CHAPTER 8

Maka shifted under the woolen blanket, surprised at its softness. The bed she lay onto was oddly comfortable as well, it felt like having an actual mattress. It was the first time she'd woken up before the bell, which normally resounded throughout the Temple premises early in the morning, signaling to its inhabitants that it was time to wake up and get ready for a new day. As such, the blonde could not tell what time it was, but she felt strangely well rested. Shifting some more, the meister became aware that she'd slept with her clothes on and that her dress… What the hell am I wearing? And what-

She instantly quit asking herself any more questions as the door creaked open and the blonde realised that someone had crept into the room. Indeed, crept was the right word, because no steps were heard, just a stronger draft as the air moved and a vague rustle of clothing. And something else, like sloshing of water. Slowly, willing away the freezing terror, Maka opened her eyes to a pleasant, luminous glow which couldn't have possibly been produced by her small candle, not that she ever left it burning during the night. She sat up quietly and saw a dark figure standing with its back turned in front of several candles which were alit in a long and narrow niche carved along the back wall. I must be dreaming this! Maka buried her face in her palms and something cool and foreign touched her forehead. She instantly pulled her hands away, staring dumbstruck at the two twin rings she was now wearing. And then she remembered everything.

Oh hell! Oh hell! was all the blonde could think. A muffled cough followed by a muffled swear drew her attention towards the figure standing by the candles, doing something she could not see.

"Kid?" she asked softly.

He jumped and turned abruptly, knocking over one of the candles and letting out a small yelp. "Ahhh! I'm sorry! Did I wake you?" the young shinigami asked, currently sucking on his index finger.

"N-no, I just…" the other meister trailed off, fidgeting. Then she realised that the front of her dress was still open and she hurried to clutch the blanket to her chest, embarrassed. I wonder where he's been… She had slept on one side of the bed and now her eyes darted briefly to the other side. It was untouched. Great, I must have made him sleep on the floor or something! Maka thought mortified. She fumbled to button up her new dress as quickly as she could, then slipped out of bed. Walking silently to where Kid stood, the blonde watched the candles, chewing onto her lower lip and awkwardly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Kid, I… I don't know what to say…" she began hesitantly, her voice barely a murmur. "I'm so sorry that I… forced you to do this…"

The reaper gripped her shoulders gently and made her turn towards him, but she still did not dare to look up into his eyes. "Maka, you didn't force me to do anything," he said softly." Besides, it was just a formality, so that you couldn't be wed to anyone else. Of course, it is a perfectly valid marriage and all, but once we get back to Death City, we'll be able to get an equally valid divorce, so it's absolutely nothing to worry about! And it went well so far…"

Right… it went well… Maka begged to differ. Of course, she suspected that nobody had pulled Kid out of his bed by force, stripped him naked and scrubbed him raw, after threatening to sew his mouth shut if he objected to the proceedings. All he'd had to do was to poof in there or something, the meister thought petulantly.

"Maka, please…" the shinigami whispered. " Just tell me that you trust me. Tell me that you're not… afraid of me"

Afraid? In all truth, she had been afraid at some point, terrified even, because there were things she still had not known, things Kid had not told her, things he still wasn't telling her… But he was her friend, he'd done it all to take care of her and even right now he was being far gentler than she would have deserved. But words did not come to her now and the blonde simply stepped forward and put her arms around the other meister, hugging him tightly as she buried her face into his shoulder with a silent sob. The fabric of his black cloak was cold and smelled faintly of smoke. "I'm so sorry, forgive me Kid! I won't ever doubt you again, ever!" she whispered back.

"It's alright, you've just been through a lot lately," he said soothingly and Maka felt his hand lightly smoothing her hair down her back. "Now you should put your boots on, or you'll catch a cold…"

The blonde pulled away with a shy smile and padded quickly back to the bed, sitting and reaching for her boots. Only now she had realised that once out of the bed, the room was quite chilly, even colder than her previous one. But it figured, Kid had no need for heat since he was pretty much as cold as ice himself and the blanket on the bed must have been just for the sake of comfort. She inwardly cursed the Sisters for giving her this new dress which was even thinner than the other rag.

"Here…" Kid had brought a bucket with clean water earlier, which he now placed on the floor at her feet. "Just hold still for a bit, okay?" Holding her chin up with two fingers, the young shinigami dipped the edge of his cloak into the water and began to dab at her face, cleaning off the smeared charcoal make-up. As he sat down next to her onto the bed, Maka couldn't help staring at him, although rather uncomfortable with being touched in such a familiar manner. It briefly crossed her mind that she'd never seen Kid so up close before and only now she noticed that his eyes weren't entirely golden, but also had a more caramel shaded core around the pupil. His pale face, with a small, slightly upward tipped nose had an eerie, porcelain smoothness, in utter contrast with the black and white bangs. It was… distracting. Stop it! Stop it! Maka inwardly scolded herself and cleared her throat, hoping her classmate hadn't noticed anything.

"Kid… I will need some answers," the blonde said seriously, forcing her mind to focus onto the more pressing matters.

"I know," he nodded slowly, eyes still trained on her face. Damn his meticulousness, it was quite unnerving.

"Last night, those… those things I heard back in that hall, those were 'the Three'? Are they kishin?" Maka could not repress a shudder at the memory of that voice which bore something like an invisible but accursed imprint of foulness and malice. "I wasn't able to see anything, it was too dark"

"Yes. I have seen them and I can tell they're not a pretty sight," the shinigami replied with a brief grimace, "Kishin, but worse and more powerful than any sort we've encountered so far. And they have been feeding on all the souls of the 'pilgrims', as you might have guessed already"

Maka flinched, causing him to momentarily withdraw his hand. Now he was telling her this? What else? "What about the other Death Gods? Were they forced to serve here as well or…?"

Kid rubbed his brow, as if he had a headache coming, and sighed. "I'm not sure what happened to them but… their mind is gone and it's like… they have no will of their own. They just do what they're supposed to do and that's it. None of them speaks and even their souls I can perceive quite vaguely"

The old beggar inevitably popped into the blonde meister's mind, how she waited, day after day, for the Death God she was married with, for the Death God she loved. And he wasn't dead, indeed he probably could not die, but still she waited in vain, because he had forgotten about her, he had forgotten everything. And he would never come back to her. The thought alone was heartbreaking. 'Love… the reason why I'm here, why I will be here until the day they burn these old bones. I have no choice but to wait for him…' Maka was pulled from her musings when suddenly her friend broke into another coughing fit, hastily covering his mouth with his hands.

"Kid! Are you alright?"

He was panting slightly, and drew a deep breath. "It-it's nothing… I must have caught a cold or something"

Well, if I made him sleep on the floor… the blonde thought, instantly feeling guilty about it, but then her eyebrows twisted into a scowl. Caught a cold? But surely shinigamis did not get sick! Weird, at any rate… and he seemed rather self-conscious all the sudden, wrapping the cloak around his body tighter, as if he were cold.

"Anyway," the reaper said, distracting her, "I was hoping we could speak with my father today," he added, pulling the bucket closer and waiting for the ripples to fade, until the surface of the water became a clear mirror. "I managed to steal this bucket just now and we must be very careful with it, if anyone finds it… well… it will be bad," he then explained with a wry smile.

"Oh, okay…" Maka preferred not to think of what exactly 'it would be bad' entailed. Instead, she focused on Kid's nimble fingers as he dialed Lord Death's number. It seemed to take nothing short of an eternity before her own reflection in the water blurred gradually, soon to be replaced by the all too familiar view of the Death Room, an endless blue skied space dotted with soft clouds and crosses of all shapes and sizes, thrown around randomly. As expected, Lord Death stood on the other side of the mirror and he greeted them in his usual cheerful manner. Although what the hell was he so good-humored about, the blonde meister could not tell.

"Maka! My baby, you're alright!" her father suddenly exclaimed, popping unexpectedly from behind Lord Death, almost pushing him aside. Maka fought a scowl at the sight of him, sniffing and sobbing like a small child. Oh, by Death!

"Yes Papa, I'm fine! Don't worry about me…" she muttered weakly, with an embarrassed shrug.

"Oh, good! I'm so happy! Kid had told me you were there as well and that you were okay, but I could hardly believe it until now, when I saw you with my own eyes, my sweet, precious little girl!" he squealed, then frowned suddenly. "But how did you manage to get into Kid's room, isn't that dangerous? Won't they notice? Maka, I know you miss Papa, but Papa doesn't want you taking any unnecessary risks, do you understand?" he added preoccupied.

Great! "Papa, it's okay, really, there's no danger. Nobody's going to say anything, now that we're-" She paused abruptly, as Kid elbowed her discreetly and shook his head. "Um… now that we're outside working hours…" the blonde improvised, with a gulp.

"Kid, I have been thinking about how to deal with this situation," Lord Death said, giving his redheaded scythe a gentle shove. "Of course, I shall have to investigate some more in the hope that I'll be able to gather more information which might be useful, but at the end of the day there is only one thing to do – you two must fight and defeat the three Kishins."

Fight? Did he mean, fight those things? Maka shuddered at the mere thought or getting anywhere near The Three after what she'd felt the previous night during the ceremony, let alone…

"But father, even assuming that we could defeat The Three, we have no weapons!" Kid pointed. "How are we supposed to do this?"

"Maka is a weapon, remember? Even if her ability is still dormant, it is there and she has used it once already. Admittedly, it will take some practice, perhaps a lot of practice to make it fully functional and of course, to achieve its full potential she will need to work with a meister. You."

The younger shinigami blinked, seemingly both surprised and confused, chewing his lower lip. "Well I… don't know what to say about that… It may or it may not work. There's no saying if we are even compatible and besides… I've never wielded a single weapon before and certainly not a scythe. And Maka is a scythe," he said reluctantly.

The blonde meister, on the other hand, had known – or rather, had dreaded – that this was exactly what Lord Death was going to say they should do. And Kid was right, this had a great potential of not working at all. Not to mention, the thought of turning into a weapon and being handled by someone else was both bizarre and uncomfortable.

Lord Death sighed, clasping his hands together pleadingly. "Look, I know how awkward and un-doable this sounds right now. But as meisters both of you know that all efforts will have to be made and not just for your own sake, but for all the innocent souls who have been and will continue to be devoured by these monsters. So just bear in mind these five words – you can and you will." Suddenly, the morning bell resounded out loud, and the call was ended.

"'You can and you will'. How very helpful and reassuring…" Kid observed dryly.

"Well… I suppose we could try…" the other meister mumbled weakly, fidgeting, as she stood to leave. She picked up the black veil the Sisters had left for her to wear (now that she was a married woman) and struggled to fix it somehow with the hairpins after briefly smoothing her hair. There! Now I officially look just as horrible as the other Sisters… Maka concluded morosely.

"Wait…" Kid stood from the bed as well and glanced around thoughtfully. In the end, he went and picked some bluish-green mold off the wall with his thumb and smeared it carefully onto his friend's left cheekbone.

"What…?"

"It looks like a nasty bruise," the young shinigami explained softly, "Trust me, we wouldn't want them to think that, Heaven forbid, your wedding night went too smoothly…"

The blonde felt herself blush ever so slightly at his insinuation. "Right, Heaven forbid…" she agreed, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips regardless.

To be continued