It was by accident that the whole mess began. Kid was only flipping through mirror channels, making sure the city and surrounding areas were safe for the night, when he stumbled upon one particular channel he hadn't remembered setting up. His jaw dropped when he saw one of his best friends and somewhat love interest, Maka Albarn, pulling her shirt off in her bedroom.

He knew there was noway his father had put the connection there, not even for Spirit's benefit. Having a channel in a woman's personal bedroom was not appropriate, and he made a mental note to talk to him about taking it down.

Still, he couldn't bring himself to look away even though he knew how wrong it was. She was shirtless and her hair was down, but somehow, she was still perfectly symmetrical. As he stared, his mind wandered. She'd always been his vision of symmetry. Her clothes were always neat, her pigtails were always perfect, and she had one of the most even faces he'd ever seen in his life. It was one of the reasons he was admittedly close to being in love with her.

Now here she was, currently taking off her skirt, oblivious to someone watching. Out of decency, he at least tried to get her attention, unsure if he was at least reflecting on her end as well. After a few calls and some waving, she didn't react. He inwardly cursed at himself. Why was he still on this channel? He finally brought himself to switch to another mirror that looked over the desert, though the image of her in nothing but her underwear was pleasantly burned into his brain.

Xoxoxoxoxoxox

The next few weeks found the young shinigami watching that bedroom feed more and more. A short discussion with his father the day after it first happened revealed he'd had nothing to do with it and it could've just been an anomaly, but he checked once again when he was alone and was both confused and secretly pleased it was still there.

He'd determined it was her full-body mirror since he had a view of the whole room and had been there in person before. Whenever he got bored with his surveillance shifts or was alone in his room, he would 'check up' on her. Watching her study or read was always calming. He felt borderline creepy when he found himself watching her sleep for more than a few minutes – though his conscience screamed this whole thing was creepy – so he found himself only checking in every hour or two at night.

It got a little more exciting when the weather started to warm up, so he found her in more and more revealing clothing. He'd even been close to a nosebleed on one night where she ended up asleep with no blanket, wearing only a very thin, see-through night gown. He'd at least tried up until that point to avoid watching her changing, but seeing her on her side facing the mirror flipped a sanity switch in his mind.

He wanted to be there. He really wanted to leave his house, fly to her apartment on his skateboard, and burst in through her open window. He wanted to run his fingers through her soft-looking hair, trace them along her light curves and over her breasts, which he determined would perfectly fit in his palms. The thought of feeling her soft skin and coaxing a moan from those lips made him groan out loud and fall onto his bed, frustrated.

There was no way he could bring himself to do that. Aside from the voyeurism, he was intent on staying respectable and not pushing boundaries. He glanced over at his mirror once again and reasoned that just this once, he would allow himself to relieve his sexual frustration while leaving the mirror on.

He'd felt guilty the next day as he met up with her and the rest of their friends. Her happy, innocent smile revealed she still had no idea, and it made him feel like absolute scum. Still, though, he continued to watch her as soon as he knew she was home.

At some point he didn't remember, he'd bought a compact mirror for the sole purpose of his guilty pleasure. His weapons couldn't understand why he was so protective of it during the nights they had to camp during missions, but they only shrugged it off, chalking it up to be just another weird quirk. Staring at her during the high-intensity missions calmed him, he reasoned. As the days and cases went by, he felt less and less guilty, but he still didn't cross the physical boundary.

Sometime in the heat of summer, he'd caught her changing again but didn't feel the moral need to change the mirror channel or avert his eyes. Instead, he watched as she looked at herself in the mirror, running her hands flatly over certain parts of skin she apparently had personal faults with.

He groaned as her hands cupped her breasts and she pouted, clearly unhappy with the size they'd grown to be. She moved on, grazing her fingers against her small waist before half-turning to look at her rear and gliding her hand up her thigh and over it, humming at the curve before giving a satisfied nod.

She then went to a drawer in the background and pulled out a few pairs of panties, holding them up to her in front of the mirror. He mentally hissed at himself when he continued to watch. He was supposed to be respectable and gentlemanly. Abusing his shinigami powers and spying on a woman, even if he was interested in her, was the most heinous thing he could do.

But of course, he couldn't stop himself now, even though he knew this couldn't go on without a struggle forever.

The first 'incident' was on a Friday night in his father's room at the school. He'd temporarily been put on surveillance duty while Death went out to deal with some meister issue in town. As he flicked through the channels, he found himself stopping, mesmerised by the way Maka was rubbing body lotion on her legs, wearing only a short towel that barely hid the most intimate parts.

There was no one around, and he knew his father would be occupied for a while, so he allowed himself to watch the lotion be distributed on her legs, arms and chest. She was just starting to unwrap her towel when a shout from behind startled him. He turned around, horrified to find the woman's father standing there with his jaw dropped and a burning fury igniting in his eyes.

Knowing there was no use in making up a lie, he at least tried to explain it was an accidental mirror link and he'd come across it while flicking through the channels. Spirit didn't care about any explanation, calling him explicit names and threatening to tell his father. Upon that threat, Kid narrowed his eyes.

There was no way his father was about to find out.

With a bribe of a whole weekend at Chupa Cabras for free with a crossed fingered promise he'd tell his father himself, Spirit was soon out of his hair. 'Too easy,' Kid thought with an eye roll. He went back to watching the blonde, planning a way to prevent any of this from getting out. With the man's acceptance of free alcohol, the first steps were already in place.

Later that night, he found the redhead in the club and used his transformation skills to become an unrecognizable curvy woman, slipping a certain something in a drink he made when no one was looking. He feigned shock and sorrow on Monday when it was announced Spirit had been found dead, written off as alcohol poisoning since nothing except a high level of alcohol was found in his system.

Maka had been devastated. Yes, she didn't get along great with her father, but he was her parent and the thought of not seeing him everyday was too much for her to keep on the inside. She'd cried on Kid's shoulder since her weapon had been sent on a solo mission over the weekend and Black Star and Tsubaki had left for a vacation a week ago. As she bawled in his arms, he couldn't help but feel guilty again, but only for a few hours. Something stronger in him pulled him out of it, whispering that this was his chance to get closer to her.

Somehow, it worked. She'd been so upset that he was able to slip the idea of a certain method of comfort in her head, subtle enough that she thought it was her idea in the first place. As her lips pressed against his and he finally got to touch her soft skin and feel her in the most intimate of ways, the madness in him screamed that the drink he'd served of deadly nightshade, orange juice, and a hell of a lot of whiskey was worth it.

But it was short lived. Soon, she was back to being just his friend, uninterested in a relationship, though she did say she wouldn't mind hooking up from time to time. He went back to watching her through the mirrors but started to want more, unsure if he could ever go back to the way it was. He now had a taste for her, and no amount of voyeurism could sate his craving.

Not even when she started becoming more intimate with herself in the 'privacy' of her room. He saw the titles of the books she read to help waken her sexuality and bought the same ones to know what to look forward to. Whenever the self-help book would give a task, such as reinventing her wardrobe, he would watch in delight as she tried on clothes and decided which ones were sexy enough to keep. When it told her to recite lines in the mirror, though… Well, that was his favourite part.

She would recite how much she was a 'bad' girl and longed for intimacy, no, demanded it. It was as if she was saying those things straight to him, sending him over the edge even sooner than just watching. It was a state only he saw her in, but a part of him knew she was practicing for a reason. Despite her saying she would be glad to sleep with him again, he knew since she was uninterested, untrusting even, of a relationship and monogamy.

That was made painfully obvious when he tuned in one day to find she wasn't alone in her room, and her visitor wasn't just there to say hello. He watched with bitter jealousy as Soul kissed her, having been made aware of her sudden sexual confidence. It would've been better to turn the feed off, but he angrily watched as the weapon gave her the satisfaction she'd needed in that moment.

The Thompson sisters ran into his room out of concern when they heard a furious yell, being met with the sight of the shinigami on the floor, hands getting cut from a broken mirror. They went to console him and inquire what happened but were sent away wordlessly with only a death glare from the golden eyes burning with rage.

This was his Maka. How dare anyone else touch her?!

Soul had to go.

He somehow was able to face him the next day, staying outwardly calm as he convinced him to take on another lone mission. This time to an area he'd marked as intermediate just for him – any other would've seen it marked as expert not long ago – making it an easy agreement. No one would suspect anything more than an unfortunate incident when he took a wrong step in the swamp and suffocated under the thick liquid. It was too bad he didn't have a meister to sense the kishin souls lurking underneath, but he was just so confident on his own, according to Kid.

Once again, Maka cried. This time was more devastating for her, since he was her partner, her best friend, and her casual lover. Kid had to suppress a grin when he held her close, relishing in the fact that his competition was out of the picture. She took comfort in him again, this time agreeing to a relationship in her distraught state. What was the point in anything for her anymore? Her father and now her partner… At least a shinigami couldn't die so easily. He wouldn't leave her so easily.

Despite the twisted influence of it, the relationship quelled his obsessive desires, leading him to spy less and less. Why would he need to watch her over a mirror anymore when he could see her like that in person? Why would he need to imagine the feel of her skin when he could reach out and touch it at his leisure? His mental state started to heal, but with that came the intense guilt of killing two people to get to this point.

And with intense guilt came defensive behaviour, leading to him acting stiff and lashing out whenever Soul was mentioned in their friend group. His friends chalked it up to him being upset in a different way than them; since he was a shinigami, they figured he felt guilty for not being able to do anything to prevent it.

They let it slide, and soon things got back to normal.

That is, until Maka got a new weapon, having rejected being his weapon due to their relationship. He'd almost protested with the fact that she had slept with Soul, but knew that would unravel everything. Unfortunately for him, the weapon was another male. Apparently, there were no female scythes these days, and the meister didn't want to change her weapon of choice.

This spawned a new round of jealousy, though he was able to keep it controlled. The woman had always been passionate about monogamy and wasn't the type to go against her principles. Because of that, he was able to trust she wouldn't do anything.

The new scythe, a boy previously from one of the NOT classes with brown hair and thick glasses hiding violet eyes, didn't seem interested in her anyways. Their link was stronger because of his deep respect for her as a skilled meister, and the shinigami supposed that this was the best-case scenario involving another male weapon.

However, he started to look through the mirror again when she didn't spend the night at his house. Another of his mirrors ended up broken one night when she was crying in her sleep for her losses and the weapon had rushed in, worried. He'd slept on one of her chairs so his calming presence could aid her, and it took everything in him to not rush over there and kill him for getting so close so fast with his Maka.

His weapons started to get suspicious. The next mission they went on together made them even more so, as his wavelength began to be unstable enough that it was harder to work together. It was a big deal for a death god, considering they were supposed to match any wavelength expertly with no issue. They brought it up with him but he brushed them off, admitting he was just experiencing some jealousy towards Maka's new weapon. As his surrogate sisters, they gave him the best womanly advice they could: trust in his girlfriend.

His admission eased their suspicions enough for them to avoid any consequences. They managed to alert Death about the situation without Kid's knowledge, informing him that the young reaper was having wavelength issues for seemingly emotional reasons. The god dismissed them with a request for them to keep their eye on him, but once they were gone, he turned serious. An unstable wavelength in a death god was never a good sign. He had to find out what was going on lest his second son turn into a kishin like the first.

Xoxoxoxox

Jealousy was a powerful thing.

The recovering mental state had been thrown out the window as Kid obsessively watched Maka's room at all times. He started to lose sleep completely, going days without rest unless she stayed the night at his house and let her wavelength clear some of the madness from his mind. He proposed for her and her weapon to live with him, only to be shot down with an apologetic smile.

She needed her space and privacy, apparently, though she was happy to continue their casual monogamous relationship.

Her reply made him feel only a little bad about invading her privacy so often, but as the days went on, he noticed her weapon's evolving feelings. He hid them well, but his façade was no match for expert soul reading. The paranoia started to set in, and he knew the weapon had to be disposed of as well.

This time, he ignored the suspicious looks his father was throwing at him when they mourned the loss of the newcomer. Carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't a stretch considering they lived in a fairly old apartment, despite the renovations making it look new. They were only lucky the rest of the inhabitants got out when Maka had woken up 'on her own' and sensed something unusual, discovering her dead partner and rousing the rest of the building.

She didn't cry as hard this time, having only known this partner for a month. However, she quietly voiced her concerns to Kid that perhaps she was cursed. Everyone around her was dying, and she felt she was the common factor, leading her to consider leaving town and living on her own.

The shinigami finally coaxed her to move in with him, reasoning that he wouldn't die easily. At this point, her heart and mind had been broken enough by deaths that she was essentially a zombie, agreeing with whatever amount of heart that was left. They didn't notice Death staring intently at them as he hugged her in celebration. They didn't notice when he gasped upon seeing the state of their souls.

By the time Maka moved in to Gallows Manor, her eyes had lost their shine. Her hair was dull, and her skin lost it's luster. Kid didn't seem to notice as much as his weapons did, blinded by the possessive joy that finally she was here. Other than Black Star, who wasn't any threat whatsoever, he was now the only man in her life. He was the only one who could comfort her. He was the only one who could see her in her private state.

He didn't notice his smile had started to become a mix of smug and sadistic, and neither did Maka in her almost lifeless state. However, his weapons noticed and became concerned, slipping away with the excuse of going shopping. Instead, they went to his father and reported his odd behaviour. Death worriedly rushed over to his mirror and connected it to the one in his son's room. Unsettling chills ran through him as he watched as the couple laid on the bed. The blonde curled up into a ball, her eyes looking vacantly at the wall the mirror was hanging on. His son, however, curled up behind her and gently undid her pigtails, running his fingers through her hair.

Kid's voice was gentle as he soothed her - a stark contrast to the possessive and almost triumphant look on his face. He started to stroke her arm gently, content even without any reaction from her. Even through a mirror, Death could tell how different and unhealthy their souls had become. He would need to end this soon, but he wasn't sure if he could save them. Even though Kid was his son, his job as Death dictated he keep the balance. In the worst-case scenario, he would have to destroy that fragment of his soul.

Xoxoxoxox

The young shinigami was startled awake when he heard someone slam his door open. He expected his energetic weapons, but shielded Maka protectively when he saw it was his father. Her dull green eyes barely opened, and the god was both distraught and furious at the emptiness that once held such life. He demanded his son step away from her, his tone more serious than it had been in years.

Kid didn't have to ask what this was about. He only cursed inwardly he'd been found out, and upon seeing his weapons peeking through the doorway, he had a solid guess to who tipped off his father.

He should've killed them that one night.

A deadly glare was sent over to them, but the god stepped in between, harshly lecturing that this all needed to end. Now. He revealed Kid's soul was almost completely black with madness, and Maka's light was fading from despair. It was as if he'd been possessing her, driving her spirit away with every heartbreak he caused.

At hearing the state of his Maka, he snapped and fell to the ground in a fit of mad laughter. The sins he'd committed were close to devouring him, too, and he barely registered her sitting up and looking towards him as he confessed.

The murder of Spirit. The sabotage of Soul. The death of the scythe he didn't bother learning the name of, and the endangerment of the thirty other people in that apartment. He confessed to it all while laughing, tears streaming down his face as he went further.

The voyeurism. The jealousy. The possessiveness. The guilt. His obsessive behaviour. Everything that happened since he'd stumbled upon that damn mirror connection to her room. The way he manipulated everyone around him, especially Maka, just so she would be his.

He heard the woman behind him faintly gasp at the revelations. As soon as he started pouring it all out, he knew there was no way this would end well for him. He looked up to see his obsession walk next to his father, looking at him with some reformed light in her eyes. Except it wasn't light. It wasn't anything pleasant. She was furious. She was hurt. She couldn't even look at him for more than a few seconds, instead looking at his father and nodding to some unspoken command.

Kid looked at his weapons, mouthing an apology. They looked hurt as well, and turned away once Maka transformed into a scythe, landing in his father's hands. He looked up at them again, knowing full well what needed to be done.

Ironically enough, this was when his head cleared for the first time in months, letting him have rational thoughts. Of course this was a fitting punishment, to be killed by the woman he loved, and whose life he destroyed. It was the only way to keep perfect balance – the world couldn't be ruled by an insane god that killed his friends. He was just as awful as his brother.

"I'm sorry," he bowed his head, not wanting to see the oncoming blade that sentenced his death.

His father's voice cracked as he swung down the weapon. "So am I."

XoxoxoxoxoX

Hey everyone,

This was a writing exercise to get me out of my comfort zone. My usual writing genres are romance and friendship and everything has a happy ending, so I figured let's twist things and twist some more. By the time I neared the end I habitually wanted to give him a redeeming ending, but there was no way after everything. I almost cried when I sealed his fate.