Emi was terrified. The man she thought was a homeless, crippled weapon, was the Kishin Asura, who was supposed to be dead. He stood there, glaring at her, with an insane smirk on his face. He let the scarves tighten some more, and Emilia whimpered at the pain. It felt like if he tightened them anymore, her bones would crack. She was very confused. He was supposed to be dead, killed by her friend-slash-tutor, Maka Albarn, a year ago. How had no one realised he was still alive? She was broken from her thoughts by Asura speaking.

"Strange that you only recognised me by my face, but that doesn't really matter. You are going to help me," he said, inching closer, "You are going to hide me, as long as I want. You tell anyone, in anyway, I pour my madness into you until your pitiful heart stops from fright. The same will happen if you scream when I release your mouth, understood?"

Emi nodded frantically and he released her mouth, but kept a scarf against her neck, most likely as a threat. She gasped for breath, and barely kept her volume to a whisper.

"Yes, yes, I'll hide you! Please, just…..don't kill me, don't hurt me, don't hurt anyone! Please! I promise, I won't tell anyone! Just let me go!" She begged.

Asura's smirk grew to a grin and he dropped her to the floor. He leaned down to her and grabbed her face, forcing her to look at him.

"Glad we understand each other." He whispered.

He let go of her, and went back to sit at the small kitchen table. Emi was still struggling to breath normally, and her mind was going a million miles a minute. She was now harbouring the Kishin, who was supposed to be dead. Not going to Lord Death with this information could get her executed, but if she did, then she'd just die by Asura's hands. She struggled to come up with an idea as to what to do. She was about ready to commit to telling Lord Death when something occurred to her; Asura hasn't actually hurt her. Sure, he tied her up, but she quite honestly would have done the same in that situation. He hadn't caused any actual damage to her person yet, and he had ample opportunity to kill her and eat her soul while she was sleeping. But he didn't. She also remembered how she found him the night before; terrified. He was more scared than she ever could be. She didn't quite get why, though. He had already made it abundantly clear that he could easily kill her, so it's not like she was a real threat to him. It took a moment for her to remember something Maka told her, on the anniversary of the school's founding.

Kid had been moody, so she had asked if Maka knew why. Maka has told her that it was because it was the one year anniversary of Asura being revived, whom they all later found out- Kid included- was technically Kid's brother. Emi has been dumbstruck and asked how that was possible. Maka explained that Asura's creation was an accident, and Lord Death had been trying to make himself a better leader to the people of the world by removing the part of his soul that held all of his fear. However, the fragment he broke off became Asura. Emi questioned what exactly happened after that and Maka shrugged. She said that no one really knew, all they did know was that he eventually swallowed his weapon in a fit of paranoia and had started consuming human souls after that, thus becoming the Kishin.

Emi guessed that he was probably just so desperate to not be afraid anymore, he tried to cover it up with madness or something. If what she had seen of him so far was any indication, though, it hadn't worked. She knew something that would work, though; her magic. One thing her mother taught her was how to effect emotions. However, since her magic had to do with the soul, her effects were permanent. If she wanted someone's emotions to go back to what they were, she had to do it herself. She could remove his fear and destroy it, so it wouldn't become its own soul, unlike what Lord Death was able to do. Besides, if she could….cure him, so to speak, Asura wouldn't kill her and neither would Lord Death. The worst that could happen would be her being expelled from the DWMA. Plus, Asura would get to live and maybe even be happy. That thought settled her mind. She would help the Kishin Asura.

All of her thoughts and doubts took about thirty seconds to reach a conclusion, and she simply looked up at Asura who was simply sitting at the table, watching her from the corner of his eyes. Emi stood up shakily and looked right back at him, observing that he hadn't touched the toast and eggs.

"Aren't you going to eat?" She asked.

Asura simply scoffed. "I don't need to, so why risk being poisoned?"

It's not like poison would really affect you anyways, being a Kishin and all, but alright. Emi thought. She let it go, though. She got the feeling that it was a bad idea to argue with the Kishin if she wanted to keep all of her body parts intact. She walked over to the counter and grabbed her own food, putting it the microwave to reheat it a bit. She took it back out and ate it, mourning the utter waste of what was supposed to be Asura's food. After finishing her own food, she takes Asura's plate from in front of him and dumps the eggs and toast into the garbage. He was looking at her with a suspicious look in his eyes, like he was expecting her to somehow produce some weapon by throwing food in the trash. Emi rolled her eyes.

"You made it clear that you aren't gonna eat, so I wasn't about to just leave the food there for no reason." She explained.

Asura narrowed his eyes, but seemed to accept her explanation. Emi went out to the living room and sat down. Now seemed as good a time as any to try the spell. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She was lucky that her and her mom didn't need verbal incantations like other witches, otherwise Asura would have her head. However, the trade off was having to have expert control of her soul wavelength, otherwise she'd expend energy, but nothing would happen. She carefully removed some fear from Asura's soul. It was roughly the equivalent amount to that of a normal human, but for Asura, it wasn't even a thousandth. Removing that much from him was like poking a hole in a 100 pound block of clay with a toothpick. It didn't make any sort of noticeable difference. Emi decided that she had a lot of work cut out for her. This would take forever. Emi struggled to open her eyes again, as the spell drained quite a bit of energy from her. Not enough to make her pass out, but enough to make her tired. The more she removed at once, the more energy it took. Luckily, she would fully recover in a couple hours. With the help of coffee. She forced her eyes open just to jump in surprise. Asura was standing right in front of her, glaring at her.

"What are you doing?" He demanded.

Emi was confused. "...napping?"

Asura narrowed his eyes. "Why? You slept last night."

"People can be tired even after sleeping for the whole night. Especially if something stressful happens to them." She said pointedly.

Asura huffed and went over to the chair on the other side of the room, plopping down in it and putting the scarves back over his face. Emi was curious as to why he hid his face. Most people knew what he looked like underneath, and even if they didn't, the scarves were very recognisable. So it wasn't for any sort of disguise. Maybe it just made him feel better? Emi gave up trying to find a reason for it- it was the Kishin for crying out loud, there probably wasn't a reason for it. She got up and went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee for herself. One of the perks of working at Deathbucks was she got free coffee.

She carefully spooned the grounds into the filter and put it back. She got her mug, filled it with water, and poured it in. She pushed brew, and waited. After a couple long minutes, it was done. She grabbed the carafe and poured the contents into her waiting mug. She opened the freezer and grabbed an ice cube, and carefully plopped it in to cool the black liquid to a manageable temperature. She picked it up and took a sip of the life giving drink. Then promptly spit it all over the counter as she glanced at the clock and saw that she had ten minutes to get to work.

Emi frantically ran into her room and put on her 'uniform', which consisted of jeans, a plain green v-neck, and green visor with the store logo on it. She struggled with her shoes in her haste, and barely remembered to run into the bathroom to grab a hair tie. As soon as her hand reached the doorknob, however, she was prevented from leaving by Asura. She whirled to face him, and he was still across the room.

"Where do you think you're going?" He asked.

"I need to go to work. I'm already gonna be late." She replied.

Asura didn't relent. "You can stay here."

Emi sighed in frustration. "No, I can't. If I don't go to work, it'll be suspicious. I haven't missed a day of work since I started. Besides, I need the money it gives me for bills, food, and other necessities. If I don't work, I don't get money, which means I won't be able to pay the bills, which means I'd have no lights, no running water, and no electricity in general. Then people will be worried about me and come looking to see what's wrong. Then they'd find you. So yeah, I need to go to work."

Asura scowled, but finally let her go. She thanked him and ran out the door, making sure to lock it behind her. She glanced at her phone and saw that that entire exchange took five minutes. She cursed and ran faster. She was so dead.

Emi wanted to scream in frustration. She had mixed up her start time with another day's shift. She came in three hours early. She was supposed to arrive at noon, but had shown up at nine fifteen instead. She had run her fastest and tripped three times, so her knees and elbows were covered in bandaids. They were busy that morning, more so than usual, so had asked her to start early, since she was there anyways. It was now one, and she was finally able to take her break. As she sat down with a muffin, which would be her lunch for the day, she saw Maka Albarn waving her down from a corner table. Emi smiled and walked over to Maka's table and sat with her friend and tutor.

"Hey, hows it going, Maka?" She asked.

Maka smiled. "Oh, you know, same old same old. Not too much going on with me. How about you?"

Emi groaned. "Not too great. First I mixed up my shifts and ran here because I thought I was late, but it turns out I came three hours early, and since it was busy, they made me start when I got here."

Maka gave her a sympathetic smile. "Ugh, that sounds awful. Sometimes I'm glad that I have money from missions and Blair so I don't have to go through all that. But sometimes I want to get a job to know what it's like."

Emi scoffed. "You're not missing much, trust me."

Maka giggled. "Oh! I just remembered! Are we still doing that spring break get together?"

Emi choked on her muffin. Maka, concerned, gave her a few hefty smacks on her back to help dislodge the breakfast cake. Emi coughed it up onto her small napkin-plate and took a few deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" Maka asked.

"Yeah, yeah, just….give me a sec." Emi took a couple more deep breaths. "Okay, I'm good now. Yeah, we're still on for that. It was April twenty sixth, right?"

Maka nods, smiling. "Yep! Tuesday! Remember that Black*Star is coming so make about twice as much as you normally would." She joked.

Emi laughed. "Oh, believe me. I learned that lesson last time." It had been awful. He ate his food, all the extra, and Tsubaki's share.

"Emilia! Get back on bar, would ya!?" Her manager called.

Emi sighed and got up. "Well, guess my break's over. You have a good day, Maka."

"Thanks, you too." Maka waved to her retreating form.

Emilia clocked back in and looked at the calendar. It was February thirteenth, and spring break started on April twenty third. It took a couple minutes for her to do the math, but she came up with 76 days. 76 days to get Asura ready enough to handle the presence of the ones who 'killed' him. It sounded like a lot of time, but for this particular task, it was hardly any time at all. Emi kept doing her job, though, and tried not to think about it.

She just hoped she could do enough in time.

A/N: Hey, everyone! I'm baaaaack~! I finally picked up the inspiration to continue! Now, I'm already trying to think of a basic plot for a sequel, because I personally feel there aren't enough stories about Asura. It's very unfortunate for me that Asura isn't a well-liked character by most, especially since he's my favorite…..;-;

Anywho, I'm gonna get the poll started now, because why the fuck not.

Asura x Emilia, yes or no? If you care, leave a comment with an answer. If you're unsure, wait for more chapters, you can answer whenever. The poll ends once this story is completed, as the pairing definitely wouldn't start until the sequel.

Happy reading!