"-sama! Shinigami-sama!" The shade blinked once as he realized he was currently staring off into space. Spirit, the Death scythe he kept closest to him, was waving his hands in his face to get his attention. He really wasn't in the mood for this, he decided as he raised his hand.

"SHINIGAMI CHOP!" He yelled, slamming his hand in a chopping motion onto the poor man's head. Spirit reeled back and put his hands on his head, staring wide eyed at his meister.

"What was that for?!" The red head shouted angrily. "You were just sitting there staring at nothing! Meanwhile I was just trying to tell you that Kid was back from his mission!"

Oh...well now he felt bad. "I'm sorry Spirit, I was just thinking and you surprised me." The shade could have sworn he heard the man mutter something about a warning next time. "So, how'd he do?"

"Great as usual..." Spirit mumbled, rubbing the same spot again and hissing in pain. "Geez though, what's wrong? You get like this every year, and yes, I've noticed since I started working with you. I get you might not want to tell me, but I thought I'd let you know you can talk to me."

Shinigami nodded, "Ah thank you Spirit but it's nothing. Just some old memories from the past is all." Spirit didn't exactly look convinced by that, but he wasn't stupid enough to push his limits when he'd already gotten 'Shinigami Chopped' once. Not liking the tense silence, the shade asked, "So, Spirit? Didn't Maka have a big test lately? How'd she do?"

Almost immediately the atmosphere changed, as the weapon brightened. "Oh! My sweet, smart little Maka passed with flying colors! But of course she did, she always does.I'm so proud to have such a smart little girl!"

The shade nodded along, feeling slightly guilty about playing his weapons feelings to change the topic. But then surely the man would rather rant about his daughter than listen to him talk about his own failure as a father. He had accepted that he could only blame himself for what happen all those years ago, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to keep that from happening again.

After all, Liz and Patty may be good friends and partners for Kid, but so was Vajra to Asura. He'd be damned if he lost another son to a psychotic weapon partner.

Banning those thoughts from his head, he focused intently on Spirit's ecstatic ramblings, deciding to lose himself in the comfort of normalcy.


Deep beneath the rotting wooden beams of the old temple, laid a maze of stone and cavernous tunnels. These were by no means easy to access whether one was entering or exiting and he knew this for a fact. It was impossible to keep track of how many times he tried to escape from this place, but he was going to keep trying.

The easiest part would definitely be the end, he had reached it finally and recognized that it was a simple sealing rune that kept the door shut. That would be the easiest part for sure since he knew how to break it. Then finding the way would take a while, but he did have it memorized. No, the hardest part would be sneaking around the Sentinels.

The damn things were left here to keep him locked up, "for his own protection". He scoffed at the idea, they did more harm than good, but he wasn't about to get too into it. Right now he needed to focus. He needed to get out. The sooner the better.

The footsteps outside that signaled the approaching Sentinel would pass he knew, then count to ten and slip out after it. He needed to grab some new clothes though, before he left. His own were ruined. Or, scratch that, he'd find some once he got out. Escape first.

Still, he wished he had something more than half rotted clothes to cover himself with. At least the cloak and what was left of his absurdly long scarves had held up during his imprisonment. Subconsciously pulling the cloak tighter, he shuffled closer to the door, a rusty old key in his hand.

As the heavy steps passed he held his breath and unlocked the door, pushing it open quickly and quietly. They weren't exactly alive, but they still had senses. If they saw or heard him, they'd cut him down and throw him back in his cell. And fighting was out of the question, what with his condition. He'd only just healed enough to walk form his last escape attempt.

As he crept down the hall, his hand drifted to the metal band around his neck. The damn thing was carved with all sorts of runes and spells that restricted his powers, so he wasn't able to blast his way through the roof like he'd wanted to do all those years ago when he was lock away here. No, instead he was left to rot away, alone, by the one person he dared to let so close. Not even his father was that close to him.

Taking a right, he sighed. His own fears had gotten him into this mess, he'd been played by best friend. The guy who said he'd protect him from his fears, had looked him up and made him fear for his life! And then he leaves and never comes back, leaving him at the mercy of these living statues.

Quickly shaking his head, he focused on the path to the exit. A part of him was still afraid that he'd see him on the other side of the door, but that was something he wasn't going to think of. No, the path...he was almost there. Take a right, straight, hide in a side room, left...rounding the final corner, he felt a sudden swell of pride and excitement. Pride because he did it! And he wasn't caught yet! Excitement because he might finally make it home!

He walked up to the door and looked over the rune sealing the door. It was a simple one that only needed countered with the opposing symbol. He set to work, quickly drawing the lines over top the original symbol, 'undo' over 'bind'. As the last line connected, the symbols burned bright and then disappeared completely.

Behind him, he heard shouts of alarm from the distorted voices of the Sentinels, and thundering footsteps approaching. In panic he flung the door wide open and bolted through. The hall on the other side was long and littered with holes, but he did his best to avoid them. The pain in his feet caused by the splintered wood floor was dulled to him while he made his way out.

Still, there was a little bit of pleasure when he heard the floor give out beneath one of the stone monstrosities. Serves them right.

Ducking under a fallen pillar, he risked a single glance over his shoulder. The headless stone creature behind him had stopped, but so did his heart for a moment as he realized how close it was to him a second ago. He turned back around, ignoring the resounding crashes as it cleaved it's way through the pillar with the stone sword it carried.

He burst through the partially opened doors of the temple, frozen in place as he heard a static shout, "LORD ASURA!" But he didn't look back, he knew they were bound to the temple and unable to leave. He didn't look back, too afraid to see the massive, headless humanoids that were probably all lined up at the temple's entrance, glowing with the power of the runes that gave them life.

Asura ignored the cold snow, ignored the pain of scrapes and cuts and a wound that still had to heal completely, ignored his body screaming at him to stop and rest and just ran. He ran until he reached the bottom of the mountain. Ran through a small village. Ran until his legs gave out and he hit the ground with barely enough time to catch himself.

He was cold, hurt, tired, and starving, but as he heaved and retched from pushing his wounded body's limits he smiled. And then he laughed and laughed and laughed and he vaguely registered the tears falling. 'I must look like a madman.' He thought, and maybe he was.

And it was only his fear of freezing to death that spurred him to move and seek shelter. Once he found a decent cave to hole up in, he pulled the cloak tight around him and closed his eyes. And he fell asleep like that, curled against the wall with his cloak pulled tight around his shivering form, as he wonder if his father missed him or not.


Some time later:

Sitting up on the rooftop gave Asura an incredible veiw of the scene below. The boy who'd arrived just moments after himself had made quite an entrance...and then proceeded to nag the Demon Weapons he had with them about symmetry of all things.

Asura found he couldn't blame the boy, the three stripes on one half of his head obviously marked the boy as a shinigami. It stood to reason that the strange obsession with symmetry might be a side effect of the Madness of Order. He himself had the Madness of Fear and that led to all sorts of weird quirks. Like the excessive layers of clothing he used to wear.

And since the boy was a shinigami, that most likely meant that they were brothers. Still, as the younger boy ranted, the potential Kishin whom he was presumably supposed to kill quickly made his get away. So, as the boy below started sobbing uncontrollably about his own asymmetrical looks pointed out by an angry weapon,Asura decided to do something about it.

He quickly followed after the kishin egg, cutting off its path an throwing a punch straight at it, effectively knocking it down. The constant fears he held bubbled up, but he paid them no mind. It was something he had learned in the war against the witches, to have a switch of sorts. He knew all the other warriors had one. The one that still slipped through was that he was still weak, still bound by runes and spells and still recovering from his imprisonment.

But he quickly snatched the evil human up by the back of his collar and relied mostly on adrenaline to haul the thief kishin back to his little brother.

Death the Kid, or Kid for short, was just about to contact his father about the mission's status when his weapon Liz alerted him to someone approaching. Motioning his Weapons closer to himself, the trio turned to confront the other. Though he was taken by surprise at the sight of the other. He could hear Liz gasp quietly beside him.

The stranger looked terrible, dressed in dirty, tattered clothes and a ratty old black cloak, that vaguely resembled his father's. There seemed to be an absurdly long white scarf wrapped multiple times around his neck and even then it trailed behind him on the ground for at least three feet. What they could see of him was covered with bandages and one ankle seemed to be in a makeshift splint.

The boy regarded them for a brief moment before throwing his arm forward and letting go of the extra baggage he had with him. In a surprisingly quie, shaky voice, the older boy said, "I believe this lovely thing belongs to you?"

Shocked, Kid looked down to see the kishin egg, Thief Lupin, whom he had been hunting. Immediately Liz and Patty transformed, and he fired on sight. The body of the creature disappeared, leaving behind the soul he was supposed to collect. "Thank you...?" The boy trailed of, hoping that the others understood, but when he looked up, the stranger was gone.

Meanwhile Asura cursed his fears, he was pretty sure he'd made a horrible first impression on his little brother. Why did he even have a brother?! Did Shinigami replace him? He'd worry about it later, surely his father would explain himself once he located him.

With a start, he realized he could have asked his brother where the man was. However when he went back to ask, the boy was gone.


Some important things to note about the changes:

-Shinigami prevented Asura's soul from completely forming, so while Asura has room to learn more, there is also extensive damage to his soul. Asura still has too many fears, but he also has a better chance to manage them.

-Vajra imprisoned his meister in a fit of Madness. He was wholly convinced that only he could protect Asura, but it's done more harm than good.

-the rune band Vajra put on him restricts a lot of his powers, but Asura is still pretty strong and has some level of healing.

-Shinigami believes that Vajra had killed Asura in his Madness, so Kid was still born.