soul to be frozen in shock.

Right before Maka and her friends were crowds of people walking throughout the city's streets. But now that Maka, Crona, and Soul had taken the time to look at the people within the crowd more closely; they could immediately see something was very wrong. From within the crowds some of the people walking had various features that no human should have. Such as a young woman with curved spikes on both her arms and back that passed by the shocked trio; with more crowds of people like her coming by them.

Some possessed animal features, others held unnatural skin colors like red or purple, while some even looked like robotic humanoids such as two children with literal tank treads for legs. Some people didn't have any of these crazy features and looked ordinary as any average person. While others were the complete opposite like a girl with giant snakes for arms, or some guy with two shotgun barrels coming out of his forehead; and even another person who looked like a giant man-bat.

Their immense shock and confusion only grew more and a more, as no one had seemed to be bothered nor did they care or call-out at the fact; there were people with chimeric and other insane features walking about. It was almost as if it was normal for them, if anything some of the people passing by started giving annoyed glances at the three for staring at everyone that walked by them.

"W-W-what are these people? J-just where in the hell are we?" Maka whispered in shock, her voice being audible to only the two people standing next to her; both of whom were still trying to comprehend what they were seeing.

"M-Maka are these guys witches... monsters like Blair or something?" Soul quietly asked while he slowly recovered from his shock, but he was still completely stunned. Crona simply continued to stare at the scene of chimeric people waking the city along with...something else in pure shock. But he had at least managed to turn his head ever so slightly towards Maka and Soul to listen in, being also very keen on any explanation for what they were seeing.

After managing to calm down as much as possible, Maka activated her soul perception around her to see if they were witches or other non-human souls. But when Maka saw the souls of the people with these weird features and extra limbs, she found...absolutely nothing. They looked like average uncorrupted souls, not seeing a trace of witches' magic or kishin egg corruption in her spiritual vision. Maka did notice however that their souls and even some of the souls of regular people, had these core-like objects in various shapes and colors inside each one of them.

But besides that, other bizarre feature within these people. Overall, their souls didn't have a trace of magic or madness in any one of them, they were truly normal...and that just made even less sense to the meister.

Thus, after finding nothing else of value, she stopped using her soul perception and shook her head slowly. "N-no... they're not witches, nor are they monsters; their souls are normal-ish." Maka explained in a quiet voice, still shaken by the crowd of odd people.

"Normal-ish? Maka, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Soul inquired incredulously.

"The people with these...features and some of the regular people even, have these... cores I can guess in their souls. Each one is indifferent a shape, color, and size; but it must be related to why these people look the way they do, there's no other explanation for it. I don't even know myself how this is possible. I've never seen anything like this before in my life." Maka explained still in her shaken state albeit was shortly snapping out of it.

"Goddammit, just what kind of crazy ass city did we land in!?" Soul shouted in confused frustration.

Suddenly Ragnarök materialized out of Crona's back, breaking his meister out of his frozen shock. Weakly he raised his head to look at Ragnarök, who like half of the time was always mad at something.

"And I have a question, what the fuck is going on with all this damn screaming?! For Death's sake, I'm still mentally recovering from that bombshell recap of the past few months! Which you bastards told me not even 20 minutes ago, can't you give me a DAMN-" Ragnarök halfway ranted before cutting himself off as he managed to get a good look at the street in front of him, particularly of the people in them. "...Why the fuck does that guy have a fish for a head?" Ragnarök asked in stunned curiosity at one of the many people with bizarre features and limbs. But before Crona or anyone else for that matter could begin to answer his question; an explosion was heard a mile away from them as a couple of police cars began speeding towards it.

"What w-was that?" Crona said worryingly while looking in the direction the loud noise came from.

"Don't know, but it ain't nothing good that's for sure." Soul said already figuring out that something major was going down. He then looked towards Maka silently waiting for her to respond, and give him and Crona the okay to go and take action.

Maka already seeing what soul was silently asking, closed her eyes and deeply sighed before turning to look towards soul and Crona with a now serious look on her face.

"Look...none of us have single clue to what this place is, but we can't stand around and do nothing while innocent people are most likely in danger." Maka said turning to look at Crona who's frantic eyes made the scythe meister soften her features slightly before going up to him. "Crona, I know a lot has happened and your very afraid and confused right now, we all are. But, I need to ask if we-if I, can count on you to help us out?" Maka softly asked Crona with an almost pleading look in her eyes.

Crona seeing Maka ask for his help was all he need to instantly lose all fear and timidness, as he straightened himself out and now with a resolved expression on his face quickly nodded "I meant what I said back in Asura's soul, I will fight for you Maka until the end…no matter what happens. So yes, you can count on me to help you." The pink haired warrior told her in an assuring manner.

"Thank you Crona." Maka warmly thanked before her face returned to the serious expression it was before. thus, without wasting a minute longer Crona, Maka, and Soul all ran towards the source of the loud explosion, all while Ragnarök continued to rant and complain.

"Hey, hey! Can any of you stop and tell me what the hell is going on!? Like why are there are people with fucking fishes for heads walking around? Hey! answer me dammit!" Ragnarök shouted, pounding his ball hands-on Crona's skull as he continued demanding for an explanation. Instead though, he got no response from any of them; much to the little demon's growing frustration.

Crona and the others simply ignored his raving as they ran to that explosion's origin point, as more police cars sped by in the same direction. While they may not know what is going on or why they were here, Maka and Soul knew that in the end they were still members of spartoi and students of shibusen. Both of them had sworn their duty to protect innocent lives no matter what it took. Although the same could not be said for Crona, he did feel obligated to help his friends in whatever way he could to make up for his dark past.

A good start to his goal would be by helping his friends stop the situation occurring a minute ahead.

---

After running in the streets of the city for a minute the trio had made it to the site of the explosion and saw the source of the blast. Apparently it was a burning bank that had begun to be barricaded by police, and with a couple of officers calling for what they assumed was backup. Soon enough, the three turned their heads towards the burning building to see the culprits responsible come out of the wreckage of the building's entrance.

There were about four individuals who charged out of the flaming ruins, all of them wore black trench coats and ski masks, though despite having the same outfits they all looked radically different.

In the lead of the group was a giant gorilla man wearing two gold knuckle busters on each of his hands. Right beside the leader stood the second criminal, a bulky man with silver metallic skin and 2 rocket launchers on each of his forearms. To their left was criminal number three, a short stocky man that was outright levitating in the air while 4 handguns floated around him on their own. Hanging around the rear of the group was the final criminal, a woman with six red eyes and the lower body of a spider. All four of them carried large filled-up sacks, evidence that confirmed the four were responsible for the explosion. and were no doubt here to rob the bank of its money if the sacks were any indication.

Without wasting any time, the robbers began attacking the police that stood in their way of escape. The gorilla man lunged forward and gave a brutal sucker punch towards the policemen firing at him, causing the two men to be flung into a brick wall. Next the bazooka armed criminal aimed his arm guns and fired a short burst of energy at a police car, exploding to into flames and shrapnel; luckily the officers near the vehicle avoided the blast, but not without sustaining several injuries.

Simultaneously the levitating man rapidly fired his floating guns, keeping the other police that tried to enter the scene cornered behind cover to avoid being filled with holes. All while the spider lady fired out chunks of webbing from her spider abdomen, causing the swat units and police caught to be stuck to the walls or floor like fly's caught on sticky traps.

In less than a single minute, an entire squad of highly armed officers and SWAT units were defeated. Now the gorilla criminal smirked at the destruction he and his gang had caused, seeing the police defeated he turned to his friends. "All right guys let's move before a hero comes! If Anyone else gets in your way don't hesitate to get rid of em, now come on!" The gorilla man shouted in fluent Japanese as he and his posse ran towards an opening in the police barricade they'd decimated to make their escape.

Like the other people the teens had seen here, each criminal had those same weird features that gave them powers. Powers that some would seemingly abuse, just like the four criminals that were running away. From the ecstatic faces behind their ski masks, it seemed they didn't care one bit for all the pain and destruction they were causing as long as they benefited from it.

Much to the trio's anger and disgust, the criminals kept wreaking havoc as they watched the chaotic scene unfold before them. Unfortunately, the trio arrived too late to stop the criminals' violent getaway. "Well, at least we know some things are mostly the same, though wish I could say this wasn't one of them." Maka angrily commented, clenching her hands into tight fists of righteous fury at the devastated scene before them.

"Same here, it seemed that not all of these people are exactly law-abiding citizens. Guess that leaves us with the job to take go and care of it." Soul said with a courageous grin, now ready to relieve some frustration and kick criminal ass.

"Crona, you know not to kill them, right?" Maka questioned the former demon sword to which he simply nodded in response.

"All right then, let's go!" Maka said confidently, immediately Soul's body became engulfed in a white light until his form changed into an oversized scythe with a black/red pattern color scheme that almost resembled teeth. Within the middle of the post where the blade came from was a single eye-like structure in the middle of the scythe's other end, along with three eyelash like protrusions on the butt end of the scythe. Maka grabbed her demon scythe, twirling the weapon in her hand before preparing to dive into the scene.

Crona followed suit as he summoned Ragnarök out of his right arm. Materializing from the palm of his hand was a black broadsword with chains wrapped around where the blade and hilt met. The sword was a bit thinner than it was previously, most likely due to Ragnarök's shrunken size and as a result, lost a good portion of his weapon form's mass.

Now brandishing their weapons, both meisters wasted no more time and dashed after the escaping bank robbers. Noticing they were trying to run into an alley, Maka at her near superhuman speeds managed to run past them in mere seconds. Thus, blocking their escape routes entrance while Crona came from behind them, completely cornering the robbers.

"Oi! what do you shitty brats think you're doing!?" The silver-skinned crook shouted in Japanese. Unfortunately, both the teens didn't understand a single thing he said and simply went with it as Maka stepped forward.

"I'm assuming you're asking why we're here, and I think it's pretty obvious. We're going stop you, criminal scum, that's what." Maka coldly glared at the criminals, yet they simply stared at her in confusion, and did not understand a single word she said either. Their criminal crew's leader simply scoffed and shook his head, not wanting to waste any more time on the kids.

"Alright, you kids asked for this. GET EM!" The gorilla man yelled, as he and his crew dropped the bags of money and charged at the teens.

Immediately the gorilla man leapt towards Maka, pulling his fist for a right hook to punch her. However, the scythe meister sidestepped the attack and swung behind his back to bash his stomach with the butt of her scythe. Crunching sounds from several cracked ribs echoed as the gorilla man was bounced across the street. Yet as he tried getting up ,Maka gave him no such chance, moving to with knock him out with the pole of her scythe.

But before she could deliver the knockout strike, she briefly looked to the corner of her eye to see the silver skinned criminal was about to fire his laser arm guns at her. Thanks to her trained reaction skills, Maka jumped away from the blast radius in time. She barely dodged the blast of heat from the laser shot, which heavily scorched part of the alley. After a few seconds the silver man was about to fire his beam again at Maka, only for Crona to come from behind and vertically slash at one of the man's cannon-arms. Loud cries of pain came the laser armed crook as he clutched the long bleeding gash on his arm.

The criminal's pain gave Crona the opening he needed, as he swiftly struck the man's head with the pommel of his sword hard enough to knock him out in an instant. After dealing with the laser armed criminal, Crona turned around to face his next opponent, only to be met with the loud sound of guns firing. From a short distance away, the levitating man fired his numerous floating guns at Crona, grazing his right shoulder with a few lucky shots. Minor pricks of pain made the demon swordsman flinch as if he was stung by a bee, before he swiftly dodged and deflected the hail of bullets.

Crona, after closing enough distance to his target, dashed towards the floating man and raised up the arm that held Ragnarök, then he took a deep breath and spoke.

"Screech beta!" Crona shouted as with a single downward slash from his sword, a large purple projectile with a misshapen face was thrown towards the criminal in front of him. It happened so fast that the dwarf of a man couldn't move fast enough to avoid the sound blast. Upon impact the attack brutally slammed the levitating man into the hard ground below, kicking up a small dust cloud in the process. Crona remained standing in the same spot as he waited for the dust cloud to vanish, hoping he didn't go too far.

'Please don't be dead, please be alive.' Crona prayed in fear, desperately praying that he didn't accidentally kill the man and break his promise to Maka.

However, as the dust cloud dissipated Crona's prayers were answered only in a completely wrong way. Now bleeding profusely, the midget robber shot out of the dust with his guns levitating at his side, trying to get airborne and drill holes into the boy that stood in front of him.

Yet he never got the chance, as before he could even blink, Maka had blinked right in front of him.

With a single swing of her scythe's razor sharp blade, the four floating handguns were reduced to smoking metal chunks that clinked on the ground. The floating villain could only make a panicked yelp before Maka slugged him square in the face. His short body plummeted to the pavement below once again as he was knocked unconscious. After defeating the second robber, Maka took a moment to scan the area to see which of the criminals were still able to fight. When she turned her head to the left, her eyes widened in concern as the spider lady snuck past Crona and was about attack him from behind.

"Crona look out!" Maka yelled out as she sprinted with all the speed her legs could muster to save her friend. However, the spider villain managed to fire a chunk of webbing out of her arachnid abdomen. Maka knew she wasn't gonna make it in time, so she threw Soul at the chunk of webbing that flew towards Crona. Soul's spinning scythe form eviscerated the gob of spider silk on contact as he flew though the air. Crona immediately backed away a few steps, setting his sights on the spider lady that hid behind him and was about to retaliate until...

SWOOSH!

A sharp yet heavy spike of pain suddenly entered his nerves, particularly to the back of his head. Crona briefly looked to see that the gorilla robber had gotten back on his feet and managed to rip a large chunk of asphalt from the ground. He'd thrown the huge rock directly at the boy's head when he wasn't looking. Caught off guard by the strike, the teen was bashed into the ground; the force of which caused multiple small cracks to become visible on the pavement when he landed.

"CRONA!" Maka yelled in rage as she charged in fury to retrieve Soul and beat the living crap out of that monkey looking bastard who'd brutally attacked her close friend. Yet before she could move any further, she was forced to leap back from a gob of spider webbing that nearly hit her. The arachnid criminal leapt forward and began a hasty assault on the scythe meister. Maka was forced to go on the defensive and swiftly dodged the numerous spear-like spider limbs that launched at her.

'Dammit, I don't have time for this!' Maka thought in frustration as she dodged and blocked the flurry of piercing kicks from the spider legs and occasional strikes from clawed hands. Maka's eyes drifted towards Soul's scythe form that laid waiting on the ground. Thankfully, seeing his meister in trouble Soul immediately transformed back into his human form and ran to her aid.

"Hang on Maka, I'm coming!" Soul shouted as he sprinted towards Maka with two scythe blades emerged on both his forearms. Unfortunately, his red eyes spotted the gorilla criminal launching himself in his direction, intent on intercepting the death scythe. Soul managed to sidestep the hulking man that had charged at him.

"Hey King Kong Jr! Don't you have a date with a skyscraper?" Soul mocked as he counterattacked with a speedy kick to the large crook's gut. The ape man staggered back in pain from the surprisingly strong kick to his stomach, which rendered him vulnerable. Soul readied himself to finish the battle as he came rushing in to land a right hook to the downed criminal's face.

Unfortunately, he was thwarted as a white blur suddenly hit the arm he was about to punch with. Alarmed by this sudden attack, Soul looked to see his arm now entrapped in a white sticky webbing that made him stuck to a wall.

Soul turned to see the spider woman as she fought Maka smirking mischievously, as her spider abdomen leaked fresh excess webbing. Apparently the spider criminal was capable of multitasking, most likely due to her many eyes, and had fired a surprise webbing attack to get some breathing room for her boss.

Soul however wasn't deterred in the slightest by the sneaky tactic. With his left arm still free, he sliced away at the webbing that tangled up his right arm, its razor sharp blade easily cut through the spider silk.

However, it seemed that the gorilla man got all the time he needed; as he recovered from the blow to his stomach and looked up to see Soul stuck to the wall. The gorilla man smiling triumphantly to see his opponent now distracted, using this moment to then divert his attention towards Maka and ran to assist his fellow robber. Soul cursed in frustration as he quickened the pace, cutting the webbing with all due haste, moments away from his freedom.

Soul soon realized that even then, it wouldn't be enough time for him to stop the gorilla man that was about to wail on his meister.

However, Maka wasn't completely defenseless either. Since her weapon was in a sticky predicament and the massive ape still charged towards her, Maka knew she had to end this. Thus, after dodging another stab from the spider leg kicks, she saw an opening to strike back. Rearing her left arm back, she threw a heavy uppercut straight to the arachnid's jaw. The spider lady loudly cursed in angry pain as she recoiled from the harsh blow that struck her face. Now that her multi legged enemy was distracted by agony, Maka sprinted as fast as possible towards soul.

All she needed to do reach her death scythe was get through a big hairy obstacle.

That obstacle being the infuriated gorilla criminal that was headed straight towards her, ready to rip her limb from limb. Maka wasn't afraid in the slightest however, merely giving a determined glare at the ape man and kept running forward.

She knew very well that she couldn't take him on, not alone, she didn't have enough brawn to go toe to toe with this musclebound brute's strength.

While she did consider herself a decent fighter, her status as a two-star meister and a member of spartoi were proof enough, it wouldn't matter against a wall of muscle. She had to be smart with her tactics and prioritize retrieving Soul as soon as physically possible. Even though she had done her best to not rely on Soul to fight her battles she still needed to have her weapon when dealing with foes like this. Only when she had her scythe back could she finally defeat the criminal.

Maka would have to do her best to avoid the angry ape and retrieve her weapon partner. As she ran ahead, Maka shifted her direction towards the nearby wall of a building. Using her trained acrobatic skill, she jumped towards the wall and momentarily sprinted on its surface. Avoiding the bipedal ape's path of destruction in the process, her feet landed back on the ground and she continued her dash towards Soul.

The robber however was whipped into raging frenzy, beyond fed up with the speedy brat and redirected himself in her direction at the last second. Maka turned her head and saw the bulky criminal now chasing her, speeding up her pace. Yet the ape robber was quite persistent and was still close enough to lunge himself at the girl from behind her back.

As he ran towards Maka, the criminal leader cracked his knuckles and cruelly grinned. He was more than excited to finally pulverize the little shit who'd taken down all his partners and caused this mess in their plans.

"I warned you and your friends not to get involved you dumb little bitch, but now I think it's time to teach ya a good lesson!" The ape criminal maliciously roared while he prepared to crush the teenage girl into a bloody paste. Raising one of his bulky fists to strike her in the back of the head, he was less then a second away from hitting her. But before his fist could make any contact, a quietly cold voice spoke.

"Bloody needle."

At the very second those words were uttered; three black needle-like spikes sprang towards the gorilla criminal. The sharp projectiles pierced through the flesh and bone of the arm he was about to punch Maka with. Soon enough, the agonizing sensation of his entire arm being stabbed overloaded the pain receptors in his brain. The villain recoiled, stopping dead in his tracks and then started screaming in agonizing pain. Desperately he tried to remove these thin spikes that lodged into his arm but to no avail. The needles only dug further into his flesh and bones like surgical knives, causing him to suffer even more from his painful wound.

Maka moment stopped running for a moment and turned to see the now screaming criminal. At first, she was confused as to what happened, but the second she saw those thin black spikes in the man's arm she instantly figured who that was. Maka turned her head to see just behind the gorilla robber, Crona was standing back up. Maka noticed how Crona's black blood dripped from the grazed bullet wounds on his shoulder; along with a couple of droplets that trickled from his forehead.

Crona merely stood in place, staring at the two bank robbers with a cold, almost unhinged glare on his face that caused chills to go up their spines.

"You know, I was actually planning to go easy on you before...but you went ahead and tried to hurt Maka, so now I'm going to send you to jail in stitches." Crona uttered in cold fury with minor madness glinting in his eyes. The swordsman instantly lunged forward and raised his left arm, four black thorn filled tendrils with arrow shaped spear edges emerged from his thin coat/robe.

The black thorns rapidly sped towards the injured gorilla man, wrapping themselves around his waist and his other arm tightly. Crona commanded his thorns to raise the criminal into the air with a single gesture, then viciously threw the ape across the street with his black thorn whips. Resulting in the thrown crook making a brutal impact directly on a random car. The villains bulky body crashed onto its hood, with a loud "BOOM" sound echoing through the street. Seconds later the ape man lost consciousness from the sheer pain alone.

The spider lady, now with her many eyes wide in terror, sweated profusely in unrelenting fear of Crona's merciless wrath. In fact, by time Crona had dealt with her boss, she was already preparing to just run for the hills. Before she could flee in time though, she was met with a pair of boots in her vision, courtesy of a solid kick in the face from Soul. While Crona was brutalized the ape robber, Soul cut through the webbing on his arm.

After seeing Crona's merciless display of power, he decided to give the spider villain a taste of her own medicine with his own sneak attack. Thus, with the spartoi death scythe freed from the webbing, he was able to give some nice payback to his eight legged opponent.

After knocking the arachnid woman down with a dropkick, Soul jumped a small distance back and gave a nod to his meister. Maka immediately understood what he meant by the silent gesture and charged forward now that she had enough space for a finishing attack. As if her lower body was being energized, Maka pulled her leg out as far as possible in the blink of an eye and slammed it downwards. Maka delivered a nasty axe kick to the top of the arachnid woman's skull, and the villain received a serious concussion immediately before the she finally passed out in pain.

---

With a heavy sigh, Maka stood up and looked around. From what she could see, it seemed to her that all the bank robbers had been incapacitated. With no other pressing issues to distract them, Soul and Maka quickly ran towards the mildly wounded Crona.

"Crona are you okay?" Maka asked in immediate concern as she examined Crona's injuries. The demon swordsman worried most about the wounds where his black blood dripped out.

"I-I'm fine it's just some scratches, as long as you're safe then It's alright." Crona told her with a timid smile and while Maka and soul looked skeptical, they knew he wasn't entirely lying. While the various injuries would be somewhat serious for an average person or even a meister, it wasn't the case here. Due to the black blood flowing through his veins, they were nothing but scrapes at best to Crona.

Enhanced regeneration was also ability that the black blood provided to him, as with injuries such as that gunshot wounds, they would disappear in 10 minutes at most. Yet it didn't make lessen the pain from the injuries either, as a growing ache slowly formed in his head but the pink haired teen simply ignored it as much as he could. Then soon enough a splash of black blood came from his back as Ragnarök emerged out of Crona.

"And what about me!? I'm the one who helped you mop the floor with these freaky assholes! After all the shit that's happened, I practically deserve a fucking feast of food after this!" Ragnarök loudly demanded as he flailed his little arms around in angry fashion. The three teens simply sighed once again in exasperation at the little demon's demanding nature.

"Ragnarök, I'll see later. Right now we have to see what to do with them." Crona exasperatedly told his merged weapon partner as he pointed to the four knocked out super criminals lying around.

"Yeah, you fuckin better. Also, why the hell didn't you tell me you can shoot goddamn thorns out of your ass like some living rose bush!? Let me guess yet another ability we gained after merging with that freakin clown?" Ragnarök inquired rudely, yet Crona didn't respond. The boy simply continued to rub his forehead to ward off the concussion in his skull. Crona definitely didn't look like he was in the mood to explain anything thanks to the nasty pain in his skull.

Seeing that her injured friend was being harassed once more by the annoying sword, Maka quickly came to his aid forced the noisy creature back off.

"That's enough Ragnarök, he doesn't need to explain everything to you now." Maka reprimanded before an almost mocking smirk came on her face. "Besides, I don't think your little head could've handled anymore reveals without exploding. Especially if your screechy outburst in the park was anything to go by." Maka teased the demon weapon, knowing full well that it would have very much happened an hour ago if he was told earlier.

"Little head!? Your damn lucky that I'm back to this puny size, otherwise I'd rip off your cow hooves and shove em down your-" And soon enough Ragnarök's rant was cut off by Maka's fist being flown straight into his round cheek. The demon recoiled in pain from the blow as Maka stood there glaring at the merged weapon.

"OW! You damn woman, what the hell did you do that for?! Haven't I been through enough today!?" Ragnarök whined angrily while he rubbed the right side of his head. Crona simply shook his head in exasperation at his weapon partner's behavior knowing full well he deserved it.

"Good, I swear if you weren't attached to Crona You'd be getting Maka chops like there was no tomorrow." Maka growled already starting to wish that the mind of Crona's noisy weapon's consciousness just remained dormant inside of him rather than coming back to deal with his bratty behavior.

"Guys, I hate to interrupt your conversation, but we got company." Soul pointed out as the four looked to see the police were arriving. But what truly caught their attention to a tall man with a wide muscular build that running towards them.

As he got closer the trio saw the man wore a large headband with a yellow and black-striped caution pattern, matching his thick wrist-guards and a square buckle on his waist with a triangular decoration sat in its center.

He wore what looked to be a cyan-colored cardigan, which exposed his lower torso and the center of his pectorals, held onto his chest on each side by small metal nuts. His pants were dark blue with a white stripe down each side, and hung slightly baggy on him. The odd stranger's shoes were plain black with a simple design.

And as they looked at him, they all had one question in mind:

'What the hell is he wearing?' The trio all thought simultaneously, complete baffled at the sight before them.

Soul raised his eyebrow in incredulity at the man heading towards them. The guy looked like he came out of one of the comic books he'd read back in Death City, rather than study for his tests. Lest he forget how that often leading to Maka's usual sisterly/housewife scolding, and if he didn't listen soon enough it would usually end with a swift Maka chop until he did. Perhaps he did need one this time so he and Maka could make sure that he wasn't hallucinating as an actual superhero marched towards them.

Soul turned to look at Maka and Crona, the former stared incredulously at the ridiculous costume the man wore, while Crona stood in baffled confusion at the sight before him. And the noisy little imp was parked on top of Crona's head, looked like he was moments away from bursting in laughter, but soon enough he recoiled back inside to probably release it all. For once he really couldn't blame the little guy, if the situation wasn't so serious, he'd be laughing too.

In fact, it took all of Soul's strength to not let out the loud laughs inside him that wanted to be released. To not buckle under the wobbling of his knees to roll on the floor with gut-wrenching laughter, it truly was a hilarious sight. Either way, ridiculous outfit aside they decided to see if they can get any answers out of him.

But they soon noticed behind them the sound numerous voices whispering. Each of the three teens turned around to see much to their surprise was a crowd of people that had silently gathered. Most likely the crowd had arrived towards the end of the fight, judging by how many spectators there were. A good chunk of them raised these weird looking mirrors at them like they were cameras.

'Wait a minute, this place had mirrors that can act as cameras?' The two shibusen students thought in confusion. Between the bizarre people with powers or unnatural features, and this, just how the hell had nobody known about this place? in the middle of Japan no less?

"Just who the heck are those kids?"

"I don't know but that kid with white hair has a crazy quirk, I mean he turned into a damn scythe!"

"Forget him, did you see what that pink haired kid in the robe did to that villain with those black vines, he threw him around like a rag doll!"

"Just what kind of quirk is that!?"

"That girl with the pigtails looks pretty cute though."

"Really dude?"

"Everyone Look! pro hero 'Death Arms' is here!"

"Hell Yeah! Go take care of those vigilantes, Death Arms!"

Maka couldn't tell who or what they were cheering for exactly. However, she could at least tell it was either for them, the guy with the ridiculous costume and name "Death Arms", or maybe both. What really felt off to her was how nobody was reacting to Crona, at least not in the way she expected. Even though he'd changed, everyone in the world should know who he is and what he'd done. Instead of running in fear though, some of them actually seemed to be cheering for him.

Much to Crona's embarrassment, he looked away with a faint blush on his face and trembled nervously from the positive attention. So again, just where were they? Yet before Maka could delve any further into the issue, she was forced to halt her train of thought when the costumed man approached them.

When he was close enough to the teens, he scanned the scene before him and the unconscious bank robbers. The man took extra note of the damage done to the street during the fight and particularly the unconscious gorilla man lying on a wrecked car who'd suffered the most injuries. Despite his arm looking like Swiss cheese, the man was still alive none the less. And so, after assessing the root of what happened here, he then looked at the three teens and walked towards them.

"Are you kids responsible for all this?" The Thus, bulky costumed man asked in Japanese, a stern tone being quite evident as he crossed his arms while he spoke.

Though they couldn't understand him due to the language barrier, Maka could at least figure out that he was trying to ask if they did this, to which she nodded in response. Maka then went up to the man and prepared to speak with him in order to settle this matter.

"Yes sir, we helped stop these people who robbed the bank." Maka replied in simple detail, yet the giant man only stared at them strangely. His eyes widened briefly before returning to his calm serious expression and nodded, silently telling her to keep going.

Thankfully Maka seemed to understand the gestures meaning and proceeded to explain further. "We chased them all down here as they were trying to escape; and we then proceeded to take them down." Maka explained calmly with the man's eyes narrowing slightly before he spoke again.

Yet to Maka's surprise it wasn't in the language she was expecting.

"You speak English, yes? I know the basics so I understood you." The man replied in broken English, his Japanese accent very present but was still understandable to the trio before him.

"While I appreciate help with the villains, I hope you understand the situation you are in. Vigilantism a serious crime along with illegal quirk usage; especially in such brutal manner." Death arms told the teens in the same broken English. Pointing towards the gorilla man Crona pulverized before, as said boy looked away guiltily clutching his right arm.

"Illegal quirk usage? Vigilantism? Sir What are you talking about?" Maka raised her eyebrows in cluelessness at what this man just told them. Did he mean Demon Weapon abilities? That was probably the first time she'd ever heard such weird names being used for those terms before.

Then again everything about this place was so weird, even for her standards. And she lived in an apartment with a magic cat that can transform into a busty chested woman for crying out loud!

Death arms didn't say anything in response however, the hero merely stood there and observed the three teenage vigilantes in suspicion, layered with bewilderment. While he did find it somewhat difficult to fully understand these teens, he did know enough English to figure out the kids' lack of knowledge on what he scolded them on.

'Something's not right with these kids...they don't seem to know a single thing I'm talking about. It's obvious they aren't from Japan if they don't understand Japanese, but still...the fact they don't know illegal quirk use and vigilantes is beyond strange.' Death-arms then glanced at the crowd of spectating civilians being kept back by the police, being able to hear what they had to say while running here.

And the civilians did seem to be quite intrigued by the children and their actions.

'Judging by what that crowd said they saw before I came here; the albino boy has some kind of transformation quirk that allows him to turn into a scythe for the girl to use. While the pink haired one has quite a powerful quirk too. Capable of not only creating a sword but also making thorned vines strong enough to throw a villain straight into a car.' Death arms thought as he cautiously stared at the three unsure as what to do.

On one hand, these kids just helped him take down four dangerous villains and prevented them from escaping with the stolen bank money; all without any more property damage or injuries from occurring.

But on the other hand, they just made themselves vigilantes who illegally used their quirks in public and interfered with hero business. Also taking into account how they brutally dealt with the villains, Death Arms eyed the unconscious form of the robber on a car with concern.

'They're obviously far too young to have gotten their hero licenses. And besides the pink haired boy, these kids aren't even wearing any costumes. Yet they could be secretly villains for all I know seeing how the pink one dealt with one of the robbers so violently. Either way the fact remains, they're simply too dangerous to let off the hook. So as much as I hate to do this...' Death Arms grimaced having decided what to do as he walked away from the trio and made his way over to a few police officers. Maka, soul and Crona couldn't really understand what they were talking about due to speaking in Japanese. Maka could see it was about them, partly because of how the adults would glance at them once and while.

After a minute of waiting, the bulky costumed man finally came back, only now with 4 officers walking next to him. Maka and Soul however could easily tell something wasn't right, as the neutrally stern expressions made them feel an uneasy sense of caution.

"I'm sorry for this but I have to take you kids in for unauthorized quirk use; and for your friend's violent behavior, please come quietly." Death arms said in mostly clear English as the two out of the four officers next to him pulled out handcuffs and began to walk towards them.

"WHAT!?" All three teens shouted in confused and outraged shock.

"Under what charges?! You're seriously arresting us for this 'unauthorized quirk use' you keep talking about? What the hell does that even mean?!" Maka protested in outrage, unable to believe what was happening now. They were literally being arrested for defeating a gang of bank robbers.

"What the hell, man?! We just helped you take down a bunch of crooks and you're taking us to jail in return?! just what are you people trying to pull?!" Soul demanded at the man. The albino boy was seriously pissed off for himself, his meister, and Crona being arrested for breaking some bullshit laws they'd never heard about, it was extremely unfair. Like hell they were gonna stand for it, not if he had anything to say about it!

"B-but w-we stopped those criminals from getting away. I-I don't understand, w-why are you d-doing this?" Crona fearfully stuttered, not comprehending why they were being punished for doing something right. What was going to do? He can't handle going to jail! But what really scared him was what would happen to Soul and Maka. He may deserve whatever they might do to him, but his friends certainly didn't.

"Sorry but has to be done, you three are too dangerous." Death arms sternly told the trio in his best English, yet Maka refused to go along with the ridiculous farce being enforced on them.

"Don't you realize my partner and I are students of shibusen?! You can't just arrest us like this for trying to help you!" Maka told the man in an attempt to see if that would get a reasonable response. Unfortunately, all her outburst did was cause Death Arms and the officers to look at her strangely.

"Huh, never heard a hero school like that, but we will get in contact with them to report your vigilante activity." Death arms explained to the ash blonde meister, yet Maka could only blink in a moment of stunned confusion by what he just said.

"Hero school? What are-no we're not going anywhere until you explain what exactly is going on." Maka firmly declared as she and her friends stepped back as the officers got closer.

"Kid, don't resist. Just quietly come and we will figure out everything." Death arms said getting into a more cautious stance in case they needed to be subdued, which looked more likely by the minute.

"I said no, now stay back!" Maka yelled at the officers who ran near enough to attempt to clamp handcuffs on her and her friends, as one of them grabbed Maka by her left arm.

"Hey! Let go of me!" Maka shouted as she struggled to pull away from the officer, but his grip was tighter than she expected and wouldn't budge.

"This isn't a discussion little girl, now come peacefully or-"

But before the officer could finish his foreign sentence, Crona had pushed past the officers coming at him. Running next to the officer that was restraining Maka, he tightly gripped the man's own wrist that held Maka's arm. Using his black blood empowered strength, Crona applied enough force to nearly crush the officer's entire wrist. The cop briefly cried out in pain before Crona shoved him to the ground and put himself in front of Maka. The pink haired boy stood firm, blocking the officers and the costumed man from approaching as he then raised his right arm.

"Ragnarök." Crona called out quietly as the black broadsword materialized out of the boys raised arm. Immediately pointing the weapon towards both the officers and the costumed man. His face adorned with a dead serious expression that promised nothing but pain and misery should they try anything.

"I don't know what's happening or why you're arresting us. But honestly, I don't care. if any of you dare try hurting her, I'm going to make you all regret it." Crona coldly threatened the cops and pro hero, his ruthless glare shot off a minor wave of killing intent that froze the Japanese cops in place.

"Took the words right out of my mouth Crona." Soul remarked in agreement as he took advantage of the cop's moment of distraction and quickly shifted into his scythe form for Maka to instantly wield. The scythe meister getting herself positioned into a fighting stance, as all three of them were ready to fight their way out of here.

"Do not resist!" Death arms shouted as he ran towards them, intent on forcefully apprehending the teenage vigilantes. Raising his bulky fist, the pro hero smashed it into the ground, which caused a small shockwave in the process. The speed of the two meisters easily outpaced the shockwave, but the kids were still stunned by the man's display strength; as a crater formed on the street floor that he punched. Wasting no time in running past the man, the duo fled down towards the road, with Death Arms in pursuit behind them.

'Holy shit, I didn't think the big guy would be that strong.' Soul commented in his weapon form, he did not expect the man to be able to smash pavement like it was sand.

"I knew there was something weird about him, but I didn't think he'd have strength like that either." Maka replied, and for a brief moment she became curious as she turned her head and used her soul perception on the man. Except his soul had the same anomaly that she saw in those crowds of people from before. Another core-like object inside the man's soul; with his being a cube shaped object floating inside the average sized human soul.

Maka had already started suspecting that these things inside the souls of certain people were the source of their odd powers and bizarre features. Now her theory was confirmed as she also saw cores of various shapes and forms in the unconscious robbers as well.

But just what were they?

What were those things inside their souls? And how did the strange objects give them such unique abilities and weird appearances? Maka however shook her head to snap out of her deep thinking and continued running.

'This isn't the time for that, right now we've got to get out of here and escape these guys.' Maka thought to herself as she ran at faster pace than before.

"This is just great! I wake up out of your puny ass to find myself having lost my own fucking sentience; while you ran around as some world ending psycho. Now you got us and those two losers sent to some city full of freaks and leotard wearing nutcases, who now want to lock us up for helping them! But hey, if I get to fuck them up, who am I to complain?!" Ragnarök cackled through the red lipped mouth that sprouted on his sword form.

But Crona didn't pay any mind to him as he focused on himself and Maka getting to safety, until they noticed a small blockade of police cars gathered in their direction. SWAT Units and police were gathered around, all of them armed and ready to non-lethally take them down. All while the man with super strength chased them from behind. Basically the three of them were cornered on both sides by their numerous pursuers. They'd be completely trapped and captured if they didn't act quickly, they had to find a way out.

But as Maka looked at Crona, particularly Ragnarök, she suddenly had an idea. It was stupid and probably was going to painful as hell, but she knew it was their best option to make an opening to escape. Thus, Maka soon covered her ears as best as she could and called out for Crona.

"Crona! use your scream resonance!" Maka loudly told Crona, who looked at her for a second before nodding. Quickly he understood what she had planned, and the two of them stopped dead in their tracks as Crona raised Ragnarök up into the air then took a deep breath.

"Scream resonance!" Crona shouted as the lipped mouth on Ragnarök then opened. Giving off a sonic scream that paralyzed all those around them in pain from the intense sound waves. The officers and swat units fell to their knees from the pain to their ears while Maka and soul simply continued to hold out and wait for their friend to finish.

"ARGH! The hell is this!?" Death arms shouted as he clutched his ears in pain from the banshee shriek assaulting his eardrums.

After 20 more seconds of the intense screaming, Ragnarök ceased his attack and closed his mouth. Crona remained unaffected by his weapon's scream and scanned the area, it seemed all the officers and SWAT units were writhing in pain from the sonic attack. The same case for the costumed man who was kneeling on the ground in agony, yet he began to recover slightly better than the others. Crona turned around to see Maka was wincing in pain form the loud scream, but still the only other one standing.

"Maka a-are you okay!? I'm so sorry if I hurt you, I tried-" but before Crona could apologize further, Maka placed her finger to his lips and simply smiled through the pain.

"I-it's okay Crona, I know you didn't mean to, just gimme a second, okay?" Maka softly told the concerned swordsman, and Crona nodded in acceptance of her request. But in less than ten seconds a certain demon weapon melted back into his meister, popped out of his back and then rolled his ping pong eyes.

"Well, it's not my fault you can't handle my badass voice like these chumps over here. But maybe if you bend over and kiss my nonexistent ass, I might consider giving you a break and go easy on you next time." Ragnarök sneered at the scythe meister, who only growled in frustration at the imp's annoying personality.

"Ragnarök..." Maka hissed in irritation, not in the mood at all to deal with the little demon's rude comments, especially now with the ringing in her ears. Then again she was kind of grateful for it, as she could more easily mute out the imp's screechy voice for the time being.

"Ragnarök that's enough, we need to leave right now. So can you fly us out of here?" Crona told his weapon, the imp only glared with his round eyes at his merged meister.

"And now you want me to fly your sorry ass out of here? What the hell am I, your damn maid!?" Ragnarök brashly asked the son of medusa, who gave the blob a stern expression; while Maka glared at the childish weapon as well.

Outnumbered in this situation, Ragnarök groaned in exasperation before looking back at his meister.

"Ugh fine but don't forget, I expect a whole feast of cheeseburgers when this is all over." Ragnarök reluctantly obeyed, as the demon weapon morphed and changed shape. Growing in size until he transformed into a dragon-like creature. Lengthy yet extremely thin black wings sprouted from the demon's sides, with diamond-shaped structures attached or floating under each wing's finger. Though the draconic wings looked skinny as sticks and flimsy; they were still more than capable of carrying his meister and flying at high speeds away from their pursuers.

Maka after finally recuperating from the scream resonance, stood up straighter and more prepared for her and Soul to use their own methods to fly to safety.

"Alright, Soul. you ready?"

'As I'll ever be.'

And with that, in a glow of light Soul's scythe form manifested six long lithe angelic wings of glowing blue energy. The police and death arms now having recovered from the sonic attack looked at the teens in awe and shock at the display of their abilities. But before they could take action Crona with a flap of Ragnarök's wings; and Maka, now riding on Soul's winged weapon form, took flight. With the flapping of wings filling the air, the duo soon flew away from the police and pro hero.

"Stop!" Death arms shouted but he was too late as the two meisters flew out of sight by the time he reached where they stood before...

"Dammit, they got away." Death Arms cursed in frustration, not expecting one bit that the pink haired kid and especially the boy who turned into a scythe could fly like that. Just kind of quirks did those kids have?

"Sir? Death Arms, just who the hell were those kids? They were unlike anything I've ever seen before, it's like they had multiple quirks or something." A random police officer said in confusion, still very shaken by the sonic scream from before.

"I know, they're more powerful than I expected. But don't worry though, we may have lost them but they won't get far." Death arms answered before pressing on the earpiece he was wearing. "Calling all nearby pro heroes in or nearby Fukuoka city! we have multiple vigilante suspects that managed to get past me, and are now running wild in the city."

"The suspects are three American teenagers, one being an albino boy with red eyes and sharp teeth. A green-eyed girl with wheat blond hair and a pink haired boy with dark lavender eyes, wearing what looks to be either a purely black robe or coat; While the other two are merely wearing average civilian clothing. Be advised, at least two of the suspects have powerful quirks with multiple different abilities. I repeat two of the suspects have powerful quirks with multiple different abilities." Death arms announced on the earpiece, hoping any good pro heroes heard the message, as he looked at the evening sky and wondered to himself what else to expect from today.

---

"-Be advised, at least two of the suspects have powerful quirks with multiple different abilities. I repeat two of the suspects have powerful quirks with multiple different abilities." A yellow-eyed slim narrow built man with feathery ash blonde haired man, heard the announcement from his earpiece. Listening to the call, he'd already finished taking care of a villain hostage situation nearby the area. The man was ready to fly off with his red feathered wings before getting the alert from Death Arms of the situation in the city. And needless to say, he was both greatly intrigued and greatly concerned about this certain piece of new information.

'A few vigilantes running around is nothing special even, if their quirks are powerful. But the fact that they have multiple abilities from their quirks, powerful ones at that... that's what concerns me.' The pro hero hawks thought as he narrowed his golden colored eyes inside a dull yellow visor. Already this case had shot to the top of his list of priorities, a bunch of young vigilantes running around with power like that is big fat 'NO'. Especially since it's in the city where his agency is located in of all places.

They needed to be apprehended immediately, and hopefully he would see what he could do for them. As these vigilantes were still just some teenagers from what Death Arms reported. Judging by their appearances, they'd probably just started this; after being reprimanded from such actions, they could have their abilities be put to better use if possible.

The winged man continued to hover with his red wings in the air for a few moments, before he flew off in seconds towards the suspects' last known location. A small smile crept onto his face as he flew off into the afternoon sky.

Today was going to prove to be very, very interesting.

---

"-Be advised, at least two of the suspects have powerful quirks with multiple different abilities. I repeat two of the suspects have powerful quirks with multiple different abilities." A robust tan skinned women with white hair heard from the earpiece on one of her rabbit hears. She had Just about wrapped up her raid in the warehouse as she pummeled the last thug into unconsciousness. She'd finished dealing with a villain gang hiding out in the building, and personally led the charge to take them all down.

What filled the building now was the unconscious bodies of several criminals as they were apprehended by the authorities. Immediately afterwards though, she heard the alert from the pro hero Death Arms about three vigilantes running around. At first, she was going ignore it and let some bunch of the weakling heroes that relied on numbers to deal with that mess. But her red eyes soon widened at a particular piece of information. That the suspects had not only powerful quirks, but ones with various abilities.

Now THAT got her attention.

'Well, well this is going to be interesting. I've never heard vigilantes with quirks like that before. Oh, this is gonna be fun as hell!' The rabbit hero Mirko thought to herself with a wide smile on her face. Already itching to head over there and see what the big fuss is about. Thus, with a jump from her very muscular legs, leaped out of the warehouse before running like a bullet train.

Occasionally hopping building over building, she was headed to the location where the vigilantes were spotted. The excited smile Rumi had before remained on her face while she ran. She felt excited at the prospect of fighting people with powerful quirks like those. All the while she wondered if they'd actually fight, or just disappoint her and surrender, either way one thing was for sure.

Today was going to be a fun one.

And with that, a citywide manhunt ensued for three displaced souls.

---

*AUTHORS NOTE*

Well, hello everyone! And may I welcome you all to reading the first chapter of soul bound heroes!

needless to say, I am very excited for writing this story, especially considering that it's a crossover between soul eater and my hero academia. As a big fan of soul eater and my hero academia, I've always wanted to see a crossover like this happen. But was shocked by the lack of good ongoing stories on the soul eater crossover page and the fandom itself practically dying.

I tried to suggest my idea to other writers but they either couldn't do it due to being too busy or just didn't take story suggestions.

So, I simply thought there was only one option left for me to do. As since nobody would write such a story I thought:

"Fine I'll do it myself..." I said ominously while raising a golden gauntlet holding a pencil.

thus, I began to write my own story.

my first one in fact, so I hope you go easy and simply point out any flaws or errors I've made to either correct or not repeat in the future.

Now the reason I chose these specific characters from soul eater is because of not only because these three are my favorite characters. But because of how there aren't any that center around them, instead just being the of the entirety iconic characters we know. So, I decided to twist things up a bit and add Crona (a criminally underused character in soul eater fanfics and decided to add him in this story.)

Keep in mind however, I'm using the MANGA version of soul eater. As I find that one to be MUCH more awesome than the anime and its...crappy ending. So, if your lost and don't understand some of the things in this chapter, then your gonna have to read the soul eater manga. As I plan to add many more things from there in the future of this story.

To clarify a few things such time placement. In this story, the trio's dimensional displacement in the MHA universe takes place ten months before the entrance exams.

And yes, Crona is a boy in this story, along with the fact that what did actually stick with me in the anime was how they referred Crona as "he". So, I Kind of stuck with it, and since Okubo doesn't even know Crona's true gender, I've decided to have Crona be male.

EDIT:Also I like to mention this chapter was revised by my good friend dmnadog056, he put a lot of effort into helping me fix this chapter, and highly recommend you check out his work; And also give thanks to him for his dedication to helping me write this crossover.

anyway, I can't wait to see where this goes and hope you enjoy the first chapter, don't forget to give me reviews and I'm open to both criticism and suggestions for the story to have an amazing day and see you all in the next chapter!