Chapter 15: Turn the Page
"I want to be there."
Shinigami comes to a stop, not quite believing his ears. Rebuilding Spirit's strength is a slow process, and the pair have begun a habit of taking walks around the upper Academy gardens late in the evenings. The setting sun casts shadows around them as they stroll, neither speaking – until now. The Reaper turns midway down the path to see Spirit leaning on an unsteady railing on the ledge, looking far, far down to the plaza below. "At the hearing? You do know Stein will be there, right?" he asks quietly, walking back to join him.
"Yeah." Spirit's gaze flickers up at him. It aches to see how haunted he still looks, the lines that pain have etched into his skin. "That's why I want to go."
Blowing out a sigh, Shinigami tips his mask back and lets the evening wind ruffle his hair. "I won't argue if that's what you truly want, but . . . confronting him won't change anything. You have nothing to prove-"
"I know."
Spirit leans up against a pillar, his good arm wrapping around his stomach protectively. Even without the ability to see souls, the Reaper can see the fear that soaks his very being. Under it all, though, is a spark, a seed of courage that not even Stein had been able to snuff out. In that moment the Reaper sees a hint of the man he'd been before all of this, the fake-it-till-you-make-it bravado that had carried him to the very top. "I – I have my reasons. I need you to trust that I know what I'm doing."
Shinigami's shoulders fall. "You know I trust you." Sighing, he reaches out with a very human hand and brushes the backs of his gloved fingers against Spirit's high cheekbone. The deathscythe leans into the touch, his eyelids fluttering. "I'll let them know. Just promise me you'll leave if it gets to be too much."
"I'll be okay." The hint of a smile plays over his lips, a look of honest trust. "You'll be there with me."
Just minutes after she had given Stein the news, the man had broken down.
Stein shifted his head in Marie's lap as small, delicate fingers wound their way through silver hair. His shoulders were shaking, minute little quivers that she could barely feel; he kept his head turned away from her, staring out at the nothingness in bleak despair. Every so often, a soft noise escaped him.
Every so often, she would stop her gentle ministrations to wipe the dampness from his cheek.
An hour they'd been sitting like this now, comfort given freely to the one who, she knew, felt as though he didn't deserve it. An hour since he'd been given a time and place. A date. The reckoning would come and there was no escape.
Marie knew it, all too well.
Three hours ago, she had stood in front of Death. Three hours ago, fates had been sealed.
Marie's hand stilled, tightened in his hair before relaxing as she blinked back her own tears.
Just three hours ago . . . .
It is painful, meeting here, in the silences of Spirit's office, but when she requested a meeting with Death she did not specify a time or place, and the Death Room was still being repaired. There was room at the Manor, of course, but perhaps he was trying to make a point with his choice in venue. Remind her exactly of who had been the victim here, as if she needed reminding. It almost seemed cruel to her, at first.
Entering the room now, though, she understands. The Reaper himself is sitting at Spirit's desk, looking all the more naked for being bereft of his cloak and mask, long strong fingers toying with Spirit's antique fountain pen and his eyes not focused on the door but instead on a picture on the wall, of Spirit and Kami and Maka, when they had been young and happy so very long ago. (The first and only time Marie ever saw Shinigami without his mask, he had looked powerful, darkly handsome, smiling behind a neatly-trimmed goatee and deep-set gold eyes framed in a chiseled face kept from looking too stern by a Romanesque nose that was just a bit too big for his face. Now his cheeks are hollow, his eyes sunken in, three days of growth shadowing his jaw. Tired. So very tired. She wonders if he is even healed yet.) If she had not felt it through their resonance long ago she would know it now, the desperation of a man in love and looking for comfort.
Before she can clear her throat, he shifts and looks at her.
"Come in."
Marie smiles a tight little smile and sits on the only other chair in the room, across from her former Meister. "I'd offer tea," Shinigami continues, his voice low and tired, "but I'm afraid I'm all out."
"It's okay," she rushes to reassure him. (How is she supposed to begin? How is she supposed to do the impossible, to turn the god's hard heart away from murder and towards forgiveness?) "I'm not in much of a mood for tea."
He snorts a soft laugh at that. "No. Neither am I, truth be told." A sigh, and he leans forward, hands clasped together on the desk. "Marie . . . ."
"Are you going to execute him? Are you planning to kill Stein?"
". . . . I don't know."
Shinigami draws back a bit as Marie leans forward, eyes shifting to the side. "We've charged him with aggravated assault – you know that. Stein admitted to it. I'm tempted to tack on attempted murder charges, considering the investigation results."
"What about . . . ." She swallows, the four-letter word catching heavy in her throat. "About – you know?"
His hawk-sharp gaze snaps back onto her. "Say it, Marie," he demands. "You can plead for Stein, you can make your case, but I will be damned if I let you avoid admitting what that bastard did."
A pause, a swallow, and then, her soft voice steady as a rock: "I know Stein raped Spirit. I won't deny it." Another pause, before she adds, "Will you be pressing charges on that as well?"
Shinigami heaves out a sigh, looking, if possible, even more weary. ". . . no. Spirit refuses to press charges. In his mind, he's protecting the Academy – protecting Maka. Protecting himself, too, and I can't blame him for that."
"What happens to Stein, then?" Marie's voice is hopeful, hopes that are quickly dashed.
"What do you think should happen? I can guess, I'm sure." Bitterness drips from his voice. "Pat him on the head, tell him it's not his fault, send him off to go mad somewhere else? Let him go off scot-free?"
"That's not fair!" Marie snaps, all anger and defiance. "Stein didn't want to hurt Spirit! He didn't want to hurt anyone! When the madness took over-"
"Is that your excuse for him? The madness? Because that's a piss-poor excuse, Marie-"
"He was going to rape me!" She is on her feet, shoulders trembling, good eye frosted over with tears. "Medusa – her influence – he was going to kill me that night! And he couldn't bring himself to do it! He attacked Spirit so he wouldn't hurt me! Medusa knew about the attack, she taunted us about it, she probably planted the suggestion inside his head-"
"And that absolves him?!" He scoffs, glaring, and Marie has to restrain herself from decking the Grim Reaper right then and there. "That he chose to torture someone else instead of you? I should, what, pity him, poor Stein, he had to choose whose life to fuck over?"
"He is tormented by it! You didn't see it – the hell inside his head! The madness took over, he tried to fight it – don't you think he regrets it?! Spirit is – was – his best friend!"
"Spirit is the one who's tormented by it! Spirit is the one who has to live with the consequences of Stein's actions, or have you forgotten who the real victim here is?" Rage deepens his voice to a low, predatory growl; his fingers grip the chair arms hard enough to crack the plastic, holding back his anger by force of will. "How dare you. How dare you put Stein's so-called suffering above Spirit's! Fuck his torment! I don't give a damn about his supposed 'torment'! Stein isn't suffering enough if he's still alive to feel it!"
"What do you know about pain?!"
Her voice rises, shrill and accusatory, shoulders shaking and delicate hands raised in fists. The rage of the thunder gods, racing through her slim form, unbridled. "You have no idea what it's like- to be controlled, to be manipulated, to hate yourself, to be lost- what do you know about suffering?"
She laughs, high and slightly hysterical.
"You're a god! You're not even human! You can't understand our pain, so why are you pretending like you can?!"
". . . I can't understand pain?"
The Reaper's voice falls deathly quiet.
"I don't know suffering?" He scoffs, his lips pulling into a ghastly, twisted grin. "Really? Is that what you think?"
He looks up. Eyes normally the color of soft, burnished gold are now the crimson of fresh-spilled blood, pupils but tiny onyx pinpricks. "No. No, I suppose I can't know what it's like, can I? I've never suffered, have I? What can I know of pain?!"
Shinigami slams his hands flat on the desk, rising out of the chair to tower over her.
"What do you know of pain, Mjolnr? What do you know of fear? What do you know of suffering? You and you humans, given everything- food, shelter, learning- I care for you, I actually care for you all like my own children and this- I killed my son for you!" He bares his canines, snarling – but his eyes, oh his eyes. Marie can hardly stand to look him in the eye, at the ancient grief, the liquid pooling behind dark lashes. "I tortured my firstborn son for centuries because I loved humanity more than I loved him! I ruined him, and then I killed him! And I will never forgive myself for that!"
His breath hitches. Tears start to slide down his pale cheeks as he turns away from Marie's startled gaze. "Shinigami-sama?" she whispers.
The elder being doesn't answer. With a sigh he sits back down across from her and runs a trembling hand over his face. "Stein was one of your children, once," she says gently after several long seconds. "You've condemned him without even listening to his side . . . aren't you hurting him just like that now, by doing that?"
Shinigami makes a soft, pained sound like a wounded animal. Somehow that hurts her, terribly, to know that she is still close enough in her god's heart after everything that she can cut him with her words. He looks back up, lips thinned and eyes limned in red. (This must be why he wears the mask, she thinks, because he can school his face into a blank expression but his eyes are windows into his soul, and all she sees there is bitterness and misery and self-hatred.) "He's admitted to his crimes, Marie," he says after a few moments.
"I know."
"If he was coerced . . . I can't absolve him of all guilt just because of that. He has done terrible things. Ruined lives. There must be a reckoning."
Marie folds her hands in her lap, the sudden upswell of hope in her breast small and yet warming. "I'm not asking you to forgive him, or to let him go without punishment. I'm asking you to give him a chance."
The Reaper sighs in defeat, low and utterly exhausted. "One chance, then. That's all I have left in me to give."
The gentle golden glow never wavered, never faltered. Resonance between them wasn't as easy as before (before this, before Medusa, before that night), but he needed her now more than ever before. Healing Resonance could only do so much when the wounds were self-inflicted. And this . . . this was not something she could heal. It was up to Stein to heal this, to reconcile this, to make amends.
Marie would make excuses for his life, but not for his actions. Love would not let her excuse everything; truly loving him meant accepting the things he had done, not sweeping them under the rug.
The clock kept ticking down.
The room looked far too inconsequential for such an important meeting.
Before Ashura's rebirth, this had been a meditation room, set aside for those students experiencing issues with soul control. Marie had visited it often her first year, learning to tame the wildness of her heritage. Soundproof, secluded, the only remnants of what it once had been were the bamboo flooring and the pale green wallpaper, a tiered fountain that no longer ran and new plants trying to take root in cracked pots too big for them.
Everything else had been cleared out for this, four folding chairs and the weight of a man's life.
Beside her, Stein shifted to paw again at his throat. Marie wasn't surprised that they'd shackled his wrists and ankles together. What had infuriated her was the magic tool around his throat, completely nullifying his ability to extend his soul wavelength. Without Soul Perception, without his abilities, he was just another human. Lesser, even, because he relied on his ability to read souls far more than he did on what he saw with eyes alone.
Marie couldn't even feel his soul beside her. It scared her; she knew it had to be terrifying him.
"Franken," she murmured, touching his shoulder. He stilled and leaned toward her, his eyes hidden behind his glasses. "Relax. It'll be okay."
The mirror in the corner rippled, and Stein jerked upright as a tall figure stepped through. He couldn't turn much, but Marie could; she watched the tall, elegant human form of the Reaper slip in, cloak trailing behind him. He turned and Spirit slipped up from behind him, half-hidden under the edge of his great cloak. The two of them were formally dressed, Spirit's empty sleeve pinned up to keep it from swinging loose. His face was carefully blank, eyes focused on the wall in front of them, but Marie could see the minute trembling of his hand as they walked by.
Spirit took a seat, Shinigami subtly helping him keep his balance before sitting beside him. It didn't escape Marie's notice that the Reaper had situated them so that Spirit had the high ground, just an inch or so above the rest. An illusion of power that felt cruel.
But then she saw how Spirit adjusted himself, managing to sit a just a little straighter, holding himself up just a little more. How his hands shook just a little less when the god settled down beside him, just close enough that their shoulders brushed together.
But he still trembled. But he still wouldn't look at them.
Beside her, Stein kept staring at Spirit, his eyes raking up and down his frame as if dissecting every movement he made. His stubbled jaw worked, trying to form words, before a gusty sigh deflated his shoulders. "Sempai," he started, his voice so low and tired.
Spirit flinched, eyes closing tight. "You will address him by title only," the Reaper said, his voice cold enough to freeze the soul. "You will speak when you are spoken to and only then. Am I understood?"
Marie started. "But-!"
"Am I understood?"
"Yes," Stein said. He sat back, his gaze falling to the floor. "Understood."
"Good," he said. Marie covered Stein's hands with her own, her electric soul unwavering. "Then I call this hearing to order."
Death settled back, crossing one leg over the other, and looked over to Spirit. The question of are you okay? went unsaid.
The younger man glanced up at him and, after a second, gave an almost imperceptible nod. Sighing, the god drew himself up straight. "No formal charges against you have been filed. Not with human law enforcement. But you have committed a crime I cannot ignore, Stein: I entrusted you with my DeathScythe and you tried to break his soul."
Spirit flinched imperceptibly beside him. Shinigami brushed his wavelength against his tattered soul, soothing pulses of calm strength protect. "I am going on the record as saying I don't believe you deserve this chance. But Marie gave me information that suggests there may be room for some leniency. Whether that's true or not depends on you giving us the truth."
"Medusa influenced his mind," Marie plead. "We told the truth about-"
"Why did you do it?"
Stein's head jerked up, his gray-green eyes going wide. The room went dead silent at the small, whispered words. Every one of them swiveled to stare at Spirit as he shifted a bit in his chair, tugging the Reaper's cloak a bit closer around him. Even with his Meister there, he couldn't seem to look Stein in the eye. "Why-" His voice broke.
You can do this, Shinigami whispered at the juncture of their souls. In the distance he swore he could hear a wolf howling. You are strong enough. I believe in you.
His chest rose and fell in a long breath. After a moment he raised his head to glance at the man he'd once considered a brother. "Why did you rape me?"
The word hit Stein like a blow. Shinigami could see it, how the breath punched out of him, how his muscles went rigid and beads of sweat dotted his brow. Marie's expression crumpled a bit, her hands pulling away just the slightest bit before resting again on her Meister's wrists. He swallowed and swallowed again, the band around his throat flashing in the light. ". . . I wanted to hurt you, DeathScythe," he finally said.
Shinigami ignored Marie's heartbroken little gasp. His focus snapped to Spirit and the sudden grief that threatened to crush his soul. "Why?" he breathed, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. "Why me?"
"I was going insane." Stein's shackled hands shook beneath Marie's touch, the chains clinking ever so faintly. "Being near Marie made it worse, so I tried to stay away from her, but the Madness kept screaming for me to find Marie, hurt Marie!" He hunched over, digging into his scalp as much as his binds would allow. "I was losing myself, and- don't you understand? I couldn't hurt her."
That was truth, Stein's insane soul flaring with the need to protect. Spirit stared at him, his lips thinned in a white line. Something cold ran along the cracks in his soul, something like realization and betrayal and hurt hurt hurt. Again Shinigami pressed to him, soul to soul, desperately trying to keep those cracks from widening. "But it was okay to hurt me." A soft, despairing little laugh escaped Spirit's lips. "W-why am I surprised? It's always been okay to hurt me, hasn't it?"
The mad scientist itched his fingers towards the screw in his head, trying to crank it back. "I didn't mean for it to go that far. I was losing my mind! I just needed something I could control. You were a variable I could predict and I thought-"
He dug his fingers into his pants, pulling until his ragged nails tore the fabric.
"-I thought that if I could make you hurt then I could get control of myself again. I broke your bones, and it wasn't enough. I cut you open, and it wasn't enough. No matter how much pain I inflicted on you, it wasn't enough to regain control. And I hated that you still had control over yourself, even after I'd inflicted so much pain on you." Stein sat back in the chair and breathed, slow and deliberate. His eyes were dead when he opened them back up, cold and clinical. "So I raped you. I took your control. And I confess that a part of me enjoyed it."
Spirit shot out of his chair with a cry of rage. In the blink of an eye he had a scythe blade pressed against Stein's throat, hard enough that a rivulet of blood trickled down to soak his shirt.
Marie jerked back, her soul flaring and arm raised to defend him, before Shinigami stepped in front of her. "Wait," he said quietly, his hand gripping her wrist.
Stein's chest heaved as his ex-partner's blade trembled. "You took everything from me," Spirit choked out. "I trusted you, again, after everything you did to me when we were kids. I tried to help you. But it doesn't matter, does it? I've never even been a real person to you, have I?" The scythe pressed in a bit deeper, curving tight around his neck. "Have I?!"
"I had to protect Ma-"
"You don't get to make excuses!"
Shinigami watched, entranced, as a kernel of light shone in the center of Spirit's soul. Despite the terror, despite the agony and shame and the tears rolling down his hollow cheeks, Spirit stood strong before the man who'd tried to break him apart. "You don't get to make excuses," he repeats, his voice choked. "Not after what you've done."
Stein closed his eyes.
The scythe blade tightened for just a second before dissipating in the air. "I'm taking back my control, Stein," Spirit lowered his arm, taking a step back. "And I'm starting here. I have to learn to live with what you've done to me . . . and now so do you."
Marie rushed to Stein's side the second he stepped away; Spirit turned as the Reaper stepped up behind him, placing a gentle hand on his bad shoulder. "Take Stein back to his cell, Marie," he said. "I'll pass along my judgment in the morning."
Neither of them watched as she ushered him away. Silence settled over the room when they left, Spirit standing there trembling and breathing, breathing. Shinigami knelt before him, sliding his hand down his arm to take his hand. "It's over," he murmured gently. "It's over, Spirit. You did so well."
"It – it really is over, isn't it?" Spirit lifted his head to look at him, the grief he'd held in so tightly finally spilling out. "I – I..."
Shinigami caught him when he collapsed to his knees, his hands clutching the elder being's shirt as he wept for everything he'd lost. "You'll be okay," he murmured, and the juncture between their souls sang out with the start of healing.
It took almost six months for word of Stein's sentence to make it around the DWMA campus, and that was only because the New York Times bribed a maid in Gallows Manor for answers. Well, what the outside world thought his sentence was, anyway. Exile to Oceania's southern district for research, with Marie assigned to him for protection.
It was close enough to the truth, anyway. Exile to a witches' prison with Marie as his guard, his powerful abilities restrained via Magic Tool. Allowed to act as a researcher – there was no sense in letting that part of his mind go to waste, or to torture him by depriving him of everything – but he would never be allowed to hurt another person again.
Students chattered incessantly about it as Spirit walked along the hallways of the DWMA. A few students stared at the knotted sleeve where his left arm used to be, but most stared more at the students walking by his side. Maka walked beside him; Soul trailing a bit behind, pretending to be bored but paying close attention. He refocused his attention back on his daughter, blocking out the repeated whispers of Stein, Stein Stein. "So there's really never been a class like this before?" she asked curiously.
"Nope. Which is a bit of an oversight." Spirit shrugged his shoulders. Twin scythe blades popped out, the one on the left looking a bit brittle compared to the sleek lethality of the right. He shrugged again and they vanished. "Weapons with disabilities have always been placed in NOT classes, if they attend the DWMA at all. They've never been considered candidates for EAT."
"But you're still head DeathScythe."
"Exactly!" He smiled gently down at her as they came to a stop outside of Class Crescent Moon. "It's been a while since I've developed an entire curriculum on my own. It'll be small to start, but . . . maybe that's best. Get my feet wet."
She nudged him in the side. "Maybe I'll sit in on one. Make sure you take roll call correctly."
He pretended to stumble, his heart swelled full to bursting.
Squeaking. Black*Star zoomed past the open doorway in Stein's old rolling chair, spinning around. "Hey Maka!" he laughed, teetering dangerously. "Can you believe this thing survived? I thought they got rid of – whoa!"
The wheel squeaked again. Spirit's hand shot out and grabbed the back of the chair before Black*Star could crash. Maka drew a sharp little breath behind him. "We'll throw it out later," he said mildly. "I think we have more important things to do right now."
Drawing in a deep breath, Spirit stepped over the threshold – away from the shadows and the chair and the whispers and into the pooling sunlight. "All right, everyone," he said, letting a brilliant smile break out over his face as he looked over his students. "Who's ready to start again?"