Noun; Latin for boundary, limit, or the end.
Denial is the first thing that seeps into Maka's mind as she stares at the empty space beside her. Then, reality snaps in place, and she fights the feeling of her heart fracturing, instead digging into her bond with Soul.
There isn't much she can tell, other than that he's moving fast and seems to be struggling against something, although she can't tell what he's fighting. Maka's hand grips the post and she forces herself to her feet, swaying unsteadily as aftershocks continue to rumble beneath her. The cut on the back of her neck has opened up again; blood trickles down her back, but she ignores it, stumbling down the store's steps.
Kid, Tsubaki, and Black Star burst out of a building ahead of her, Liz and Patti shadowing overhead. "What happened?" Kid demands as they draw up next to Maka.
Her head shakes; denial still lays heavily on her mind, numbing her thoughts and sealing her voce. Maka pinches the back of her hand hard-she needs to think.
The sound of someone struggling to their feet breaks the haze she is under, and she turns on instinct. Stein has his arm wrapped around Marie as he helps her up, Azusa already on her feet. The psychic's glasses are cracked, and there is a trail of blood staining the side of her face.
Azusa's eyes find her. "What happened?"
Maka finally finds her voice. "Something attacked Soul." The disbelief on the psychic's face is obvious, but she doesn't care. A familiar dread builds in her bones, clawing its way into her throat-the same fear that devoured her before every single one of her losses in the past. She forces it away before it can snap her sanity. Again, she reaches through their link, pushing out her perception at the same time. The weight of his soul is cloaked by something thick in her perception field, but his presence in their bond is slightly stronger. She focuses on it, turning until she is facing Soul's direction.
Taking a few steps forward, Maka's eyes scour the forest, seeing nothing, then flick up to the inky sky. Her gaze passes over it twice before she realizes she's not looking at the sky.
The Rift spreads in tiny, steady degrees above Earth, wisps of darkness unfurling as it slowly swallows the sky. It has turned the darkest color of pitch. Maka traces its path with her eyes, twisting to see what direction the Rift is moving in, and feels her blood run cold.
Orcus Hollow
"That," Stein says as they all peer at the shrinking sky, "is not good."
Soul regains control of his body as soon as he enters the Rift, collapsing. The air is rancid and sour as he sucks in breath after breath, body curled up. This body is all wrong, he can feel it now in the way it's wrapped around his soul like the strings of a puppet.
His breaths slow-a puppet was how the witch had treated him when she sealed him in the cocoon, and how Medusa had pulled on his strings until he had done exactly what she wanted. A puppet is what he always was-he wonders what Medusa plied the one-eyed witch with to convince him drink the potion.
A hunger Soul recognizes blazes to life as he pushes himself to his feet, stoking the anger and fear coiling in his body. He's close enough to the edge of the Rift that he can still see Earth and the forest outside the old town. There's something odd about the forest peeking through the gaps in the Rift, like the trees are growing larger. Soul squints at the sight for moment, horror cutting through his hunger as he realizes that the forest is not getting larger, but closer.
"No," he whispers, looking down at himself. He moves all the way to the edge of the Rift, but something stops him from leaving it, like his body is bound here. His hands push against the wall, but Earth continues to slide in underneath his feet. "No."
He whirls around, and strides into the darkness, yelling, and kicking his feet against the ground, making as much noise as he possibly can, but no monster comes lunging out of the dark, no matter how loud he is, like they are all hiding away from him. Frustration rises as Soul finally gives up, chest heaving. He wants to rip his soul out of his body and tear it into shreds, but there is nothing but silence in the Rift.
Minutes tick by, and the knowledge that he is the one pulling Earth across the Rift sits on Soul like a dead weight. His thoughts fill with images of people being picked off by invisible monsters as their homes are enveloped in an endless darkness. Of Orcus Hollow being dragged in, taking Blair, Black Star, and Tsubaki.
Of Maka, who'd try to save as many people possible.
"I won't let it happen," he says aloud. There may be nothing good in his soul, but that won't make him lie down and give up.
He starts to walk, although that quickly turns into a jog, then a run.
Pinching the bridge of her nose momentarily, Azusa says to Maka, "You mean to tell me that you've been harboring a kishin soul all this time, and never thought to tell us?"
Maka glares at the psychic and the group of sniffers she called up when Maka tried to go into the forest, while the others watch their back and forth like a tennis match. "He came back alive. I didn't think it was a problem any more."
"That body's a facade, if what you're saying about Soul not going into the Rift willingingly is correct." Azusa hasn't yelled at her yet-her voice is soft, but full of thorns. "It was probably built to last only until his soul could cause whatever this is."
Her words push needles into Maka's heart; it's exactly what the edges of her thoughts have been whispering in her mind. She ignores them, however, hands clenching around her reaping gloves even though she'd left the bag with the scythe cube in her truck. "Whatever is happening, I know Soul is trying to stop it," she says. "We have to help him."
"Help?" Marie speaks for the first time. "Have you felt what's coming from the Rift?"
Maka doesn't answer, but glances towards the Rift, reaching out with her perception. There is a steady stream of madness coming from it, but it is overwhelmed by a crushing deluge of fear, sending chills up her spine and gnawing on her bones even from here.
There is an absence of poltergeists and creatures from Abeyance around the Rift, like they are giving it a wide berth.
"If the legends surrounding the kishin are correct, then who do you think is causing that?" asks Marie when Maka doesn't talk or turn around.
"That's why we have to help," she says, flaring as she finally looks away from the Rift. Soul had taken away her fear; he'd pulled a soul out of the Rift-that was who he was.
"And how?" Azusa says, crossing her arms.
"Resonating with his soul would help," she answers defensively, although she has no idea if it would, or how it might help even if it did. "Meanwhile, the DWMA could buy time; you could take the people closest-"
"Firstly, the DWMA was made to contain the Rift, not weather a full-scale invasion," Azusa interrupts. "There is no manpower to evacuate entire towns, and our building would be overcrowded very quickly, not to mention that most people can't see the Rift. They'd have no clue why they're essentially being kidnapped.
"And secondly, you're not going into the Rift," continues Azusa. "It's impossible."
"Why?" She is getting fed up with this conversation; she'd hoped to be able to fetch her scythe from the scythe from her truck, but she might have to make a sprint for the Rift instead, though she doesn't know if she could outrun Azusa's sniffers. "I've been in the Rift before, I could help the most."
"Because the only way to stop this would be to find a way to seal the Rift," Stein answers, his arm still wrapped around Marie. "Which is not possible for the DWMA, so the slightly less impossible option would be to eliminate the source pulling Earth into the Rift." His gaze travels to Azusa. "Am I correct?"
It takes a moment for Maka to process what Stein is implying.
"No." Her voice is hardly above a whisper; distantly, she feels a hand on her arm. She rips it away, searching until she finds the person she's looking for.
Kid starts as Maka rounds on him, stabbing the air towards his face with a finger. "You're not doing it," she says. "You can't do it." Her voice creeps higher with every word.
His golden eyes are wide. "I'm not doing anything!" Then the same realization dawns on his expression, and he looks uncertainly at the DWMA members.
Lifting her hands, Marie steps between Maka and Kid, glancing at Azusa. "Let's not get ahe-"
The sharp cry of a police siren cuts off the rest of her sentence as a cruiser's lights bounce off the intact windows in the building next to them. The group turns to the car; Maka recognizes the number of license plate as the driver opens their door.
Spirit gets out of the cruiser, wearing a mystified expression as his eyes go from Stein, then to Kid, and finally to Maka. He stares at them for a few seconds, apparently too flabbergasted to speak, while they do the same.
"Stein?" he finally manages. "What are you doing here with my daughter?" His gaze flicks back to Kid, the strangest-looking out of them all; recognition flickers in his face when he looks at Marie and Azusa. "Why are these people here?"
Finally finding herself, Maka strides up to Spirit. "Papa, what are you doing here?"
"Haven't you seen what's happening in the sky?"
Maka hesitates, unsure if what Spirit sees is the same thing that she sees, whether the Rift is visible from his point of view. "I'm not sure what I see," she says. "What do you see?"
"The sky is turning black, but it's not like that," he answers, waving a hand to the sky behind him, where the stars still shine brightly. "It's something else, and no one has no clue what it is. The power in the entire town is down, so everyone at the station is going door to door to keep people inside. I haven't managed to get a hold of your mother, but I know she's in Moricio."
Her hands ball at her sides as she tries to keep her voice steady. "Then why are you here?"
"I went home to check on you, and found your note." She could slap herself-she'd thought she was going to be back late, which is why she left the sticky note on the refrigerator. "When I saw you weren't back, I came out here to find you."
At that, her father takes her hand, tugging it. "Come on, let's go." His gaze goes to Black Star and Tsubaki. "You two as well."
Panic swells; Maka pulls her hand away from Spirit. "I can't go."
Spirit blinks, then frowns. "Maka, it's not safe," he says, a hint of his police officer voice tinging his words.
"Soul's gone," she says. Looking at her father while she speaks makes her throat close. "Something's wrong, and I don't know where he is." They're not exactly lies-she has no idea where Soul is in the Rift.
"Oh." He relents slightly, but not much. "Let me get you three home, and I'll come back." His eyes glance towards Stein and the rest. "I don't know why you're here, but you can find shelter at the fire station."
"No, I'm not going." Maka's words become steel. "I have to find Soul first."
Confusion mixes with stubbornness in Spirit's expression. "You're going, Maka."
"I won't." Her eyes narrow; she gestures to the Rift behind her, though she knows Spirit can't see it. "Soul is out there, and he needs me."
"He needs help," Spirit corrects, clearly trying to stay patient. "Which I am not objecting to, but you-"
"No." She sets her mouth in a line-she can be more stubborn than Spirit.
"We might be able to help," Marie says, stepping forward. "We have a van and equipment outfitted for searching in the dark. Maka could come with us."
Maka looks disbelievingly to Marie. "Really?"
"We need to at least investigate what we're up against and your perception is the greatest I've ever seen," she says. "It would be helpful to know where we're going." Marie glances at Azusa. "Then we can decide what to do from there."
"I have no idea what you all are talking about," says Spirit. "But you're not taking my daughter towards whatever that darkness is."
Maka takes another few steps away from Spirit, then turns around. "I already told you I'm not leaving, Papa."
At this, Black Star jumps in, joining Maka. "Yeah, neither am I!"
Spirit looks from Maka and Black Star to Tsubaki, still on the sidelines and the voice of reason in their group.
"I know nothing makes sense," Tsubaki says to him as she joins the others. "But I have to stick with my friends."
Maka's heart hammers away in her chest as her father stares at them, slightly open-mouthed.
Then his mouth snaps shut and he rubs his face, like he is very tired. When his hand pulls away, his face is resigned. "I'm coming with you."
"You can't," Maka says quickly. She looks at Tsubaki and Black Star. "Neither should you."
Black Star scoffs. "Do you think I'm going to miss out seeing something like this?"
"This isn't a trip to the beach," Tsubaki chides before meeting Maka's eyes. "But we're still coming."
"It's either I come with you, or you stay," interjects Spirit. His hands are set on his hips, meaning he's made up his mind. He looks at Maka. "Which one is it going to be?"
A few minutes later, Stein is trying to force an inflexible vest with a hood over Spirit's head, Spirit sputtering incomprehensibly as he does. Marie pushes a smaller one into Maka's hand while Azusa, Kid, and Kilik work in a perfectly coordinated team, packing things from the second van they brought into the bigger one.
"We were testing these out tonight while training a reaping ghost," says Marie. "Stein developed them to buffer against the madness of the black blood. They worked when we tested with poltergeists, but I don't know how it'll work with…"
She trails off, though Maka knows who she means.
Accepting the vest, Maka pauses. "Thank you for bringing me along."
"I'm giving you a chance to be involved, like we should've done before," Marie answers, tilting her chin to Azusa. "But we're staying outside of the Rift," she says. "And whatever decision we come to is final."
Maka hides her face by tugging on the vest. "I know."
Soul finally makes out the outline of Medusa and the witches waiting at the edge of Abeyance and the Rift after searching along the boundary for what feels like an eternity. The veil of the Rift blurs Medusa's expression, but he can tell she is smiling.
Anger, rage, boils in him as he comes to a stop in front of Medusa. His gaze flits across the rest of the coven, and he spies the hunched frame of the one-eyed witch, although she no longer has just one eye.
His hand slams against the part of the Rift in front of Medusa's face, but she doesn't flinch. Instead, her smile grows wider. "You didn't think you were going to escape so easily, did you?"
The rage surges up, a crescendo pounding in his ears. "You did this."
"I can't take all the credit," says Medusa. She begins to walk along the Rift, the glow of her eyes cutting through its mist. "After all, it is your soul that's dragging in Earth."
Balling his hand into a fist, he shoots after the witch, driving his hand into the wall of the Rift again. A loud rumbling beneath his feet rocks the ground as soon as his fist connects with the Rift, nearly knocking him down to his knees. Soul's balance fumbles, tilting him over, and he crashes against the Rift.
A flutter of excitement ripples through the rest of the coven as he rights himself, looking to Abeyance and finding Medusa's eyes staring at him. He jerks away as the ground continues to shake, though not nearly as hard.
Her head tilts. "Aren't you curious what that was?"
Soul stares back at her with his lips pressed together.
His refusal to ask only seems to delight the witch. "I told you to hold onto that fear and anger, didn't I?"
It takes several moments to realize what Medusa means, and then Soul whips around, eyes searching desperately in the dark, although he is too far away to see the other side of the Rift, to see how much of the Earth just got pulled in because of him.
"We'll be seeing you very soon, I expect." He turns around to see Medusa stepping back, the coven hastening to follow her as she walks away. "Although the Rift will no longer be separating us then."
Soul's heart feels like a battering ram inside of his chest as he watches the witches disappear from view. He presses his hands against his face as he attempts to get a hold of the fear threading through his veins. His thoughts are a hurricane and he can feel his mind fraying with the hunger burning in every part of him. In this body, it's more potent than it ever was, its flames raking through his limbs with a brutal violence. The truth is bitter in his mouth: the hunger is going to take over eventually, and then he won't be able to do anything.
It sets an invisible timer ticking in his head, and he takes a deep breath, lowering his hands. No matter how much his mind deteriorates, he has to find a way to stop Earth's movement into the Rift.
He has no idea where to start as he walks away from the Rift wall. The timer ticks faster in Soul's head as he looks to Earth. Even if the hunger wasn't chipping him apart, he only had until just before Earth reached Abeyance to do something-everything will be over as soon as any part of it touches the witches' realm.
The shape of an idea flickers in his mind and Soul stops abruptly; he wheels around in a circle, searching the Rift intently until he feels the darkness thrumming outside of it. The muscles in his legs are aching as he pushes himself into a run. He's not sure what he'll do or find once he gets to the boundary, but it's the only thing he can think of doing.
Soul sends a plea out to anything that will listen as he runs.
The ghost Maka was supposed to bond with gazes at her through the roof of the van as it rumbles along the road. She waits for her to speak, but the ghost's mouth doesn't open and her morose expression remains unchanging, and after a moment, Maka looks away uncomfortably.
She looks at the Rift, slowly growing bigger through the van's windshield, as Spirit's elbow lies jammed in her side, while Black Star and Tsubaki sit squished together on the other end of the middle row. In the front, Azusa drives, Stein taking the middle seat, while Marie keeps the inside of the van purified in an attempt to keep out the madness humming from the Rift.
There's a tense silence in the van, one that beats in time to the faint pulse coming from Soul's side of their bond. Maka leans her head against the seat, trying again to reach him, but something, most likely the Rift, prevents her from getting through to Soul. She refuses to think about the worst, but the thought circles her mind, a guillotine hanging over her head. The familiar realization that her world has suddenly turned breakable again is nauseating, pushing her heart into her throat. Her fingers bounce in an endless tap against the cube in her fingers-it's too much, everything is too quiet and loud at the same time, and the urge to move and do something is stabbing her with pricks of impatience, but she can do nothing until they're out of the van.
Spirit's voice rouses her from her anxious half-trance, and she looks at him with a questioning frown. His eyes are focused somewhere to the side of her, attempting to put together the pieces of the puzzle sitting in front of him. "You haven't been going to the library or Black Star's house when you'd stay out late, have you?"
"No." She swallows. "I haven't."
He nods, gaze drifting up to the front of the van. "Were you with them?"
She is aware of the silence, and only bobs her head.
"Doing what?"
Her head shakes. "I can't explain it all right now."
Spirit looks at her. "But you will." His tone makes it a question.
Maka nods again.
"We have powerpoints in situations like these," Stein says from his seat. "The pictures may help."
A furrow forms on Spirit's brow. "What do you mean?"
Before Stein can answer, a weight tugs on Maka's perception. She opens her mouth to speak just as Kid calls from the back, where he, Kilik, and the twins sit. "Do you feel that?"
"It's probably another aftershock," answers Azusa. "We're going to be feeling those a lot."
"No, it's something else," Maka says straightening up in her seat. The being in her perception field has their soul cloaked in madness, stronger than the poltergeists'. It muffles the beat of their soul almost completely, making it impossible to tell what they are.
She opens her mouth to warn Azusa when a sudden jolt rocks through the van, a metallic bang ringing out. The van's brakes screech as Azusa brings it to a halt. Maka lurches forward; Spirit's hand seizes her shoulder, keeping her head from smacking into the back of Azusa's seat.
Maka's heartbeat pounds in her ears; voices break out as the van stops completely and go quiet as the sound of something scrabbling on the roof fills the air. Marie looks back to the three ghosts in the van. "Can you see anything up there?"
Immediately, Patti and Lizi drift up to the ceiling, but stop there. Liz wears a perplexed frown on her face while the silent ghost reaches out, hand stopping at the roof. She speaks for the first time. "There's something blocking the way."
Marie looks as bewildered as Spirit, Black Star, and Tsubaki, who hear none of the ghosts' side of the exchange. "That's impossible."
Kilik begins to speak. "Maybe we should-"
The rest of his sentence is cut by a violent screeching as the sliding door on Maka's side is ripped off. Crona's head drops into view from the roof of the van. Their eyes are wild as they search the van, wide cracks splitting down their face and neck, before finally meeting Maka's. "Where is he?"
Their words swell to a screech. "Where is the kishin?"
Then, their head snaps to the right. "There," they breathe.
Crona disappears abruptly, the van shaking as they take off into the air.
Silence descends for a few moments, then the roof lets out a groan as it sags, starting to cave in. Maka scrambles out of the car first, running to the back of the van to let out Kid, Kilik and the twins, and hisses when her eyes fall on the handles, covered in a familiar hardened black liquid.
"Are you alright?" Black Star calls as he joins Maka at the back, Tsubaki on his heels.
"Yes, but we're stuck," replies Kilik's muffled voice. "The ghosts are keeping the roof up, but it's still caving."
"Ghosts?" Spirit appears on her left. "What does ghosts mean?"
For the fraction of a second, Maka hesitates, and then she says, "Stand back." The cube in her hand flashes; she registers Spirit's exclamation of wonder as she fits the back of the blade in the crevice where the two doors meet, pushing and pulling the scythe side to side. There's the sound of voices as the others join her at the back of the van, but she concentrates on forcing the doors open.
When the scythe has created a large enough gap, she pulls away, and Black Star and Tsubaki rush forward to yank on the door closest to them while Azusa and Stein open the other. Kilik scrambles out with the twins tucked under his arms, Kid following after him.
Maka steps away from the van, only distantly hearing Spirit's bombardment of questions and the others' voices. Her head is in a fog as she follows the muted pulse of Crona's soul with her perception-she doesn't have to wonder who they were looking for. Ahead is the Rift, close enough to see how it drags the Earth in by degrees.
Her eyes trail to Spirit's. "I'm sorry."
Maka's grip on the scythe tightens as she turns and sprints towards the Rift.
Soul feels himself coming apart as he travels to the boundary; there are souls in the Rift, hiding in the darkness like the monsters. His sense of smell is heightening, and he can almost taste the tempting aroma of fear wafting from the quivering souls. The sound of his footsteps trips to a stop as he catches the scent of a soul only a short distance away.
His nails dig in his palms. I don't want this, I don't want this, I don't want this.
The soul is so, so close.
Gritting his teeth, Soul holds his breath as he forces himself forward.
The Rift is filled with a silence that sets Maka's teeth on edge as she enters-the wall is extremely viscous, but it's not solid like it usually is. Trees loom ahead of her, which must be the part of the forest outside of old Orcus Hollow that's already been drawn in. She keeps her scythe ready, pausing in the darkness to get her bearings.
Crona is nowhere to be seen, although she can sense their soul with her perception. The madness coating them is thick; she can feel the song beginning to wind in her blood and withdraws her perception, pulling up the hood of her vest and silently praying it works.
Sucking in a breath, she reaches out again, finding Crona moving erratically along the Rift's mouth; she doesn't understand why until she looks back at the entrance.
Swaths of hardened black blood creep along the Rift wall, covering the entrance gradually but steadily. Maka steps back, eyes wide. They infected the Rift when they entered.
A cold feeling closes over her as she realizes she doesn't know how long she has until the Rift closes completely. She breathes out, turning to face the vastness of the Rift, and thinks about how long it might take to reach Soul.
It doesn't change her decision.
By the time Soul reaches the Rift's boundary, he is covered in sweat from the effort it takes to keep from unraveling. He braces himself against the wall, a semblance of calm coming over his mind when he realizes that he made it. Fighting the shakiness in his legs, he looks out into darkness.
Death.
He recalls vaguely that Stein had called death a place when he and Maka first joined the DWMA, although he didn't fully understand it at the time. Now, he does.
His palms lay flat against the boundary, attempting to think through the hunger consuming his thoughts. There was something he was missing, lying just beyond his reach. Blowing out a breath of frustration, Soul digs his hands into the boundary, feeling it resist at first before giving way.
Soul stares at his hands; it's not much of a secure boundary if he can get through it so easily. Then, he slowly pulls his hands out, gazing at them before lifting his eyes back to the boundary. Out of the dozens of times he spent wandering death, he's never seen a Rift monster here. The only time something came out of the Rift was when he helped the old man.
Beyond the boundary, the sphere of light that found Soul bobs in front of him, an expectant air about it. He's not quite thinking as he reaches through the boundary and cups the light in his hands, bringing it through.
The light's soothing warmth flows into Soul, clearing the hunger away. He intakes sharply when the light wriggles free from his grasp and transforms into the scythe.
In his head, the missing piece falls into place as Soul's fingers wrap around the scythe.
Death wanted to be whole again.
Exhilaration surges through Soul as he tightens his hold on the scythe, backing up so he could swing the scythe forward with as much force as possible. Without the Rift, Earth would be released, and the witches would slowly die out without souls being funneled by the Rift to Abeyance. The monsters living in the Rift would die, too-souls passing through death move too quickly to be caught.
The blade doesn't even make a dent in the boundary.
Soul stares in disbelief for a moment, then tries again. And again.
But the boundary's surface remains as smooth as glass. Eyes narrowing, Soul gives up on swinging, and tries to drive the point of the blade into the boundary. He tries to resonate with the scythe, feeling the light's resonance within it, but he can't fall into rhythm with it. Even so, he believes he's making progress when the blade abruptly gives way to reveal the surface of the boundary looks completely untouched.
His palms ache from how hard he was gripping the scythe as Soul lets it drop to the ground. It transforms back and the sphere of light zooms up, pulsing against his face indignantly.
"You tell me how to do it then," Soul tells the sphere irritably as he swats at it.
The sphere stops poking at Soul and goes to hover at his shoulder.
"Great." Soul lets himself flop on the ground to rest, breathing heavily. He doesn't understand how he can get through the boundary with only minimal effort, but now he can't even make a scratch on it. His instinct tells him resonating with the light is the key, but he doesn't know how to resonate with something that isn't even a person.
He studies it, trying to frame breaking through the boundary like the reapings with Maka. It's different, being the meister rather than the weapon, and requires more finesse, although he doesn't see any other way he could shatter the boundary than how he just tried.
Getting to his feet, Soul puts his hand on the boundary and searches along it for weaknesses, the light moving with him. After several minutes, however, it gradually becomes clear that the boundary is almost certainly uniform, no matter how much he looks or what direction he searches.
Frustrated dread builds in his stomach as Soul goes back to hacking at the boundary with the scythe, though it stubbornly stays intact. His resonance is out of sync with the light's, growing more wild as his panic rises. He rests his forehead against the handle of the scythe when he finally gives up.
The scythe changes to the sphere again when he lifts his head, hovering in front of Soul. Hunger stirs back to life in his chest, and a spike of fear runs through his body, followed by a rush of anger. He wants to be rid of the fear that plagues him, he doesn't want to be a monster, but it's what's written in his soul.
In that moment, Soul realizes how afraid he is of himself.
Sitting on the ground, he brings his knees to his chest and blows out a breath to try to clear his fear, to keep himself from drawing in Earth even faster. The light follows him; he holds out a hand and it settles in his palm.
The sphere reminds him of Maka; its warmth slowing the terror coursing in his veins to a trickle. He'd like to stay there on the ground, basking in the light's warmth until the hunger swallows him, but he gets up and stays standing even as a soul-deep exhaustion swells over.
Soul reaches for the tiny sphere, feeling it meet his hand as it transforms. Bringing the scythe back in an arc, he twirls the handle between his fingers; the scythe's material is neither metal nor wood, but something else. His face reflects dully in the surface of the boundary as he readies his swing.
In his reflection, he can see the truth of his life. Fear is circular, and he has let it keep him fixed in the same cycle. It's what drove him from Maka and into Abeyance, into allowing Medusa's influence, and into drinking the potion from the one-eyed witch.
He has to break the pattern once before it all ends; there's nothing he can to do to change his soul, but it's what he chooses to do with it that counts.
There is a loud clunk as the scythe's blade bites into the boundary. Soul wrenches it away; the groove warping the surface isn't deep, but it's there. Triumph floods through his body, and he strikes the boundary again, feeling the blade dig deeper this time.
The light's resonance thrums through the scythe and into in his hands, sinking in as the high from his elation fades. It weaves through his soul, pulsing in perfect time.
Maka tracks Crona in spurts, falling back when the madness flowing from their soul gets too loud and quickening her step when she can no longer hear the flutter of their wings. Doubt creeps in her head as she follows them, but they're looking for Soul like she is and know the Rift far better than she does. She'd begun her search for Soul on her own, based on Crona's volatile behavior at the mouth of the Rift, but Crona had shot away on a fixed path before she wandered too far into the dark.
The silence of the Rift is disorienting, somehow worse than the whispers and cries of the monsters within it-it's the kind of silence that stills the sea just before a storm, pressing against Maka's eardrums with an ominous heaviness.
Shoving away her unease, she focuses on Crona's soul; without their presence, her journey is blind-she doesn't dare risk getting their attention by illuminating the dark with her scythe. She is so intent on following Crona without being noticed that she doesn't registered the scuttle of feet rushing her from behind.
She goes flying forward as the monster slams into her back, throwing out her arm just in time to avoid impaling herself on the scythe's blade. The darkness of her vision wobbles as Maka rolls onto her back, the monster's putrid breath fanning against her face.
Her foot kicks out, hitting home, and she wrenches the scythe upward, the flat of the blade catching in the monster's mouth. With a twist of the handle, the blade's point hooks into the monster and it lets out a strangled screech. Maka struggles to her feet, pushing the blade further into the roof of the monster's mouth. It goes still after several moments of fighting to break free, but she continues to dig the blade into its head a few seconds longer for good measure.
The discordant drumming of Crona's soul is further away than Maka expected. Anxious panic spreads through her chest and into her throat as she breaks into a run, derailing her focus completely as she senses Crona's soul flying far faster than she could ever move.
Pushing herself to go faster is a mistake; she trips on her feet, and goes stumbling forward. A sob bubbles on her lips as Maka regains her balance, leaning heavily on the scythe as she tries to fight down her panic.
Breathe.
She pictures going on family trips to the mountains, sitting in the diner with Black Star and Tsubaki, and feeling Soul's hand in hers.
Breathe.
She holds onto them as she begins to run again.
Soul's energy flags when he is a little more than halfway through the boundary. He pauses for a moment to let the sharp aching in his arms fade, although nervousness pushes him into lifting the scythe again before he fully recovers.
The hole he is chipping into the boundary is just wide enough to fit the blade of the scythe-he hopes he'll be able to cleanly rip through the length of the Rift like scissors with a piece of paper once he cuts through the boundary. In his hands, the light's resonance continues to pulse in perfect rhythm with his.
His breath catches when he feels the blade break through. The calculated strikes of the blade dissolves into forceful hacking; he ignores the screaming of his muscles and the fatigue bleeding into his bones, trying to cut faster. Hairline cracks form, then widen as the hole in the boundary gets larger.
Soul's legs are threatening to collapse when the weakened part of the boundary gives way with only a small groan of protest, forming a gap large enough to fit the scythe and his body through at the same time.
The darkness of death rushes in with a soft sigh. Soul stands back and watches for a moment, reaching out to feel the fluid darkness flooding in-it's almost velvety, completely different from the harsh feeling of the Rift's darkness. Then, he goes to the hole, peering out into death. It does not call to him like the Rift had, crushing the tiny hope he'd been nursing that death might take him away when he was done.
It's a disappointment he'll deal with when he's done, he decides, firmly hooking the blade into the boundary and pulling it forward. With the added pressure of death pouring in, the boundary cuts much more easily. The rush of death accompanies Soul's steps as the boundary starts to peel away, cracks crawling up the surface and out of sight.
A real smile tugs on his lips when Soul sees the boundary tearing itself apart on its own ahead of him, finally unraveling with the force of death surging against it from the outside. Soul backs away as the ground at the base of the boundary breaks apart.
An ache, sharp and bittersweet, twists in his chest as the scythe transforms back into the light, and Soul contemplates the expanse of death. It will be better to lose himself in there than on Earth, even though that isn't what he wants at all.
The light swerves in front of Soul as he makes to step off of the ground and into the darkness, pressing against his eyes, and he cringes, blocking the light with a hand. "You got what you wanted."
However, the light refuses to leave when he tries to go around it, making him backpedal awkwardly. "What do you want?"
Soul barely registers he is flying back before landing in a crumpled pile on the ground. Pain cascades down from the shoulder he landed on-he's sure it's broken. He sits up and clutches his shoulder with his good arm, though it only increases the agony ripping through his arm. The light comes streaking into his view, bobbing in front of him.
A hiss escapes from his mouth as he rises, every movement sending bouts of fresh pain tearing through his shoulder.
"You've ruined it."
Crona's wings beat almost soundlessly as they stare at the deteriorating boundary. Madness roils off of them in waves as they turn to Soul. Their gaze, lifeless and resolute, stands in contrast with the chaos of their soul.
"I was going to eat your soul," they tell Soul as their wings set them on the ground and sharpen, forming jagged blades. He glances to the light as Crona speaks-there's no way he'd be to hold it, let alone wield it.
Cracks spread across Crona's skin, wiping away their face. "But I'll ruin you instead."
The weight of Crona's soul disappears behind a swell of madness and Maka pauses in her tracks, searching for a whisper of their soul. Instead, Soul's familiar pulse beats nearby in her perception; her mouth runs dry as she throws caution to the wind and illuminates her scythe.
She only gets a glimpse of the ground disintegrating beneath her feet before it drops away completely. Her legs kick out instantly; instead of feeling the weightlessness of falling, she finds herself buoyed up, caught in an eddy of a darkness that isn't the Rift's quickly racing by. It takes a minute to recognize the darkness as the one she and Soul would meet in. Absolutely nothing makes sense, but she has no time to investigate as she kicks her way back to solid ground, giving a wide berth to the edge of the steadily receding ground as she climbs back onto the Rift.
What does become clear to Maka is that the darkness of death flowing into the Rift will overtake it, breaking the Rift's hold on Earth. Her step quickens as she strides away from the shrinking edge of the Rift, heart beating like a timer counting down to zero, and to where she feels Soul. She's suddenly certain he was the one who opened up the Rift-she has no idea how, but it gives her hope.
The discord of Crona's madness weaves its way into her blood as she approaches, nearly pushing her down to her knees. Maka manages to keep upright by leaning on the scythe, fighting the song sweeping through her soul by flooding herself with her resonance. It clears the worst of the madness from her mind, though her gait is unsteady as she begins to totter forward.
Maka catches sight Crona, a quickly moving blur, and of Soul, all but collapsed on the ground. She's closer to Soul than she is to them, but can still see how their wings have hardened over as a bout of violent laughter from Crona carves through the air. As they pause, facing Soul, her eyes trail from him to Crona, realization hitting her and making her break into a sprint when they charge. She hurls herself into Crona's path, blocking the blades of black blood as she blocks them with her scythe.
There is an ear-splitting clang as the scythe splits apart in her hands. She staggers back from the force of the blow, looking down to find half of the scythe's blade gone and the handle cleaved in two.
Looking up, she finds Crona standing a short distance away, a puzzled look on their face. Their madness has dropped slightly, leaving their soul exposed-there's something in its anxious drumming that reminds her of how she felt when the poltergeists terrorized her in her room as a child. She reaches out and tries to bring their resonance in time with hers, realizing too late it's the wrong decision.
Black blood flows from the fissures running over Crona's body as they charge. Acceptance sweeps through Maka quietly: there's nothing she can fight with, and if she moves, Crona's blades will cut through Soul instead.
She feels rather than sees Soul rushing in front of her as Crona's blades swing up.
Soul sheds his body like a snake, but the pain follows.
Everything is distant in his vision, as if he is watching from a telescope; black blood is rapidly closing over Crona's body, but it doesn't make him feel victorious. He feels numb, a fog bleeding through all of him, although it pauses when he registers the sound of his name being called over and over.
It takes all of his effort to find Maka, and even then her face is blurry. His voice is somewhere far away-he'd believed the madness had made him hallucinate her, although that hadn't stopped him from taking Crona's blow. Next to her, the light bounces up and down, clear in his vision somehow.
Something beneath him shifts, and he realizes Maka has her arm under his shoulders. She feels faint through their bond, like she is the one is fading. Speaking is a struggle that claims most of his energy. "You're here."
Her voice is shaky. "That's right."
"It's dangerous."
Bright tears fall down her face. "I said I was here for everything."
He wants to say something comforting. "Me too."
"Yeah?" she asks as she hauls him to his feet. "Prove it."
Without a body, Soul is lighter to carry on her back, but Maka still struggles to keep ahead of death's encroaching flow as it reclaims the Rift. She's guided through what remains of the Rift by the light, which swept down in front of her once she had Soul on her back. Although it could be taking her further in, for all she knows, she follows it. She doesn't have the time to wander around until she finds the entrance.
The only thing Maka can focus on is putting one foot in front of the other. She listens for the telltale rush of an oncoming monster as she follows the light; they're lost if one attacks-she doesn't have a weapon or the energy to ward it off. True fear laces around her as Soul's pulse gets weaker, but her voice is too heavy to summon to even call his name.
Her legs give out after minutes of following the light, and she nearly loses her grip on Soul as she stumbles forward. Behind Maka, the sound of the ground crumbling grows closer as she forces herself up, her legs buckling again.
Just one more step, she begs her body. The light waits for her as she rises, limping forward before she collapses again.
A heaviness is taking over, one that she can't stop or work through. She ignores it until she can't, and even then she fights it, keeping her eyes fixed on the light until the mouth of the Rift springs into view, but it's at least a quarter of a mile away, too far for her to battle to.
But just ahead looms the trees of the forest, shrinking away slowly as Earth recedes from the Rift. The light dances in Maka's vision, urging her forward.
A wave of relief crashes over as soon as she steps into the forest, and her body crashes along with it, knocking Soul away as she collapses. Her hand scrabbles across the ground, trying to find him as a darkness more opaque than the Rift swoops across her vision.
But she feels nothing.
Soul's eyes open as he feels his back press against the ground. Maka is somewhere next to him, but he can't turn his head or do anything but squint as the light flits into his vision. He thinks he sees trees beyond it, but he can't be sure whether it's just his imagination.
The light bobs down, forcing his eyes closed. Its resonance draws his soul into its rhythm this time, fusing as the light sinks into Soul. He feels warm suddenly as a floating sensation sweeps over him. Although his eyes are shut, a brightness diffuses slowly across his vision, warmth spreading through his body.
This must be what death feels like to the souls passing through it, but he pretends that the heat pulsing in his chest is his heartbeat; he wants to be alive-something he's never let himself completely acknowledge before-with a burning and consuming ache.
The light shifts, taking on a reddish tint as it swallows his vision, and he takes a deep breath, waiting.
He is not afraid anymore, at least.
Then he takes another breath.
And another.
Soul opens his eyes; through the forest, Earth's sky gazes down, welcoming him home.
The pungent smell of pine trees is the first thing Maka registers as the dark pulls away from her eyes, though she can't seem to open them. Her memory before she became unconscious is blank; thinking is like moving through quicksand, and the feeling that she's missing something important grates at her. She stops trying to remember when the ache of her muscles sinks in-it's too much to move, so Maka just lies there, shoots of pain stabbing her neck. The sensation of blood coating her back is something she hadn't noticed due to the thickness of her vest, but it explains why she collapsed.
She needs a doctor, but the heaviness in her body persists. It reminds her a little of the aftermath of the truck accident, the slow way she came to discover herself in a hospital bed, and then Soul floating over her.
Soul.
Her eyes are still weighed down; it's faintly ridiculous that she can't even do something as simple as open her eyes after everything she's done and gone through, though she discovers she can move her hands now.
Blind, she searches for Soul, and, like before, feels nothing. Panic rises, and then the obvious occurs to her; she reaches for their link, and finds it gone. Not muted, faded, or blocked.
Gone.
Devastation cuts Maka from the heaviness consuming her body; the rays of the sun prick at her eyes as they fly open and rove across the lightning sky. The Rift's veil is absent, like it never existed, and in a rush, she understands.
"No." The word rips out from deep inside of Maka's chest. She shakes her head, as if that will change the truth; the pain from her cut flares up as her head moves, but she doesn't care. The way grief razes her body is familiar, though she refuses to accept it. It's possible to do everything right and still lose, she knows; denial will not change anything.
And yet, the tears won't fall-she doesn't know if she is refusing to cry, or whether this grief has permanently locked them away. She lies on the ground, chest heaving as agony enfolds her in a crushing embrace. She doesn't turn at the sound of approaching footsteps but closes her eyes.
"Are you awake?" The voice of whoever is speaking is too close to Soul's.
She screws her eyes tighter. Grief is cruel.
The voice grows more insistent. "Maka."
Her head shakes-she knows the ghost of Soul will disappear when she opens her eyes.
"Maka." A finger pokes against her face. "Wake up."
Gritting her teeth, she swats at the hand, but it catches hers. Anger rises up in her chest, and she squints her eyes, shooting a glare upwards as she rips her hand away. Soul is blurry at first, then sharpens into focus as Maka's eyes widen. His face is upside down, like when they first met.
"You've lost a lot of blood, so I went to look for help," he says. "I tried to find your father, but Marie found me, though I'm glad it wasn't Azusa."
Shock replaces Maka's grief as she gapes at him. Soul's teeth have lost most of their sharpness, though his eyes are redder than they were the first time he came back alive, and his hair is as white as ever. She opens her mouth, but no words come out, her voice stuck in her throat.
Soul speaks after a few seconds, brow furrowing in concern. "What's wrong?"
It takes effort to unstick her voice. "You're here."
"Yes." He frowns. The feeling of his soul in her perception is different, but his core is the same. "Our bond's gone, I think."
"It is." Maka reaches until she finally finds his hand, wrapping it with hers; tears prick at the corners of her eyes. "I thought you were gone, when I couldn't feel you."
Soul interlocks his fingers in hers. "I told you a long time ago I was staying for everything, didn't I?"
The sun breaks free over the horizon as she smiles. "You did."