Author's Note: So, er, one quick thing that's a bit important—I'm going to start referring to Maka with the word Meisterin, because that is what she is: eine Meisterin, nicht ein Meister; a female Meister (meisterin), not a male Meister. That word is actually a German word meaning master or champion, referring to a male, and -in is a feminine suffix that implies the person being referred to is female. I know that's not what they say in the anime, but it just seems a bit more correct to me, y'know? And since nouns are capitalized in German, I'll start capitalizing it, too.
TL;DR Meister is a German word, and German has gender-specific suffixes for words referring to people, so Maka is technically eine Meisterin und nicht ein Meister (a Meisterin and not a Meister).
Maka couldn't believe she was actually going through with this idea. She shifted anxiously after knocking at the door, unsure as to if she she really be going through with everything.
She had lied to the most important person in her life, and now she was going behind his back, doing something he specifically told her not to do because she could get herself hurt. She was doing something he told her not to so as to ensure her safety. She said she wasn't going to get herself hurt, but she hardly had any power compared to a grim reaper—well, at least, on her own. And she most certainly was on her own.
There was no turning back when the door opened, and Liz stood to the side to allow the Meisterin to come inside. She felt sick to her stomach, and she really didn't want to do this. What was Soul going to say when he found out about all this? What was he going to do?
"Hey, thanks for doing all this," Liz said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. "I'm really gonna owe you one once this is all over."
Maka smiled the best she could. "No worries. He's my friend, so of course I'm going to do this for him. It's what friends do."
She didn't receive a reply, so she headed back to Kidd's room, only to find his door locked. Of course it was locked—why hadn't she been expecting that? Hoping she wouldn't have to end up breaking down the door, she knocked. After a few minutes without getting any kind of response from the reaper, she let out a heavy sigh. There really was no way around this is such a situation, was there?
She stood back, took a deep breath, and slammed her shoulder into the door with as much force as she could manage. It went down with a loud cracking noise, at the expense of her shoulder hurting almost as badly as the time she'd dislocated it. She gritted her teeth against the pain, knowing that Kidd was, without a doubt, suffering far more than she was.
And then her entire mind blanked at what she saw.
Kidd was slumped on the floor against the wall in the corner, completely slack as if he was a rag-doll, far paler than usual and his clothes hardly fitting him at all, and puddles of crimson from the blood dripping from underneath his sleeves. Maka raced over to him, grabbing one of his hands so as to examine his wrists, but he jerked away just roughly enough to free himself from her grip.
"Don't waste your time," he said quietly, trying to kick her away. He was far too weak to manage that, though. "Don't waste your time on a worthless piece of garbage."
"Shut up!" she snapped, trying to glare at him as her vision was blurred by tears. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! You're so conceited! You think that just because you tell me not to care, I'm not going to! Like somehow, calling yourself is going to get rid of how much it hurts to see you like this, to know you're suffering! You think—you honestly think—saying you're not worth anything is going to make me see you the same way you see yourself! How selfish can you get, Kidd?! Have you ever thought how this makes us feel?! Liz's been stressed out, and I've never seen her looking so exhausted! I've done nothing for the past two weeks except try to figure out what to do! Tsubaki's been so freaked out, she wasn't even able to focus enough to transform when Blackstar was about to get the crap beat out of him! I'm sure even Patty's been crying! And you honestly think this is okay?! To tell me that you're not worth it, to tell me that no one should care?! Now give me your hand and let me see what you've done to yourself!"
Her outburst was irrational, she realized as soon as the words escaped her mouth. It was horrible. Clearly she was the conceited one here, believing that yelling at the boy who could very well be on his way to his deathbed was going to make him realize that his thought process was all wrong. When could that ever be considered okay?
And yet, he sat up the best he could and shakily held his hands out towards her.
She pushed up his sleeves as carefully as she could, not wanting to cause him any harm. Eight perfectly straight, symmetrical cuts ran across each of his wrists, and she took his left arm and pressed her lips against the cuts to kiss them, ignoring the metallic taste of blood that made her want to be sick.
She took out her phone, sending a text to Tsubaki, This is worse than I thought. You need to go get Professor Stein. I don't care what he's doing, but this is more important. And you need to send Soul and Blackstar over here right away. I need help right now and I can't bring myself to ask anything of Liz and Patty right now.
Tsubaki replied in only a matter of seconds, I'm on it. Just count on me, Maka.
The Meisterin gripped the hem of the dress she had worn with both hands, pulling two strips off it, now causing part of it to come above her waist. She wrapped the grip reaper's wrists in the fabric, trying to ignore how he winced at how tight she was making it.
"It'll stop the bleeding. The tighter it is, the less blood will escape, and the quicker it'll clot." She didn't even bother wiping the blood from her mouth as she spoke. Perhaps because she wanted the taste to still be there, she decided. It had spilled from his body, and corpses don't bleed like that. She wanted to hold onto that for the time being.
After several minutes of silence, Maka heard footsteps racing down the hallway. Blackstar and Soul—it had to be.
"Tsubaki said it was an emergency," Soul said in an oddly urgent tone.
"Yeah, what's happened? And what are you doing sitting there in your panties like that?" Blackstar added.
The blue-haired boy's commented hardly bothered her, and that appeared to make him begin getting a little nervous. She moved to the side so they could see Kidd, taking in shallow breaths and hardly looking conscious. "The more time I took devising a plan, the worse he got. We need to do something about this, and I guess my plans aren't working quickly enough. I'm open to any suggestions at this point."
"I'm calling Nygus," Soul stated simply.
Maka slammed her fist against the back of her weapon's head. "Except for that! Listen, Soul, I already told you—this is something that we have to take care of on our own. Don't let the other students get involved, and under no circumstances can the adults find out about it." She glanced over her shoulder. "I'm willing to listen to even your suggestions, Bla—Blackstar?!"
Oh, God, this really wasn't good. He was on his knees on the floor, one of his hands pressed against the floor to keep himself up, the other hand against his mouth, body convulsing as if he was about to vomit. And to think he claimed to be the one who could handle anything. She didn't expect him to be reduced to a mess like this, honestly. That just wasn't like him.
Her phone began ringing, and she answered it. It was a call from Tsubaki.
"Er...I need to give some details. What's he like right now?"
"Really pale, almost white. All his major blood veins are pretty prominent, and he can't weigh any more than seventy-five pounds, even if that much. There are cuts on each of his wrists, eight on each, and it looks like they're still bleeding, even after I've wrapped them up. Is that enough?"
"Yes. Now get him into his bed, if you haven't already. The Professor says he'll get some equipment from the nurse's office and tell me how to set it up. Make sure there's an outlet that's easy to get to, and I'll be there as soon as I can."
"All right, I'll be waiting." She ended the call and tucked her phone back into her bra. "I'm going to move Kidd, you go get Blackstar to the bathroom before he makes a mess."
Maka could tell her partner wanted to argue, but he didn't, and wordlessly did as she asked. Then she carefully lifted Kidd, and gently and painlessly as she could. She grimaced at how light he was, and fresh tears began welling up in her eyes. She blinked them back as she laid the reaper down in his bed, moving his bangs aside and kissing his forehead. He was unconscious now for certain, she concluded, though he was still breathing and his heart was beating at a safe and steady pace.
Deciding that she might want to be wearing a bit more than what she was now that the immediate panic was over, she took an outfit from Kidd's closet—she was planning on washing it later, now, of course—and quickly put it on.
She hardly even realized when Soul joined her, sitting down on the bed and looking up at her. "That was stupid of you. And even more than that, I thought I could trust you with everything."
"Shouldn't you be—" she began, trying to change the subject.
"He told me to leave, so Patty's with him. Besides, it's a bit ridiculous to think you can tell me what I should be doing after what you just pulled. I told you not to do something because it could get you hurt. As your weapon partner, I'm supposed to be there to protect you. Did you not trust me to help you? And what do you think would have happened if he was being combative again? He could have killed you, Maka."
"I can't trust you after this, says the one who dropped me in the garbage can, made me think you were going to abandon me, and brought up all the memories I've been trying to forget for years! That was pretty wrong on your part, too, don't you think?"
"I guess that was pretty bad, but I wasn't risking either of our lives, was I?"
"It's not like I would have gotten myself killed. I wouldn't put suicide past you if you found out I was dead. That's why I know I'm not going to die no matter what I do." With a soft smile, she let her head rest against Soul's shoulder. "I really do love you too much for that, even if I don't say so. You're like a protective older brother to me. Annoying sometimes, but you're still the coolest person ever."
Rather shyly, Tsubaki poked her head into the room. "I'm sorry. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"No, not at all," Maka said quickly. "It's okay, no reason to apologize."
"Good. I was a bit scared you might be angry at me." She knelt down in front of the outlet and began unpacking the large bag that was slung over her shoulder, setting up the machine that was inside. "Just tell me if I need to get out of your business, but I think it's really sweet how you two communicate. I don't know why, but Blackstar doesn't like getting sentimental like that, so it makes me envy you a little. B-but don't get me wrong! He's still the best Meister I could ask for, so I'm not complaining, of course..."
"It's not cool if partners don't communicate," Soul said with a shrug.
"Yeah," Maka added, "you can't get two sides of a story if there's only one narrator."
There was silence, aside from the clicks and snaps from the machine as Tsubaki set it up. Once she'd gotten everything together and hooked Kidd up to the machine, she nervously stared at the IV in her hand. "Um...do you mind putting this in his arm, either of you? Into one of his veins near his elbow... I don't think I can do that."
The Meisterin took the IV, pushing it slowly into the reaper's skin. "There."
"Oh, and there's one more thing I think we should all do for him. I can't tell you right now, because I don't want any chance of him hearing, but with the proper treatment and the proper encouragement, he's going to be just fine. I've got just the thing for encouragement!"
Author's Note: Okay well this was a bit longer than the other chapters. I hope this isn't too bad.
I do realize that you have to clean where you're going to put in an IV but let's just pretend she did because I'm lazy.
Also I've recently come up with an idea, meaning I'll also be writing something else, this time about Blackstar and from the point of view of Tsubaki. I can't believe it took me this long to draw the conclusion that I need transboy Blackstar in my life so yeah that's going to be a thing.