2 Sanzu
Maka dropped her pen and clapped her hands over her ears as a glass-shattering scream rocked the classroom. Stein fell off his chair. Black*Star ran to the nearest window in time to see an enormous dust cloud bloom miles away at the edge of the city. Kid looked at the skid mark his pencil had made all over his worksheet in horror, Liz lifted the lipstick away from its new resting place on her forehead and Patty uncurled her hand from the highlighter-pink origami mouse she'd accidentally crushed. All three swore in unison.
Soul took advantage of the widespread confusion to sneak a peek at Ox Ford's answers. He grinned. His grade had just gone up by three levels.
"What was that?" asked Fire, closing her Meg and Mog picture book and wincing from the high pitch of the shriek. Thunder dragged down her yellow cap and shrugged. "How should I know?"
"I wasn't asking you!"
"You're so mean!" squawked Thunder, and hit her twin sister with a copy of Elmer the patchwork elephant. Before Kilik could tell them off, their squabbling was drowned out by Black*Star shouting a challenge out of the window.
"HA! Ore-sama can attract more attention than that! Black*Star can attract more attention than GOD HIMSELF! Just watch me! AHHH-" he thumped silently to the floor, a shuriken in his back.
Tsubaki sighed and turned to Maka as if she hadn't just mortally wounded her ninja meister. "Maka-chan, do you have any idea what…?"
"Chrona," said the girl immediately with the face of someone haunted. Whether it was by memories of deadly battles past, or fear for her new friend, the Weapon couldn't tell. "It has to be Chrona. No one else can scream like that."
"But why would h-…sh-…i-…that person be out at the border? Chrona hates going anywhere without Maka, doesn't…don't they?" asked Soul, interjecting the girls' hushed conversation.
"Chrona must be fighting someone," concluded Maka, standing up and grabbing Soul's arm. "We have to go help."
All the people near enough to hear her, meisters and Weapons alike, stepped back and gave her unenthusiastic stares and raised eyebrows.
"Eh." They said.
Maka growled and raised a book in warning. Soul slumped in defeat. She continued.
"Come on, Kid. For the sake of Shibusen, we should at least check it out. You are Shinigami-sama's son, remember? It's your responsibility."
Death the Kid shoved a mangled worksheet into his friend's face. "How can I call myself Shinigami's son?! Look at this!" he wailed; "I can't even write straight!!! I'm not worthy! I'm useless!"
Maka groaned and left without waiting for his histrionics to end. With Soul Eater transformed, she took a shortcut out through the broken window.
"Move it, Punk!!" roared Patty.
sSsss
Tsubaki finished applying a large plaster to Black*Star's back and pulled him to his feet.
"Come on, Black*Star, we should go help."
The ninja folded his arms and pouted mulishly. "Don' wanna!"
sSsss
Beelzebub skidded to a stop in midair. Kid had just realised who their new opponent was. A little way beyond Shinigami's protective barrier, having discarded the Soul Protect spell given to him by Arachne, the original kishin was battling Chrona.
It was a short and futile fight. By the time both Maka and Kid had arrived on the scene, their friend was completely enveloped in Asura's living bandages. Paralysed, unable even to struggle. Ragnarok had dropped from his technician's grasp and lay abandoned on the ground. It was bizarre to see the sword alone, an unsettling reminder that Chrona and the Weapon were not really meant to exist as one being.
The Demon God was walking away, dragging his catch behind him and forming a deep rut in the desert sand that surrounded Death City. Maka bounded forwards, swinging Soul Eater round in a pre-emptive Witch Hunter strike. Kid knelt down and began to resonate with Liz and Patty, preparing to pull off a full-power blast. Black needles extended from his shoulders and sparked with electricity, whilst a wind whipped up and spiralled around the three fighters. With a deep bass rumble, Kid's soul expanded and lit up with the three sanzu lines as they gradually activated. He refused to let this chance go to waste.
The scythe connected and bit deep, slicing the kishin almost in half. Asura stumbled, recaptured his balance. His head swivelled and looked down at the large black blade cutting into his side, face twisted with mild amusement. Their advantage ended there.
"Are you trying to eat me?"
He pulled off his gloves and casually wrapped a bare hand around the top of the Weapon's shaft. Tugging Soul Eater out of his flesh, he lifted him so high that Maka dangled off the other end unable to touch the ground.
"A Demon Weapon can eat kishin souls without turning into a kishin itself, right?" He shook out his arm, rattling the pair like a baby would a toy. "Because a Weapon is already impure…"
Soul shuddered as madness touched him; transforming back into human form, Maka now clinging desperately to his ankles as Asura clutched his neck. Seeing him choke, she let go. The crazed god drew the boy closer; breathed poisoned words over him.
"Because all Weapons secretly want to eat everything…" That huge third eye rolled in its socket and the other two glared with mistrust at Soul, piercing through him.
"That's why I ate mine first."
Asura coughed up a golden vajra, clenching the metal sceptre between his teeth as the black blood Eruka had used to resurrect him resealed his torso.
"Hurry up and shoot him, Kid!" yelled Maka, scrambling out of range and praying Soul wasn't about to have his head blown off by either his friend or his foe.
The blast that followed was beyond words…
sSsss
"Asshole…" muttered Soul, cradling the tattered remnants of his headband in his trembling hands. "You nearly took my head off!"
"Never mind that," said Maka impatiently, flapping an uncaring hand at him. "How on earth are we going to find Chrona again?"
"Never mind that!" sobbed Kid, crumpled up under a small raincloud of gloom. "Why does my godmoding always fail? It's because I'm asymmetrical isn't it? Because I don't deserve to be a Death God?! He just respawned like nothing happened…how can I live with the shame? …oh oh oh…hic…ohhh…"
"Never mind that…" complained the Second Most Annoying Voice Known To Mankind (we all know who the first is); "Get off me, you useless bastard! Hey! Are you listening to me?!"
"Neve-" began Patty, but Liz clapped a hand over her mouth. "Don't even start," warned the older sister.
"That really irritating voice," mused Maka, suddenly punching her palm; "that sounded like Ragnarok! Kid, move! Ragnarok is underneath you!"
"How?" Soul asked in disbelief. "How is that even possible? Won't Chrona die of blood loss or something?"
One boxing-gloved hand waved weakly from the Demon Sword's otherwise prone form. He croaked. "Help me…you worthless losers…" He was still mainly in sword form, with only a loudmouth and a single arm to show his humanity – or inhumanity.
The Shibusen students made no attempts to come to the Weapon's aid. Mainly they were worried about what that would entail. Soul in particular didn't want to be forced to donate his body as life-support, being the only other carrier of black blood present. It was also difficult for the group to ignore the undercurrent of hope that, if they did nothing, they would be rid of Ragnarok forever. Chrona might even thank them for it.
Trapped at an impasse, precious seconds were slipping away from them. But of course, it never took long for the black sword to grow impatient. His fuse could be measured in atoms. "RAAGH!" he screeched at last, unable to bear the silence and indecision for more than four seconds. He punched the earth so hard it cratered beneath his fist. "I don't have time for this! I'll follow Chrona myself!" Another arm appeared and the blade hauled itself upright, the disembodied mouth muttering vile insults at its audience just loud enough to make sure they heard.
"Can you track your meister?!" asked Death the Kid, astonished.
Ragnarok's jaws bit together and the edge of the blade began to quiver, deforming. A black aura became visible, its cerise-edged line wriggling in and out of bizarre geometric shapes as the mass of the Dark Weapon expanded up and out. Soon it was dwarfing them. Liz began to back away. That thing looked creepy.
An ear-tingling shriek caused them all to flinch as one. It heralded the end of the transformation. Maka covered her ears for the second time that day, then looked at Ragnarok. And looked up…and up…and up…
A white eyeball with only an x-shaped pupil where other people had colourful irises met her gaze. Ragnarok was tall and massively built, like an athletic version of Free chiselled out of a massive block of jet stone. His teeth were bared in a sneer with molars so jagged he seemed to have a mouthful of barbed wire. The Weapon was dressed in white shorts and gloves, bare-footed, with spiked steel belts crossing his waist, wrists and shoulder. The majority of his close-cropped hair had been buzzed off leaving a bright white cross emblazoned on the back of his skull.
"Woah, dude!" Patty cheered. "You look like you just jumped outta a boxing ring!"
When the pugilist spoke, it was regrettably with the same voice they'd all come to know and hate. Indignant, rude, and squeaky. It clashed with Ragnarok's newly revealed true form even worse than it had the old.
"I was a boxer before Medusa told me I was a Weapon, retard! Can't you even figure that out?!"
Without waiting to hear Patty's reply (if she could concentrate long enough to give one), Ragnarok started to march across the desert at a fast, ground-swallowing pace. Soul couldn't believe the guy could move so easily after fifteen odd years of permanent weapon form. Maka couldn't believe that he was capable of a human form at all, having been ripped out of his meister.
As the ragtag group quickly chased after the only person who seemed to know where they should go, Maka took a closer look at the Demon Sword and opened her eyes to his soul.
…It didn't even look like a soul anymore. It was stretched so thin it was barely visible, still fundamentally attached to the rest of his blood and Chrona's soul. There was a tangled knot and then just a fraying thread reaching out from the direction they were following.
"What exactly is going to happen when that soul snaps?" Maka queried out loud, nerves now on edge.
Death the Kid glanced up at the soul briefly then lowered his head and focused on flying Beelzebub faster. "If it's anything like what atoms do," he answered quietly; "then a snapping soul will result in a nuclear explosion."
Even Patty was sobered by that revelation.
sSsss
Tsubaki had finally convinced Black*Star to go and help his friends. They approached the scene of the scream, and found it empty.
"What the hell?!" yelled the ninja. "They left without us!"