Note: This is the second update to this story today. If you haven't caught up, please rewind to the previous chapter.


If Zeus had not been the ruler of all gods, Maka would strangle her to death with her own string of fate. Setting her up with a sixteen year old boy!? Maka is old enough to be his ancestor.

She's not sure what had transpired after Wes had demanded she leave his property. Kim had heard from Hermes who'd heard from Helios who'd seen the entire thing and knew every word, but Maka refuses to listen to whatever the gossips have to say, preferring to put the incident out of her mind. It's best if she stayed out of the affairs of mortals, anyhow.

Though Maka tries to forget him, her mind kept flitting back to Soul Evans: the boy who seemed to enjoy her gloomy home. And what a horrendous host she'd been to him! The look on his face when he'd realized his disappearance had caused the boatload of the dead he'd helped greet arrive in the first place- it pains her to remember it. If he ever liked the underworld before, he certainly didn't now.

Maka throws herself into her work, trying to efficiently mitigate the sudden influx of deaths and spreading them around equally in Hades to not bloat any one precinct. Every new starved-to-death resident weighs like a stone in her heart, grinding it into dust with guilt.

After eight grueling hours, the rush finally calms down. The mortal realm appears to have recovered from Wes's separation anxiety, and humans are starting to die from causes other than starvation. Maka teeters up the stairs to her office, eager for a nap.

She kicks off her house shoes and pulls open her blankets to slide, exhausted, into bed. Her eyes close for all of seven seconds before she screeches, startled by Charon lighting a cigarette.

"Aaugh, Stein? What's going on? You never come in the office," she worriedly asks, stumbling out of bed and putting her house shoes back on. Maka banishes the mattress to make way for her desk. Hardly moving from her position, she plops in her chair and accidentally summons her cloak on backwards.

As she wrestles with the damned garment, Charon blows smoke out of his nose. It's not often he bothers to leave his boat and make the trek to her home. "There's a traffic jam outside the gate," he says.

Confused, Maka looks over her backwards cowl and opens her schedule book, searching for any notifications from the system. "Is the gate malfunctioning?"

"Doesn't look like it. I don't mind taking a day off after the last rush we had, but your guard dog is going to get domesticated at this rate." After Maka pinches the bridge her nose with the tips of her fingers, he adds, "Are you positive I can't take a fur sample or anything?"

She gives her ferryman an unamused look. "The last thing any realm needs is a second Cerberus."

"I promise it'd be better-behaved."

"No cloning my demon dog." She sighs. "Thanks for informing me, Stein. I'll tend to the matter myself," she says tiredly, dismissing him. After he leaves, she gives up on her cloak, banishing it and resummoning it properly.

"I'll admit, I wasn't expecting Demeter to be that distressed," Kim says as she digs through Maka's refrigerator, casually stealing things and handing them off to three of her skittish handmaidens. The ruler of Hades screams.

"W-when did you-"

Kim makes a pleased noise of surprise, opening Maka's ambrosia carton and drinking directly from it. Her pink hair shimmers, growing long and reaching the floor like a royal, rose-colored train. She smacks her lips happily, putting the empty carton back in the fridge.

"At least throw it away if it's empty," Maka snaps. "I really need to figure out a better security system."

Shutting the door with a hip, Zeus summons a cushioned chair, beckoning a fourth handmaiden to sit. Kim then primly sits on the lap of the other woman, who blushes furiously and bites her lip to keep the pleased smile from her face. The handmaiden then begins wrestling with all of Kim's new hair, plaiting it.

At Maka's blood-curdling glare, Kim quips, "Someone needs a nap."

"Would that I could," she grouses. "Why are you here. I have things to attend."

"I wanted to make sure you weren't giving up on that hottie just 'cause of that whole frozen wasteland thing."

Appalled, Maka says, "I just registered the dead for the past eight hours because of 'that frozen wasteland thing'!"

"Bah, mortals," Kim replies, waving dismissively with a hand. "They're a dime a dozen!"

"The 'hottie' you seem way too interested hooking up with me is a mortal, too, you know."

Her sister shrugs, trying to look appear innocent- which doesn't actually work because Maka gauges souls for a living- and says, "Only if you wanna be technical… Anyway, when's the last time you talked to anyone from the upperworlds who didn't run screaming from you in terror? You guys'd be great together! I checked out his thread with the Fates, even. They don't mess around, you know. He's… really solid!"

"I call bullshit," Maka blurts. She blushes a little, realizing from whom she'd stolen that phrase.

Kim groans and changes the subject. "Look, I got a thing for you. Shinies! Be distracted!" She throws something small and glittering, a leather strap trailing after it like the tail of a kite. Maka catches it, inspecting the gift.

Attached to the strap is a clear, polished jewel, its depths glowing like the souls of the underworld. When she cups her hands around it, faint light leaks between her fingers. "This is… actually really nice, Kim," she admits.

Zeus sniffs, noncommittal. "I had Hephaestus make it. See? Aren't I good sister?"

"You never do anything for free." Maka says, arching a brow. "And you're acting fishy. Even for you. What's the catch?"

All business, Kim says plainly, "The catch is you give it to Loverboy."

Maka sucks in a horrified breath and consequently chokes on her own spit.

"Before you ask 'why', it's because I said so. And, just so you know, I can personally guarantee you will never- ever- find a man quite like that one." Kim scowls and her three handmaidens still holding the majority of Maka's groceries tremble in nervousness. "The statistical probabilities of it happening again are actually impossible. Trust me."

The unusual candidness of Zeus does make her trust her, which only makes her actions that much more suspicious. Clearing her throat, Maka rasps, "W-why are you-"

"Didn't I just tell you why?! Now hurry up and go! Get a tan." Kim shoos her out of her own office, her golden nails flashing with lightning. Maka feels herself magically pushed towards the stairs. "Mortals are only good for like a century or something, so you better put the moves on him before he gets all old and deceased and stuff. I got bigger fish to fry than waste time playing Eros to your pathetic love-life."

Offended, Maka shouts angrily, "The one wasting people's time is you!" while trying not to trip down the stairs.

Sneering at any spirits who dared cross her path, she stomps to her personal stables in a foul mood, her cloak billowing around her as she harnesses two horses to her chariot. After this trip to the gate, she'll have to go grocery shopping again. Ambrosia is expensive, too! She snaps the reins and drives on the folds between realms, her horses bursting through the ground of the human world with a loud cacophony of magic and irritation.

Patience held together by the most ragged of threads, the air around her darkens and glitters. Maka angrily tugs her cowl over her head, making a mental note to send the bill for her food expenses to Zeus with a nasty note about equivalent exchange and keeping noses out of other people's business as she drives her horses to the gates of Hades.

Milling around the entrance, a crowd of three dozen or more newly dead spirits scatter and shy away from her furious countenance as she approaches. "Who causes such commotion outside the gates to my dominion?" she demands, her horses skidding to a stop and whipping their heads in excitement. "You disrupt the currents of Acheron!"

Near the gates, three heads of Cerberus whine with its master's anger, its huge, oxen-sized body attempting to skulk away, out of sight.

"Get back here, you useless excuse of a watch dog!" she shouts, frazzled. Honestly! The demon isn't even trying to eat anyone!

"Uh, hey Maka."

Standing awkwardly amidst the nerve-wracked spirits of the dead is Soul Evans, a hand-span taller than she'd last seen him. His physical change after less than a day is disorienting. He bears a large basket half-filled with small sheaves of bound grain.

Not expecting a mortal to be lingering at the gates of Hades, Maka's ire trips into confusion. "Whuh," she says gracelessly.

He makes soothing gestures to the spirits, reassuring them. Quietly to the nearest dead, he says, "You guys should prolly get going. Here." He hands a sheaf of wheat to one, of barley to another. The spirits nod in thanks, heading unerringly for Hades, surprisingly peaceful despite giving wary glances to her and her underworld horses. Once the crowd disperses, Soul leans what's left of his offerings at the base of the gate and stiffly approaches Maka's chariot.

She steps down, meeting him on the ground. Her horses turn their heads, stretching for him and curiously sniffing him. Though she has a feeling she already knows, she waves to the empty basket her horses are nosing through and asks, "What's this about?"

"Offerings from last harvest," he says, voice a few steps deeper than she remembers. In a moment of belated consideration, he bows somewhat mechanically. "Goddess," he formally greets. The sterility of it disheartens her after his boyish smiles she'd seen in her office a few hours ago . "Sorry if I caused any trouble."

"Charon told me there was a 'traffic jam'."

Soul cringes a little. "I found some time and was trying to make amends. I didn't expect them to hang around and chat. My bad."

She shakes her head. "No, don't be. They seemed encouraged as they passed into Hades. I owe you thanks."

His reddish eyes hold hers, and for a moment he looks a little relieved. It passes, and he glances away. Sensing that Maka is no longer angry, Cerberus shakes the earth as he pads to them, one boxy head bent low and roughly nudging for apology from her hand. She grudgingly scratches the mighty snout. Reaching out, Soul rubs under the hound's chin.

Eventually, he says, "It's because of me so many had passed through before them."

Maka closes her eyes, sighing heavily. "You did not measure their threads. You are not Fate." She pushes her hood back, moving into his line of vision so he can see her sincerity. "You aren't to blame for anyone's deaths," she insists. "If I had never spoken with you..."

"Maka-"

She holds up a hand for silence, interrupting whatever he might have argued. "From personal experience, I know it's a long way from here on foot," she drawls, recalling Kim stealing her chariot. At the thought of Kim, she's aware of the necklace burning a hole in one of her many pockets. "I will escort you home."

Appearing torn, he says, "You really don't have to." He looks down. "...Why are you wearing slippers?"

Glancing for herself, her house shoes are exactly where she'd left them. Embarrassed, but more weary than anything, Maka places her face in her hands and groans. "I don't want to talk about it. Let's just go."


Marsh: thanks everyone for your kind and excited reviews. they are always treasured. even...the stranger ones...

sorry i haven't been around much. i am doing my best.