Chapter 36 – Turn-Key Life

Death the Kid

I blinked. "What happened?"

Tsubaki was reserved. "They were attacked at a church today in Florence, Italy. Professor Stein was able to get to him in time, so they were able to stabilize him there and bring him back to the Shibusen for surgery." She paused. "Stein finished the surgery about an hour ago."

I could see a tear run down Sai's cheek, despite her efforts to contain them.

What terrible timing…I have to leave town within forty-eight hours…

"Maka said she'll be home shortly." Tsubaki shifted in place, and hung her arms in front of her. "She was reluctant to tell you to come to the clinic because she knew about the test. She said you should study."

Sai sniffed and tried to smile. "Heh. That's so like her."

I stepped to Sai's right side. "And like Soul. He'd be upset if he knew how upset you are."

I could see shadows moving behind Tsubaki in the hall. Looking up, I found Liz and Patty standing behind her. She turned slightly, the movement catching her eye, and Tsubaki took a step to her left. Liz and Patty slide by her and into the apartment.

"Kid, we hadn't heard from you so we decided…" Liz's face showed growing confusion. "What's going on?"

I didn't feel like answering, but did so anyway.

"Soul's been hurt." I told her quietly.

"How badly?" Liz asked of me, and then looked at the expression on Sai's face.

Patty took a moment to be serious, and put her right hand on Sai's left shoulder.

"I'm sure he'll be okay, Sai."

Liz moved to stand on Sai's right, and leaned over slightly. "Yeah, Soul's strong. I wouldn't worry."

Things appeared calm for the moment.

And that moment quickly ended.

I glanced up at Tsubaki, planning to ask her to step inside so the apartment door could be shut. I assumed it wasn't proper to have it open – not that this was my home or anything. But…I noticed that she was looking down the hall, and there was shadows moving on the wall behind her.

A breeze blew through the open door and through Sai's bedroom. The paper that I had found in the music box floated into the bedroom doorway. It caught Sai's attention and she crossed the room. Sitting on her heels, Sai knelt down and picked it up. I stepped to doorway, leaning against the frame, and watched Sai read the paper.

If I had been able to read the words, I would never have handed it to her.

Rage filled her ruby eyes and her expression went dark. She crushed the paper in her right hand and threw it on the floor.

What was causing the shadows now made itself known. Tsubaki suddenly jerked herself to the side, and Justin came pounding in. He was in such a rush that his white ear-buds fell from his ears. He came to a screeching halt at Sai's left.

Sai didn't acknowledge his presence; she stood up and stormed into her room.

He watched her leave. "Sai! Where's that box…?!" Were the first words out of his mouth, and were the only ones anyone heard.

The rest were cut off by Sai's rampant screams in anger in a language that clearly wasn't English.

Justin's eyes circled around the faces in the room, and then put his right hand into his blond hair. "Oh Kama-sama, I'm too late aren't I…" He muttered. Justin dared to take a step closer to the open doorway. "Sai?!"

The upper half of the broken music box came flying from the room, smashing into Justin's right arm. He tried to grab it, but it fell to the floor, breaking the lid off. Sai came back to the door, and stood in front of Justin.

Everyone could hear her yelling, but it was only possible for Justin to make out the words. Due to her tone of voice though, I just assumed that most of what I was hearing was little more than calls of anguish and a string of profanities. All of it in a language I didn't recognize.

Except for one word: Stein.

Professor Stein? What does he have to do with a box from her mother's house?

Justin went to return his ear-buds to his ears, and Sai yelled something at him. He scowled and shouted back in what I could only assume was the same language.

This was quickly getting out of hand.

I looked over at Tsubaki, who continued to linger in the doorway. "Come in and shut the door!" I yelled in her direction. "We don't want the neighbors calling the police over the noise."

I caught Liz eyeing me in irritation. "Why don't you do something about the fighting, then?"

I took a step towards Sai, who abruptly turned to me. "The Professor knew my father, and he's been hiding it!"

That didn't make sense. Why hide such a thing?

I knew I must have looked confused. "Um...what was that?" I asked.

She turned back to Justin. "And this one tried to abscond with the evidence of that."

Justin started to panic and wave his arms in gesticulation. "No, I didn't! That wasn't it! Please let me explain…!"

Sai snarled. "Wasn't what? Explain what, the truth? What do you know about it?"

"You don't understand…!" Justin started. "Stop being irrational!"

My mind couldn't wrap around any of it, and I was losing my focus. "Stop this!" I let out in a shout. "Stop arguing about this…whatever this is!"

The room went silent. Everyone stared…at me.

I paused, and tried to calm down. "How do you know Professor Stein even remembers him? You said, what, it's been what…seventeen, eighteen years, since he went missing?"

Sai seemed to calm down. "Heh. Mr. Logical to the rescue, huh?" She giggled.

Something inside of me grew angrier, however. She's mocking me. I know it.

I grabbed Sai's left arm and swung her around to face me. Her eyes widened and she lightly gasped.

"Shinigami-kun, let her go!" Justin yelled. "If you're going to get angry about this, get angry at me!"

I'm doing it again. I'm getting angry when it's not necessary. I don't want to be like this.

Sai put her right hand on my left cheek. "What's wrong with you?" She whispered.

I don't understand. I need to be able to understand. Tell me.

I shut my eyes for a moment, as the anguish floated out of me. "It's frustrating to not know what's going on. I can't be proactive."

I opened my eyes, and saw that there was sadness in hers. "You're still cold, Kid." She said, stating the obvious.

I know…and my mind is…

I saw motion behind Sai and I looked up. Liz stood up from the couch where she had taken a seat during the fighting. "Maybe…we should go." She wondered aloud while eyeing us. She looked somewhat uncomfortable at our interaction.

Sai suddenly turned around, and the warmth of her hand abruptly left my face. "Wait, please. You all deserve an explanation." She stated, and then eyed Justin in displeasure. "Except you. You have some explaining to do."

***

The group spread out amongst the furniture in the living room. Or more appropriately, the floor and what furniture Sai and I weren't sitting on. I was so used to hiding my emotions that I was still surprised when no one commented on me placing my arm around Sai's shoulders. It was instinctual, for some reason – both parts.

She was quick to take over the conversation. "Alright Justin, how did you know about the box?"

Sitting in the chair at my left, Justin looked uncomfortable with the immediate direction of the conversation, and he scratched the back of his head. He leaned forward in his seat, wrinkling his robes. "I went to visit Professor Stein at the Patchwork Lab yesterday. I had a question for him regarding our previous assignment. When I went there, the box was there. He said it was for you, but the apartment address was wrong, and the post office simply forwarded it to the school. He said he planned to drop it off tonight. I offered to bring it by the apartment – and I brought it last night. And you found it this morning."

Sai shfted slightly in her seat and I had to adjust my arm. "Maka left a note with it before she and Soul left, but she never told me how it got here."

His brow furrowed. "I didn't connect the return address with the sender until this evening. When I realized it was from your mom, I assumed whatever was in it couldn't be good."

There was confusion on Patty's face who sat on the floor in front of the couch across from me. "Why is that?" She asked, raising her hand for attention.

Sai tried to play the situation off as a acidic joke. "Because my mother is, as they say…mentally ill."

Her face expressed the connecting of information. "Oh, you mean like Kid?"

I covered my face with my right hand. The rest of the room chortled or looked confused.

Sai giggled. "No, not like Kid, Patty. A different type of illness."

I frowned at Patty, but she took no notice. Her mind appeared to have moved onto the next topic already

Liz turned to Sai. "What started the fight?"

Sai's attitude and voice hardened. "The paper we found in the gearbox of the music box."

Liz bent back over the back of the couch and pointed at the broken pieces of the top-half of the box. "That thing?"

"Sai…" Justin started. "Do you really want to bring this up?"

"My friends got to witness something I wouldn't want them to see. The anger that I have towards parts of my past. I think they deserve to know."

He inhaled and exhaled noisily. "Alright then."

"The box itself belonged to my father, who was a bit of a recluse." She paused. "But he was extremely smart. And it was his intelligence that got him submitted into Shibusen. But…he couldn't find a partner he was 'in tune' enough with to resonate his soul with. So it was decided that he would study other subjects…and he became fascinated by the concept of the Demon Tools. He spent copious amounts of time studying gears and engineering and…Weapons as tools. Some people even said he was obsessed with the concept of the Demon Machines – things created for the soul purpose of harnessing the power of the soul."

"Anyway, Tthe letter in the gearbox is written in my second language of Icelandic. I learned it during the five years I spent living there after my mother packed me up and booted me from the house. The first four-and-a-half I spent with Justin, the last six months I spent with a family. When everything was secured financially, I moved here to Nevada to attend Shibusen."

Tsubaki, sitting in senza (1) on the floor, seemed disturbed by the words and frowned. "Your mother…that's cruel."

"She was never able to fully adjust after finding out that I was both a Weapon, and my father's disappearance. She eventually was able to understand some things about my abilities, but she's never accepted my father as being gone. She won't even have him listed as 'presumed dead' even though no one can find him. She assumes that even after nearly 18 years that he's somehow just going to show up at home and everything will go back to the way it was when I was a baby."

Liz's eyes widened. "She seriously thinks that?"

Sai grinned, but it was a farce. "And that's why I say she's mentally ill."

I turned to her with my own question. "Sai…why did you keep saying 'Stein?'"

Sai grinned."Because the name kept coming up in the letter, just like you figured out earlier."

I could feel my cheeks warm. "I realize that wasn't the best way to handle that, earlier."

Liz rolled her eyes. "No way…"

Sai nodded. "But you're right…there's no way to know anything about the relationship. We don't even know who wrote the note. But when I saw the Professor's name, anger was all I could see. And since my father did Shibusen and would be around the same age as the Professor, the having his name in the letter could simply be a coincidence."

There was a rattle of keys in the door, and it opened before anyone could get to it.

Maka stood in the doorway, holding the front door open. Her white button-down shirt was un-tucked from her skirt and she look ragged. "Sai...I'm sorry."

Sai tried to smile at her, but it was weak. "It's not your fault, Maka."

Maka went to shut the door, and aloud thudding sound was heard. She looked visibly confused, and then reopened the door.

Black Star had tried to come though the door and she had tried to shut the door in his face. The sound had been the impact between the two.

His forehead and nose were red. "What was that for?!" He demanded, waving his arms in anger.

I hung my head and sighed at the sudden, loud voice in the room. "Black Star…you're too loud for the room. Shut up."

Black Star sat down on floor crosslegged, next to Tsubaki; he continued to scowl, but now only at me.

Maka shifted around Black Star, who was sitting in her path, and took a seat on the couch on my left. "I'm surprised everyone's here."

Sai seemed embarrassed. "Sorry about that…things have been kind of hectic."

She sat with her hands in her lap. "No, I'm glad. It was nice to come home and not be alone. Thanks."

***

Several hours later, Justin stood at the door waiting to leave. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get away without another direct encounter with him.

As I sat on the couch, he looked over in my direction while standing at the door. "I need to be on my way but Shinigami-kun, would you step outside with me for a moment before I leave?"

You're the last person I would want to have a private conversation with! "Regarding what?" I asked cautiously.

"Your current assignment." Was all he would say ahead of time.

Sai, half-asleep next to me, turned and looked at me. "What's going on?"

I stood and pulled my arm out from behind her head. "I'll be right back."

She snorted and shut her eyes. "Don't kill each other out there…" She requested.

I followed Justin out the door, and pulled it shut behind me.

Justin was serious about the matter and wasted no time with idle chit-chat. "Another Meister and Weapon pair was attacked by the Demon God last night." He paused. "And there may have been other attacks we simply don't know about yet. Students who are part of the other Meister institutions."

I could feel the scowl on my face. "Why didn't you say anything in the room?"

He was unfazed by my comment. "I knew you had plans to leave, and I didn't want to upset Sai."

The statement made me caustic. "I find that statement amusing considering how often you do it."

His brow narrowed. "Never mind that! This is important."

"Then I think I must be missing something."

This time he obviously avoided my comment. "It was the Death God…the Kishin…that attacked Soul. The only reason they survived is because Professor Stein showed up."

It was starting to make sense. "And you think its running around attacking Shibusen students indiscriminately, I take it."

Justin's eyes looked solemn. "Actually, it's Shinigami-sama that thinks the students are its current target."

I clenched my fists. Something else he hasn't told me…

"Then why are we still on assignment…" I muttered aloud, my irritation growing again. "Forget that, I just need to see my Father."

I instinctively started to walk away from Justin and the apartment and towards the stairwell, but he grabbed my right arm and pulled me back.

His voice and eyes both seemed flat. "Don't go now. Stay with Sai tonight."

I turned to him, my eyes wide. "What…?! This is important!" I complained.

His voice turned bitter. "What if its you that gets attacked next, and you don't come home?"

The thought made my blood run cold for a moment. "That's not…!"

Justin's eyes were angry and his voice bitter. "Possible? You should seriously reconsider that stance before it gets you killed, Shinigami-kun."

I'll reconsider whatever I want! Except…My brain started to slow down. Darn it, people are getting hurt over this nonsense…

I looked down at the beige hall carpet, and sighed "Fine! I'll wait till the morning." I took a pause. "Release my arm." I grumbled.

He did as I requested, and I took a moment to straighten my jacket.

Justin didn't appear to be fully engaged in what was going on, as he stood silent for a moment. I noticed his far-off gaze, and something struck me. I knew that look; I had been accused of wearing it myself. He turned away and started to walk down the hallway towards the building's stairwell.

"You're in love with her, aren't you?" I asked quietly.

Justin stopped several steps away and half-turned. I noticed his eyes were angry – but he chose to not refute my accusation.

This situation is getting ugly, very fast…

He turned away quickly, and was gone from sight within a moment's notice. I turned and pushed the apartment door back open.

Maka had returned to her room, and the rest of the group was scattered between the couch opposite of Sai, the two stuffed chairs, and the floor. The rest of Sai's couch was unoccupied, so I opted to lay out on it on my back. She held a pillow in her lap, and held onto it with both arms across it. She instinctively moved her arms when I went to lay my head down. She put one behind the pillow and my head, and the other across my chest.

Sai bent down and put her forehead against mine; her hair fell over my face and tickled my skin. Her voice was light, and she giggled slightly. "Thank you for not killing each other in the hall."

I was surprised to find a smile break out on my face with the current atmosphere. "You're welcome."

***

Maka disturbed my quiet sleep just after dawn.

"Kid! Wake up!" She whispered, shaking me right shoulder. "I almost forgot. I've got a message for you."

With my head still on the pillow resting in Sai's lap, I squinted in the early morning light. "A message?" I covered my eyes with my right arm to shield them from the sun.

She leaned on the arm of the couch. "Yeah, from Professor Stein."

With my mind foggy, that perplexed me. "About what?"

Maka's tone of voice was serious. "He got word about a problem in the Baltic."

That wasn't news to me. "I already knew about the disappearances, I'm leaving tomorrow morning after Stein's test."

"No…all of the people at the place you were going to have disappeared. The news he originally received was wrong."

The comment jarred me, and I slowly sat up. "Wait, now everyone in the town has disappeared? My Father had said it was only three people."

"There was a miscommunication, I guess. So Professor Stein 'highly suggested' leaving this morning instead." She made quotation marks with her right hand at the suggestion.

I was agitated, but for the wrong reasons. "Why didn't you tell me last night?" I asked, slightly louder than I had anticipated.

Sai stirred and stretched. "Hmm. What's wrong, Kid?"

Maka looked embarrassed. "It slipped my mind, Kid. With everything that happened…You know I'm not usually like that."

I put my elbows on my knees and leaned forward. I was disappointed, but unsurprised by the news. "Don't worry about it. I should have expected it after the last assignment."

Others in the room started to stir. Liz yawned and stretched; Tsubaki sat up, looking unusually awake for someone that has spent the night curled up in a chair. Black Star and Patty continued to snore – one on each end of the couch – though, and the noise was obnoxious.

Sai leaned forward and set the pillow on the floor next to her feet. "What's going on, Kid?"

I turned my head to look at her. "I have to leave today, instead of tomorrow."

She was half-wake; she rubbed her right eye with her right hand. "Alright." Was all she said.

I leaned more forward and stood; I literally had to drag myself up. "Liz, Patty, wake up. We need to get going."

"But it's so early, Kid…" Liz complained. "Can't we sleep a little longer?"

I stuffed my hands in my pant's pockets. "There's been a change of plans. Get up. We're leaving town."

She languished in the chair, sulking. "Kid~I haven't even taken a shower or put on my make-up or…"

Liz was trying my patience, and my words came out louder and harsher than I had anticipated. "Get up! And get Patty up too! We have to go back to Shibusen before we can leave. I need to see my Father."

Liz conceded finally, rolling her eyes. "So much for a shower…" She muttered. "You're so demanding…"

I went to reply to Liz, but I found Sai stood at my left suddenly, holding onto my jacket sleeve. "Kid…don't fight it."

I blinked and turned towards her, but her head was lowered and I couldn't see her face. "What?"

Her voice was unsteady. "The Kishin…if it shows…don't fight it."

She heard us last night…she heard about Soul…and Justin…

I put my right hand on the left side of her head. "Sai…I'll be fine."

She grasped my sleeve harder. "Stop acting like that!" She yelled suddenly. "You never take being hurt seriously!"

The sound was loud enough to rouse Black Star and Patty from their sleep; both moaned and sat up.

This isn't the time for me to get emotional, I determined. I have to just go…I can apologize afterward…

I took my hand down from her head, and looked away. "Take care of Soul. He needs you right now." I told her quietly. I pulled my sleeve free and went for the door. With my hand on the knob I stopped. I tried to keep my voice flat. "I'll be back Friday morning for the test. Meet me at the school, and we can talk then."

No one stopped me from turning it, or leaving the apartment. The room was silent and unmoving.

There was a sudden shout of "Damn you!" from the apartment, and I realized I couldn't get mad at the profanity, or the insult.

I leaned against the wall to the right of the door, covering my mouth with my left hand; I was feeling nauseous from the stress.

This whole thing makes me sick…

(1) Kneeling in the Japanese fashion.