A short while later, in Shinigami's room, Rick was taking tea with Death himself. Spirit, Stein, and Cid looked on from one side, Maka, Soul, and Death the Kid from the other.

"It has been such a long time," said Shinigami, "since that most unfortunate accident. However, you seem to be healthy and in good spirits."

Rick took his tea with a stolid face. "We are all very sad about what happened... but more than that, Shinigami-sama..." Rick's face filled with tears, and he slammed his face into the table and wept, loudly and obnoxiously. "How could you chain up and forget about an innocent person like me?"

"Ah.. well..." Shinigami looked at him flatly. "It's not like we could be certain you weren't a witch. Even Stein said you had one as a part of you."

After a few moments of bawling, Rick calmed, then sat back up and drank more tea. "It's true. I thought for a long time that the witch had infected us, but the truth was... it was something older, something unexpected."

"The extinct witch, Kitsune." Stein's voice was cold. "It's very interesting that any part of her soul still survived, much less such a strong piece."

"Please wait a moment, father." Death the Kid cleared his throat. "I only know vaguely... who is this man?"

Shinigami looked towards the older three. Spirit and Stein both looked away. Cid looked back at Shinigami and shook his head. "When I was alive, I was trusted by many secrets, but this was before my time. I never knew what really happened."

"I guess I'll have to tell you, then." Shinigami sipped his tea. "Well, to sum it up, Meister Rick and his weapon Erin attempted to make a Death Scythe by fighting a witch, and died!" His voice was bright, and convinced as he was that he had concluded the story, he went back to his tea.

"Shinigami... sama..." Spirit hung his head for a moment at the shamefully oversimplified story, then began to boil with anger. "What the hell was that? How could you leave out all the lovely tales of my sister, and only say 'she died'?"

"Well, that is what he was asking," replied Shinigami affably.

Cid piped up. "But... he's obviously still alive. He doesn't seem to be a zombie like me."

"That's because he isn't a zombie." Shinigami took his tea again. "He's a witch, after all."

"You didn't mention that in your story at all!"

"Enough." Stein's voice cut through them all. He still didn't meet anyone's eyes. "Spirit and I went to Shibusen with Rick and Erin, who is Spirit's sister. Rick was... also a genius Meister." He didn't pause, but his words were solemn. "Rick and Erin collected the 99 souls almost as fast as Kami, but when it came time to fight a witch, they snuck out after a strong one... someone that they were both angry at. The witch trapped them in a spell at the same moment that they attempted a Soul Resonance. That spell trapped the two of them in a moment of time, which for them lasted an eternity." He looked up, finally, to Rick, who was looking back at him. "Somehow, although it only lasted a moment, they broke free of the spell, and killed her. However, before Erin could consume the witch's soul, they both collapsed, and died."

"When we found them, Erin's weapon morph had gone rogue, and both their bodies had combined into one. Although I attempted to dissect them and separate them, it seemed like they had fused into one being. They were of one mind, one body, but three souls. What's more... even though the body was dead, it consumed spirit energy greedily. When it absorbed enough, the body began to live again. At first we were happy... but the three of them were so mixed up that none of them understood. Truly, not one or two of them, but all three had died, and were being born anew."

"I tried my hand at the problem, hoping that I could separate them. However, the only time I tried, I awoke the witch's soul, and it tried to devour me. If it weren't for Spirit-sempai and the three of them working together, the witch would have gone mad. Instead, they decided they would meditate. Years went by. I tried to make my spirit wavelength strong and precise. I came back to them and tried to separate them again. However, this time was different. The three souls were working in concert to separate each other, but when I tried to remove one, the other two started to die. It was then I truly understood that they were the same being."

"The damage was done, and they went into a rage and tried to kill me. This is when we learned the identity of the witch; it was not the one they had attacked, but rather, the extinct witch, Kitsune, one of the sacrificial witches that were used to make the first Weapons."

"What?" Death the Kid started. "How can that be? I thought those witches were entirely destroyed by the process."

Rick's eyes turned to him. "They are. It takes powerful magic to overcome it. However, in that eternal moment that Erin and I were trapped by that witch's spell, we were forced to turn inside, with our intertwined souls the only thing that existed. If it weren't for that... if we hadn't had years inside of that spell... and if we had not gone insane from it, we would not have found the last piece of that witch, sealed behind a barrier deep within Erin. It is because she was there-and because she was immune to the witch's power-that we did not suffer until the end of time itself. We released her, and she became us."

"So that's what happened." Spirit's eyes were sad. "What happened to the witch after that?"

"Her magic remained. Her malice was not strong, but we could all feel the Sway of Magic." Rick looked down. "Or perhaps, after that torture, we had all given in to insanity as well. However, whatever the reason, we all felt it... the desire to destroy. Even Erin and her Mending Soul seemed dampened. But unlike the two of us, she never gave in." Rick turned to Spirit. "In that eternity... she talked about you a great deal. She never gave up on the idea that she would see you again. Even though she's seen you again, it still feels that way. Perhaps something else is missing."

Spirit looked away, as though he felt the same way, but he didn't have anything else to say.

"Wait a minute." Maka stepped forward. "When we were fighting, you put on that mask and your soul wavelength changed. And then again, later, you transformed into that witch. Are you trying to say that that is all the Witch's magic?"

"Mm. I don't want to say more." Rick patted the top of his head gently, and for a moment, the others could see the faint outline of a mask over the crown of his head. Maka and Stein thought for a moment that they heard a low-voiced animal murmur, one that sounded content, if a little anxious. "A woman has to have her secrets."

"Wait a minute," said Cid. "I don't think-"

"It's alright, Cid." Shinigami sipped his tea. "Well, it is a little inconvenient for you to keep it from me, but I suppose..."

"If the worst happens, I suppose Stein could deal with him," pointed out Kid.

Rick's arm extended into a staff and very nearly clocked Stein in the jaw, momentarily spooking even him. "I'll kill him if he tries," said a triple voice.

"Erin-chan..." Spirit was crying. "Your voice sounds so cruel now..."

Rick's eyes turned to him. His voice was only a double, now. "Spirit-kun... I didn't mean it... but Stein's methods are too cruel!" His eyes misted up, then exploded with tears, and his voice became single-timbre again. "Steeeein! How could you take an innocent freak like us and be so cruel?"

Somehow, with the crying and shouting theater going on, only Maka noticed that Stein looked away, his eyes locked somewhere in the past.