Author's Note: Hello all, hope you're still reading! I apologize for the long update time. Truth is, I'm going through a rather strenuous career transition at the moment and it's giving me all kinds of writer's block. That, and this chapter in particular was very hard to write. I'm going to keep working on this, but alas I think it's going to be slow going for a while. Thank you all for your support, it keeps me motivated. As always please enjoy and, if you have a moment and inclination to drop a review, those are always greatly appreciated.


Not for the first time since Crona had embarked on his scientific career Soul felt deeply uncomfortable with what they were doing. And it wasn't just that the HAZMAT suit was hot and squeaked and crunched whenever he moved, though that was not helping matters. It was the uncertainty of it all, the way it looked like a good idea but reeked of a bad one. The fact that they were going anyway… The desperation of their mission. He understood this Panacea thing could be a miracle cure for at least 75% of the evil in the world, that for that possibility alone they had to take risks. And he himself had confirmed it wasn't stimulating Crona's Madness or producing it's own. And he knew magic could be harmless, could heal or spin a pencil around without exploding into gruesome chaos. Still anxiety knotted in his stomach, a precognitive warning that this particular temptation should be left well enough alone. That, and he really couldn't stand this suit.

"Did we have to put these on so far away," he grumbled to no one in particular, using a tree trunk to aid him up the steep incline. "You say this thing is somewhere near the top? Why did we have to get all loaded up down by the lake front?"

"We don't know the Panacea's true range," explained Stein in his nasal monotone, apparently unfazed by the strenuous hike.

"Or how effective the suits will be," chimed in Maka, who was trying to hide how much she was struggling. "The graphene layer should conduct any magic away from our bodies, but if we start to feel any effects through it we need to turn around before they become serious. Right Crona?"

"Yes, that's exactly it!" Soul could hear Crona smiling in his statement, pleased that Maka had remembered and that they were on this trip to begin with. "I know they're not comfortable, but still, it's a beautiful place. Don't you think?"

Soul rolled his eyes at the uncharacteristic optimism in Crona's voice. Objectively yes, the lake of glassy glacial runoff and the sharp green mountains that rimmed it were picturesque. The water had been crystal clear and cold as sin, so still it produced a perfect reflection and took on the vibrant blue of the clear sky. From its edges the peaks grew almost straight up, so densely packed with evergreens they appeared a matted color. The slopes were straight, the angles were perfect, and if Soul hadn't been hiking up one of those beautiful slopes he would've agreed with Crona. As it was, his burning legs would not abide it.

"Beauty or no beauty, it's not cool to be running up the side of a mountain in a heavy, plastic bunny suit."

"Did you just make a joke," asked Maka, snickering a little because she knew full well he hadn't meant to be funny. "It's "not cool" because the suits are so hot?"

"Shut up," he chastised, glowering. "How much further?"

"I, um, the directions are a little vague," said Crona sheepishly. "But we should start seeing markers soon, then it's just a little ways after that."

"Did the directions specify what kind of markers," Maka asked, slowing her pace and then halting the entire party. She raised an arm and pointed at something in the undergrowth. "Because that is the third plant I've seen that looks like that and they're getting bigger."

Both Stein and Crona followed Maka's extended finger and squatted by the growth. Stein attempted to grab his chin but was thwarted by the helmet while Crona, perhaps a little more smoothly, rummaged in his bag to retrieve the Panacea fragment. The source of their interest was still small by most definitions, maybe the height and breadth of a chicken. It had a central trunk which zagged at sharp angles to a tapered point, and three similar branches. The color was almost cream and the consistency of the flesh (because it was certainly not plant matter) was spongy. Perhaps most importantly, when the fragment was brought close to the structure, both glowed faintly with an ethereal yellow light.

"It appears this is a growth of the Panacea," said Stein, stroking the helmet as if it wasn't in the way of his actual goal. "You said it was fungal in nature?"

"Yes," Crona answered with a little shake of his head, hesitating before returning the fragment to his bag. For a moment he felt disoriented, then, attributing it to the strain, continued: "At least, that's what the reports referenced in Lady Medusa's journal say. An alchemically created fungus that acts to enhance magic while suppressing the Pull, though we haven't seen any explicit evidence of that. We must be close to the main body if there are offshoots like this, right?"

"I should hope so. I don't relish the thought of a powerful magical artifact spreading, especially not over long distances."

"Can we not just take this as a sample," Maka inserted, shifting uncomfortably in her suit. "It's part of the Panacea, isn't it? Why can't we just grab it and go back?"

"It's too, what are the words, weak? It's like what we already have," tried Crona, perhaps justifying the need to continue to himself as much as to Maka. "It's not glowing at all on its own, which I think means it's not holding much magical potential. If we want something we can measure our best chance is the main body, right Professor Stein?"

He stood up and looked at the Professor expectantly, seeking backup and validation for his intuition. Stein remained crouched for a moment longer, taking the terminus of one of the branches between his pointer and thumb and squeezing. No reaction. He took out a small jar of soul-sucking water with some kind of pink dye in it and a pair of tiny scissors, cutting off the same tip and dropping it into the water. Still no reaction.

"Lets not be overly enthusiastic," he cautioned after a long pause, rising. "It's true that this extrusion doesn't seem very animated, but the fact that this entity is spreading worries me. Crona, you feel anything at all you need to tell us. We can't proceed unless the suits are doing their job."

"Yes, I understand," Crona said with a nod that didn't translate out of his suit. "I know how dangerous this is and that it's important we not take any risks. I'm tired from the hike, but that's all. I can keep going."

"Very well, we'll continue for now. But at the slightest change we turn back."

Maka, who wasn't entirely convinced by Crona's earlier argument, bit back a protest. Something about the fungal growth, about knowing for a fact that it was the Panacea leaking into their world, made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She'd honestly hoped they wouldn't find anything, that this whole mission would be a bust and the Panacea project would be terminated, but she could hardly say anything. Not when Crona was as excited as she'd seen him since she couldn't remember when. Not when the implications of the research were so ground breaking. It wasn't her intention to stand in the way of progress or to deny Crona his joy. But the way he was when he worked with it… she just didn't want to lose him. And walking into the stomach of the beast seemed like an excellent way to do just that. Her insides sank as they pressed on and squelched in despair when they came to what looked like a temple entrance. Yet she held her brave and cheerful front in place as they passed through the columns and made no comment when they ventured into the oppressive shadow.

Growths like the one they'd seen outside protruded from the floor and walls, some like hands reaching to ensnare and others towers that branched up into the darkness. Veins of fungus grew from cracks in the construction and across the grey stone, pulsating with a fait yellow glow and sealing any doorways which might've lead deeper into the complex. So, at least initially, their exploration was limited to a single, vast room. Soul and Maka did not press too deeply into the temple, if that's really what it was, lingering in the place where daylight ended and peering into the gloom. Apprehensive. Professor Stein was less bothered, waltzing right up to the nearest growth and repeating his experiments with the soul-sucking water. Crona walked to the middle of the room and paused, looking upwards and turning.

"It's massive," he said to no one, turning towards the beckoning glow on the far wall and moving slowly towards it. "I never imagined it could be so large. And we're not even in the depths. What is this thing? How has it grown like this?"

"Crona, stay focused," admonished Stein, moving to another outcropping and readying his scissors. "We need to find a strongly emitting sample, collect it, and leave. There is no reason for unnecessary exposure."

"Yes Professor, I know… It's just-" Crona answered, but slowly, his eyes focused on the glowing branch of Panacea before him. His fingers stretched towards it, an innocent enough action but one not motivated entirely by Crona's own desires, then pulled back sharply as soon as they made contact with the flesh.

"What," snapped Maka, starting towards him but not making it too far into the darkness. "It's just what?"

"It stung me," Crona said incredulously, turning around to show them the bead of Black Blood forming on his pointer. "I didn't think it had barbs. We should all be-"

The stone floor beneath Crona groaned and crumbled, swallowing him mid-sentence. This time Maka had no problems with the dark; she rushed to the edge and cast herself on the ground. Crona looked up at her from just too far away to reach, blinking in bemusement at the distance between them. The glass screen of his helmet had a crack spanning the diagonal, but other than that he appeared unharmed. Not wanting to make assumptions, Maka called down to him:

"Crona! Are you all right? Did you hit your head?"

"No," he shouted back, tracing the crack in his helmet. "No, I think the suit took most of the fall. I'm okay, I'm not hurt. It's amazing down here, Maka, it must be the core of the Panacea. There's so much light…"

"Give us a second, we'll get you back out," Maka said, ignoring his distraction and turning to the others. "Soul, get out the rope! And make it fast."

"Yeah yeah, I know," Soul hollered back, pulling off his pack and fishing around.

"I… should get a sample," Crona's voice was low, his gaze fixed on the brightly lit chamber down the passage into which he'd been dumped.

"No," Maka snapped returning her attention to the sword meister. "Crona you stay right there! We're getting you out."

He didn't seem to hear her; she could see his heavy breathing through the suit.

"Maka I… I can't stop," he murmured, taking his first step down the corridor.

"Soul! The rope," she cried urgently, but there was never any way Soul was going to make it in time. The Panacea on the floor came alive, growing into a web across the hole and cutting off their access. Maka grabbed at the flesh but it was no use, they were going to need to burn their way back in. Infuriated and terrified, she screamed: "Crona!"


He was aware of the light, of the leaden quality in his body, his heavy breathing. But they were dull; reality became shapes in the fog of his mind while the fog itself took on a crisp and important edge. It wasn't the emptiness to which he'd grown accustomed, rather, it was like his own will, his own desire, was being displaced. Like there was a noise louder than anything could be, loud enough to drown out everything. A pressure that held him completely immobilized, flat and unable to think. Understanding that was just outside his grasp, a hollowness he hadn't realized was there ached inside him. It should've been familiar, it should've scared him, and yet the connections could not be made. His arms moved to take off the helmet, then to strip away the protective graphene layer and his mind felt perfectly justified in doing so. His legs moved down the corridor, lethargic and fumbling as if asleep, and that too seemed reasonable. What mattered was reaching the source of this light. What mattered was yielding to its will and obtaining its knowledge. Crona just had to-

"Snap out of it!"

Pain cracked through his skull like thunder and he stumbled sideways, catching himself on the wall. For a moment his vision darkened, then small, white-gloved hands pressed over his eyes, keeping it that way. The ringing in his ears died down and, in the aching aftermath of the blow, Crona remembered himself.

"Ragnarok," he asked, though it could be no one else. "What are you doing? What's happening?"

"Exactly what I said would happen if you fucked with this shit," he chastised, his high voice deadly serious as his fists pressed hard into Crona's eye sockets. "I told you it would be bad, but does anyone listen to me? Now look where we are!"

"I can't," said Crona, reaching up to try and pry the Demon Sword off his face. "I can't look, you're covering my eyes."

"Because that damn light makes you go crazy! You already took off your suit, what else do you think you'll do? Of all the meisters I had to get stuck with the most- uh oh."

"Uh oh? Ragnarok, what do you mean uh oh? What's happening?!"

"Listen, we need to get out of here, go back the way we came, but it's coming after you. You'll have to fight it off. Think a fuck-up like you can manage that?"

"But if I can't look-"

"I'll look! So keep your eyes closed and let's get out of here!"

"I-" Crona hesitated for just a moment before reaching his decision. "Yes Ragnarok, I understand."

The pressure lifted from his face and flowed in a hot liquid down his arm, forming the hilt of a sword in his palm. Crona squeezed his eyes shut and settled into a fighting stance, his heart tight with sudden fear. How far away was he from where he'd fallen? What was happening to his body without the suit to protect it? Would Maka and Soul be waiting to save him? Why hadn't they come and done so already? He could hear something moving ahead of him, the rustling of flesh moving across stone. It was coming- the Panacea was coming for him.

"On your left! Waist high!"

No sooner had he thought it the Panacea was on him. He could see the bright glow through his eyelids and turned away, swinging wildly at the place Ragnarok had indicated. The broad side of the blade made contact and he twisted decisively, bringing the edge down and severing the extrusion.

"Got it! There's another going for your head!"

Again Crona swung, imprecise and desperate, and again he felt the blade connect. The third time he wasn't fast enough; Ragnarok barely barked out a warning when it coiled around his right ankle, pulling his feet out from under him. He hit the ground hard, felt his chest cave and his skull thud in the soft dirt, and his neck let out a snap. Stars winked across his dark vision but he kept his eyes closed, trying to regain composure as he was pulled across the ground. With a cry he pulled himself into a sitting position and cut at his own leg, aiming for the tendril as best he could through Ragnarok's spastic orders. The light was getting brighter; they had to be approaching the core, the place where the Panacea would do whatever it had planned for him. Crona sensed its intelligence now, that it had intention, and that terrified him. Ragnarok had been right, if the Panacea was so easily tamed why hadn't someone done it by now? Why had he thought he could do it?

Finally his blade made contact with something other than dust and he felt the pressure on his leg lessen. He kicked off the binding and, throwing caution to the winds turned and began to run blindly back down the corridor.

"Yeah! Fuck that thing," encouraged Ragnarok, his tongue flailing. "Put some distance between us then bring this cave down!"

In a rare instance, Crona agreed fully with his weapon partner. They shouldn't have come. This was his fault; Crona had put himself and everyone else in danger. He just had to hope the Panacea had limited its activities to coming after him.

"Ragnarok," he panted, bumping the walls with his shoulders and stumbling. "I'm sorr-"

A tendril of the Panacea whipped through the air and curled around Crona's neck, jerking him backwards. He would've fallen again except that it's grip kept him upright. A second came from behind him and wrapped itself around the wrist of his sword hand. It oozed onto his palm, expanding and pressing his fingers outwards even as he struggled to maintain his grip. With a clatter the blade hit the ground and Crona's heart sank. He tried to call the Black Blood, to summon his Madness and the vines, but the world didn't turn to black goo and the insanity didn't cloud his mind. Even as he tried desperately to call upon the storm that had always raged just under control there was only a near peaceful certainty. It was all he could do to keep his blood hard, forcing his body to go rigid as the Panacea made loops around him.

"Rag-nar-ok," he choked, feeling their soul resonance weaken.

"You keep your eyes closed," he called back. "Don't look! You're dumb friends will be here, just don't look!"

He opened his mouth to call out, but the tendrils around him wouldn't allow it. They constricted and pulled, like the pressure that had been so pernicious in his mind before had been made manifest, hauling him back towards the light. At first Crona squirmed, but as the distance between himself and Ragnarok increased he found his ability to keep the Black Blood hard fading. Terror clawed at his chest; he'd never been separated from the demon sword before. And as the clawing turned to flu like sickness, it was all he could do to keep his flesh rigid and impenetrable. The light became sun bright and Crona screwed up his face defiantly. He gasped as the Panacea slammed him into the cavern wall, pressing his back into the fleshy coating on the stone. It grew out and around him, encasing his arms and legs, and he felt something sharp pressing into his stomach. It took all his will to hold the Black Blood against it, against the onslaught of magic that was trying to convince his body to give in. It pulled away, then rammed into him again, eliciting a cry.

"I won't let you kill me," he murmured, an affirmation to himself more than an attempt at communication. "I won't give you what you want!"

The tendril twisted in his gut, like it understood his defiance and did not appreciate it. Despite himself he whimpered and the Panacea paused, contemplating, then brought the sharp tendril up to his face. He could see the brilliant light at its tip, felt the edge trace a line from his brow down over his lips. Clamping his mouth shut, Crona turned away, shrinking into the wall. Maka was coming, she was coming to save him and all he had to do was hold on until then. The flesh that bound him squeezed, testing the strength of the Black Blood in his limbs.

Then it changed tack; two tendrils with flat termini branched from the main, glowing body and pressed into his temples, sending mycelium into his flesh. Suddenly the pressure was inside his mind again, filling up the space between his brain and skull, the sinuses in his face, unrelenting. This time he knew what it was, recognized it from minutes before, but that wasn't enough. For a brief moment Crona fought, holding his eyes and mouth closed, pressing back with all his strength. Yet the pressure, the will of the Panacea, it was too much, too crushing, like it could bypass his "self" entirely. Maybe because it could, because it was interacting directly with his witch physiology. Too late he understood that it didn't matter what he did now. He was a small creature that had strayed into the gut of something massive, he could no longer escape nor resist digestion. After what felt like an eternity, and with a sob of defeat, Crona cracked his eyes. Once the light was inside all hope was gone.

His eyelids stretched wide and his face turned towards the light. The light, in turn, seemed to envelop his face, envelop him, like being submerged in water. It was the wall and the flesh that bound him and his body relaxed into the binding, allowing it to take his weight as he dedicated himself to staring into the light. And in his mind the light took the weight of his thoughts, of his terror and defiance, and Crona was left with nothing but the void he'd come to hate, the emptiness into which another's liquid desires were poured. Yet he found he couldn't no longer hate it. A new type of tendril with paper thin sacs extended towards him and he opened his mouth for it, allowing it to cover his face and force air in and out of his lungs because he didn't even have enough presence to remember to breathe. He didn't care when it slipped a thin extrusion down his throat or when that extrusion began to secrete something into his stomach. He wasn't going to remember the way this thing was dissecting his knowledge, learning about his body from his own mind, or even that it was a sentient creature at all. Crona's eyes stared into the light and his dilated pupils took on its glow as the Panacea moved inside him. As the predator they hadn't realized was hunting devoured its helpless prey.


Crona felt… bad. His face and muscles ached and his throat hurt. His body felt overheated and cold at the same time and there was a taste like sickness in his mouth. And in his stomach nausea was making fists. He'd never felt like this before, not even when he'd been run through by Lady Medusa's arrow. What was this? Why was he experiencing such unpleasantness? It was at that point that Crona began trying to remember, to catalogue events into a chronology that explained his circumstance. The mission to retrieve the Panacea had been approved, they'd flown to a place where the mountains seemed to grow directly from a lake. Maka, Soul, and Professor Stein were there, with him, and they'd been wearing protective suits. They'd hiked up the mountain and into an old temple. The ceiling was high and the Panacea grew all around them, a branching and oozing fungus. It had stung him, cut his finger-

With sudden urgency Crona's eyes snapped open and he propelled himself upright, retching. Nothing came up and his body tried again, contracting and exhausting itself in an attempt to expel something that refused to leave. A hand settled on his back, warm between his shoulder blades. Comforting. Maka. Breathing hard, Crona relaxed into her touch, forcing the sickness in his gut to settle and turning to face her. She looked pale and serious, though when their eyes met a relieved smile pulled at her lips. He returned it, reading in her face that he looked at least as bad as he felt.

"Maka," he rasped, pulling up his knees and hugging them to his chest. "What happened? Where am I?"

"You're okay now," she soothed, rubbing his back. "It's all going to be okay, I promise. You're back at the DWMA, in the infirmary."

"The infirmary," he repeated blandly, swallowing and wincing.

"What do you remember," Maka asked before he could get beyond that, leaning towards him with a dark expression. He didn't like the look in her eyes, the urgency, but felt too awful to do anything about it.

"I cut my finger, then… I fell. There was a passageway…"

Crona trailed off, feeling his chest tighten with a sourceless panic. His lips parted and air rattled over them as he tried to breathe, his eyes went wide and ice blue as his hands made fists in the sheets. Maka stood and took his shoulders, doing her best to look comforting and in control, but her fingers were too tense and her face was too serious. That made it worse; if Maka was scared the situation had to be truly terrible. So why was his body acting independently of his mind? If it was so terrible, so important, then why couldn't he give her an account.

"What happened," he repeated, whispering. "I-I can't remember anything afterwards but I feel terrible. Something's different- something's wrong and I don't know what it is. Please tell me. What is this?"

"When you fell," she started after a long pause, squeezing his shoulders so hard he winced again. Biting her lip, she reluctantly released him and sat down again, interlacing her fingers in her lap. "The Panacea closed on top of you. It took us some time to get through. When we did…"

The passage looked unnatural, but also organic, unlike the architecture above them. Like the Panacea had burrowed through the earth itself, creating a path like water. They weren't far along when they saw the first signs of the struggle. The tragedy. A pool of Black Blood, oblong and lifeless, and no Crona to go along with it. It would take them some time to figure out what it was, but based on its oddly uniform shape she had a horrifying suspicion. When she saw him, his solitary soul, she knew it was true.

"There was blood, your blood, along a passageway. When we got to the end there was an… organism. We think it was the Panacea core and it was emitting this bright yellow light; you could see it from the entry point. It had you…"

Crona was encased in the spongy flesh, held against the wall and positioned so he was staring into the light. Two tendrils pressed into his temples, burrowed under his skin, and a third covered his nose and mouth, breathing for him. He wasn't struggling. His pupils were alight with the same ethereal glow that was coming from the Panacea.

"…pinned. It had gotten you out of your suit and had you against the wall. It, um, was doing something to you. We don't know what, but when we interrupted it stopped."

As they made a move towards his suspended body the Panacea constricted around Crona, halting their progress. Deeper into the cavern skeletons lined the walls, bones long stripped of their flesh and, considering where they were, their magic. There could be no doubt now: the Panacea had a will of its own. It lured witches to itself and fed on them, just like it was trying to do to Crona, Maka was sure. Yet no sooner did the thought enter her mind the Panacea shuddered. With a series of slick noises the Panacea withdrew, pulling out of Crona's mouth, his throat, and away from his temples. Then his bonds receded and he crumpled to the ground. Maka lurched forward, pulling him into her lap and checking his pulse.

"It let you go. We destroyed as much of it as we could and are going back later to burn the rest. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Crona admonished, closing his eyes and leaning his face into his knees. "It's my fault-"

He broke off, straightening suddenly and casting his wild gaze forward. The panic was back in full force, an iron cage around his ribs, a fist around his throat. His heart was hammering in his chest and ever pounding beat made his head spin. Maka stood, unsure of what to do.

"My… fault. I did this. I… Maka," he asked, willing his head to turn and face her. "What aren't you telling me? There's something else- something's wrong. What is it? What's happened to me?"

"Crona I…" she didn't know where to start, so instead she moved to the bed, settling herself next to him so she could look into his face. "The blood we saw- the Black Blood, in the tunnel, it was Ragnarok. He must've been separated from you and was outside your body for too long and- and his soul's not with you anymore. I'm so, so sorry Crona, I wish I had a different explanation for you, I wish I could tell you nothing's changed. But Ragnarok is gone."