As he watched the pinkette sleep, Kidd mused. Reapers do not sleep in the way that their human counterparts did, just as they healed and nourished their bodies in different quantities. On peaceful days, Kidd lulled himself into waking dreams with beautiful memories and imaginings of symmetry. On most, including tonight, his thoughts were drawn to more somber topics. Chrona helped him to put away the darker things for a time; the smaller boy needed protecting. And so Kidd had put aside his thoughts of his father's conversation earlier that day. The small swordsmeister had never even thought to ask.

...

"He-lllooooooo son! How's it goin'?" There were times when Kidd found his father's adjusted, goofy voice to be demeaning to the Shinigami's position. This was one of those moments.

"Father, for what reason have you called me? You generally choose to leave me to my studies." Kidd stood as he always stood before his father: erect, straight shouldered, stone faced. Business between reapers, even father and son, as never to be trifled about. His father chose to adjust to his more serious tone of old, more menacing, reminiscent of a darker time. The mask, however, remained the same.

"To business then, Kidd. There have been sightings... incidents involving the Demon Sword." Kidd felt his body tense at the mention. No one had forgotten the day that Ragnorak had abandoned his meister, refusing to conform to the system that left him only as an equal to his peers. Something had died in Chrona that day, never to be resurrected.

"Where? What incidents?" Kidd strove to keep his tone professional. I am a Reaper, the next Lord Death. I am without bias, I am without prejudice, I am without revenge. Death views every man alike. Perhaps that was why Kidd had yet to be made the new Death, for his breast burned with cold flame, hundreds of times more deadly than the rage he had felt when Raphael had cornered his pinkette.

"Reports have said that an ebony-skinned youth, a Weapon, bearing a pale, x-shaped scar over his his face and chest has been slaying humans and ingesting their souls." Death paused for a moment, allowing the gravity of such a charge to set in. "We cannot allow another kishin to be born into this world, my son." Kidd clenched his fists at his side.

"Has he begun to display such characteristics? So soon?" The young reaper wracked his mind for the history of the original kishin. To the best of his knowledge, Asura's descent into evil had started slowly- started with fear. What was Ragnorak afraid of? Or had his father, yet again, failed to tell him the whole truth?

Death paused a moment before answering. "No. As displayed while he and Chrona were still in a state of symbiosis, Ragnorak seems relatively unaffected by the consumption of human souls. We've yet to learn why, but Justin theorizes that it is perhaps that he doesn't have the same moral compass as others - he doesn't judge their harvesting as morally wrong." Death paused again, head cocked to one side in a trademark illustration of thought. "It's impossible to say for sure at this moment. But regardless of these things, he must be stopped from harvesting human souls. In it of its self, it is a crime worthy of death, even without the risk of transformation."

Kidd clenched his fist, but did not display his inner struggles beyond that. Could he really kill Ragnorak? A being that, while clearly of darkness and who had caused his swordsmeister much misery, was deeply connected to the heart and mind of his pinkette. As a reaper, he was obligated to put the well being of mankind above his personal relations and needs. Was he even strong enough to destroy a Demon Sword?

"I know you are attached to Chrona, Son." HIs father's voiced softened a little. "I know it grinds on your heart to kill someone the boy loves." Kidd ducked his head, gritting his teeth a little. "And so I leave you this choice: think on this. I trust you to make your own judgements on how this situation should be handled. If you find yourself unable to take on the task I've laid on your shoulders, I will select others to attempt it. However, you are my first choice. A Reaper should handle this." Kidd lifted his head to meet his father's eyes, nodding his head once in affirmation.

"I will give this serious consideration, Father. I will try not to fail you." With a crisp bow, the dark haired boy left the room.

...

Kidd's grip on Chrona's body tightened slightly, causing the smaller boy to shift in his sleep. The reaper immediately relaxed, unwilling to wake the pinkette. What could he do? If the accusations on Ragnorak were true, he must be stopped. Clearly, he was strong; at least when he had still had a meister, the demon sword had defeated Kidd. And what of the young meister? What of Chrona, who so clearly ached for the loss of the monster? Could he look at the boy he cherished if he killed his partner?

"Kidd-kun..." A breathy whisper lifted from the boy curled to his chest, murmured in his dreams, pulling the Reaper from his dark musings. A smile, unconscious, graced Kidd's features, and he pressed his nose into soft pink locks. This boy - this young man, he reminded himself, only just younger than Kidd himself - had crept into his heart. How could he possibly do anything that would harm him?

A young man - Chrona was nearly an adult. And as a precious person in his life, a person he trusted and respected above all others, there was only one thing to be done. He would talk to Chrona about Ragnorak.

The pinkette tightened his grip on Kidd's arm, murmuring pleasantly. Yes, he would talk to Chrona - in the morning.

...

Chrona awoke warm. Had it not been so pleasant, it would have shocked him straight from the comforting haze of rest that he was wrapped in. Thin by nature, paired with years of neglect and poor eating habits, the pinkette was constantly freezing. Two bands of heat were wrapped around his middle, cased in fine white cloth, smooth to the touch. Arms. The smaller boy stiffened as he realized that arms were generally attached to people, and he froze entirely, deer in headlights, as he felt tickling breathe whisper through his hair to caress the nap of his neck. "You're fine, Chrona." The voice was undeniably familiar, and he relaxed - slightly.

The sky was still dark through the small window; it couldn't have been much past midnight, and the snoring moon was high and lazy among the stars. Kidd had only nodded briefly, largely lost in thought, but he had stirred into full awareness as Chrona began to surface from sleep. He fretted momentarily on the undoubtably wrinkled nature of his once crisp dress shirt, but put it from his mind. His boy was awake.

"H-hello, Kidd-kun." The words crept up from under his armful, who's voice was only sleepy, soft, and a tad anxious, his face yet unturned, a hidden moon. Kidd felt his heart swell at the sweetness of the moment. The reaper only hummed contentedly into Chrona's hair. There was no real reason for him to be awake yet. Let him laze about in the murky waters of dreams. For a time, there was only silence, and the boy had relaxed quite to the point that Kidd was quite sure he had fallen asleep again. Not for the first time, the swordsmeister surprised him. "K-kidd-kun...are we like Maka and Soul now?" The question was tentative, but not fearful. There was a raw curiosity that lacked expectation in it. No, the fear and expectation resided in the black haired boy, who's chest had tightened drastically.

"Would you like to be?" he whispered, his words a little breathy for his liking. There was too much emotion in it. Not cool, Soul would have said.

Chrona thought for a moment before he answered. "You wouldn't hit me with books, or yell at me, or call me stupid. I don't think I could handle that. But I like being close to you, Kidd-kun. Like Maka likes to be close to Soul." Again, his response lacked fear. Only thoughtfulness filled his voice. Kidd could have danced.

"And I like to be close to you, Chrona, like they do with each other. It would give me great joy to be your partner." Chrona's head shot up, his shoulders turning so his weight rested on one elbow. He had not left the brace of Kidd's arms in the process.

"You aren't a weapon, Kidd-kun!" He said, his tone sharp in his confusion. Internally, the reaper smacked himself.

"Not that kind of partner, dear." The endearment surprised him. "A romantic partner. A boyfriend." HIs voice softened as he said the word. It was more than he could ever hope for from is tentative swordsmeister. Again, Chrona thought, a blush suffusing his features.

"Would anybody be mad?"

"No, Chrona," Kidd chuckled, "No one would be mad."

It was then that chrona truly shocked him. Despite his hands shaking ever so slightly, he placed one thin hand against the reapers chest and pushed solidly, so that the dark haired boy was full on his back. Chrona shifted once more, so his hips turned in toward his companion, and he kept that thin hand on his chest. The other held him up, supporting him as he leaned down to capture the lips of one very, very surprised reaper.

It was like electricity. There were none of the typical signs of attraction in the kiss - no open lips, no dancing tongues, no moans. But this kind of action on Chrona's part was sign enough. The heat that rose up between them during that simple kiss was a quickly catching flame. So when Kidd, a little rashly, leaned up to add pressure to the soft lips on his own, a dam broke. Chrona pressed his entire side up agains the reaper, his chest leaning into his are his hands found Kidd's impeccable asymmetrical hair. It was Kidd who reigned himself in, keeping his hands about Chrona's waist lightly instead of pressing their bodies together, instead of flipping the pinkette on his back. The now shrunken rational part of his brain was telling him to let the smaller boy be in control.

This became extraordinarily hard when Chrona released a small, mewling moan against Kidd's lips. Against his own rationale, the reapers lips parted, soft, begging the smaller boy for more - more, please. It was then that Chrona checked himself for the first time, doubt flooding his frame as he drew back, just out of reach of Kidd's lips, eyes cast anywhere in the room but down onto his partner's face. This was uncharted territory. Chrona was as innocent, sexually, as they came. Kidd made the distance.

Softly, the way you would caress a frightened animal, he slid his own fingers, elegant yet calloused, through the array of pink hair above him, drawing Chrona to him with a gentle insistence. Still tense, the boy complied, and a rigidity entered this kiss that hadn't existed in the moments prior. Kidd was not deterred. He chastened his kisses, leaving them soft like flower petals on Chrona's cheeks, brow, chin, jaw, until he felt the boy begin to relax. He kissed him once on the lips, lingering, before pulling away to meet Chrona's eyes.

Watching the boy's eyes flutter open, out of focus, in a flurry of lashes, his cheeks tinged pink and his mouth as red as cherries was one of the single most beautiful things the reaper had ever witnessed. It was then he smiled a true smile.