Kid gasped and fell back, coughing as he struggled to breathe in different air. The shinigami swallowed hard and sat back up, taking in several soft breaths as he watched Stein's still frozen body, waiting and praying that the man made it.
"Are you okay Kid?" Black-Star asked, rubbing his partner's shoulders. Kid didn't respond and continued to stare at Stein, hope fading with each passing second.
"Wha..." Stein mumbled and shifted a little.
"Stein!" Marie gasped as the scientist opened his eyes for the first time in what felt like forever to her.
"Hello Marie..." Stein greeted weakly. "How long has it been?"
"Long enough you bastard." Marie cried and hugged the man. Stein let out a small grunt of pain, but didn't look like he was resisting the hug.
"We need to take you back to the apartment, Nygus can help you." Kid stated and got up, brushing dust off of his shirt he had taken from a mall a week back.
"Okay..." Stein struggled to get up. Black-Star went over to the scientist and held him up, helping the injured man out of the small building. Marie and Kid followed the other men out, but Marie stopped several steps out.
"Are you coming Marie?" Kid asked the woman.
The shinigami finally got a good look at Marie. Her clothing was normal, except for the occasional ripe or hole in her black dress and her eye patch wasn't the same one he was used to seeing. Her face was a lot worse than he first thought. Three thick scars ran across her face, one down the middle and the other two going over her eyes. There were also many small scars on her cheeks, looking as if she dug her own fingernails into her face.
"Um..." Marie put a gentle hand to her face and Kid could see the fear in her eye, but it quickly went away when she heard Stein hiss in pain. The woman removed her hand and ran over to Black-Star and Stein.
"That woman has more balls than I do." Kid muttered to himself and caught up to the rest of the adults.
Maka hummed softly to her son, praying that more food is found soon. She was not in the mood to have to deal with starving people, normal people was enough to handle. Lance was already a lot to handle at such a young age, it was as if he understood everything that was happening. The infant was leaning against her chest, breathing lightly in his sleep. Soul went to look around their room for some formula, thinking they had left some in there since the run group had only come back with three bottles worth of formula.
"Everything's going to be fine Lance, everything is going to be fine." Maka smiled when her son let out a soft sigh and nuzzled against her.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing." Soul stated as he joined his wife. "Damn it!" He cursed and kicked an empty pop can. "All of that food, gone. We raided most of Death City and now all of that effort is a pile of ash!"
"Calm down." Maka said. "You'll wake Lance."
"Sorry." Soul whispered and sat down next to Maka. "I just wish we had a sign that told us that everything will get better." The two adults looked up at the same time and gasped when they were greeted by two people they thought they were never going to see again.
"Marie, Stein!" Maka cried.
"I don't believe it." Soul stated.
"Where's Nygus?" Kid asked, snapping his friends out of their shocked stares.
"I'll get her." Soul said and took off.
"Black-Star, go set Stein down in room fifty-five. It's the second door to your right down this hall." Maka pointed out the way for the star and watched him walk away with the scientist leaning heavily against his shoulder that was still soaked in Ryver's blood.
"You had a child?" Marie walked over to Maka and the woman handed her son over. Lance opened his eyes, looked a Marie and went straight back to sleep.
"What happened to you?" Maka asked.
"It's a long story. I'll tell you later." Marie promised and ran a hand over Lance's head.
"Including what happened to Stein?"
"I'll tell you all that I know, first I could really go for something to eat." Marie chuckled, but stopped when Maka looked away. "What?'
"We don't have any food, at least not enough to feed everyone."
"What happened? You had a mountain of food when we left."
"Jose caught on fire and burnt all of our food till it was ash."
"How?"
"I wish I knew." Maka sighed and took her child back before going away.
"Where's Stein?" Soul asked as he rushed in, past his wife with Nygus behind him.
"Room fifty-five." Kid answered, knowing Marie was too stunned to.
"Thanks." Nygus said and told Soul to come with her and soon it was just Kid and Marie in the room.
"Everyone else is in the main room." Kid stated after a moment of silence.
"Are they?" Marie asked, looking at the ground.
"No one's going to make fun of you." Kid said, reading the woman's mind.
"How do you know?"
"Tyler has a scar across his face as well."
"I kind of have more than one."
"Tsubaki's an immortal."
"What!?"
"Very, very long story, you can ask her yourself." Kid grabbed the hammer's hand and dragged her into the main room.
"Marie...is that you?" Kilik was the first one to speak in the room that went silent the moment Kid and Marie entered.
"Who else could it be?" Marie chuckled weakly.
"You're so pretty Marie!" Patty ran up to the woman and hugged her. "They look so cool!"
"Marie?" Cylas asked softly from the bench he sat on.
"How are you Cylas?" Patty released Marie and the woman walked over to the depressed boy.
"Horrible." The boy responded and sniffed.
"What's wrong?"
"Ryver's dead!" Cylas cried and covered his face with his hands, sobbing harshly.
"Come here hun, it's going to be okay." Marie wrapped her arms around Cylas and hugged him against her chest, patting his head softly.
"Please don't leave me again." Cylas begged, his voice muffled.
"I won't, I promise."
"I don't want to lose anyone anymore."
Kid looked around and saw Lexi wipe a tear away from her eye. Kenna was hugging Miriah who had several tears streaming down her face and Tyler had his arms crossed and trying to look tough. The one thing that threw Kid off was when he saw James laughing and clapping, looking as if he was enjoying the teens pain. Kid shook his head and decided that the madness was starting to get to him too.
By the time it was late evening, everyone was going to bed early with empty stomachs. There wasn't enough food from the one run to feed everyone enough a complete meal and many people complained. Lance spent a hour screaming for no reason, which didn't help everyone's already irritated mood. Kid was grabbing a new blanket for his bed since Black-Star's been hogging the one they shared lately and he wasn't going to wake up freezing again.
"Could you grab me one?" Tyler asked Kid from behind.
"No problem." Kid turned around and handed the teen a blanket.
"Thanks." The shinigami raised an eyebrow, he knew the story behind Marie's scars, but he didn't know about Tyler's scar.
"Where did your scar come from?" He asked suddenly.
"What? Um..." Tyler bundled the blanket up in a tight ball. "It was my mom." He stated softly.
"What?" Kid asked.
"It was an accident, she couldn't control herself!" Tyler protested.
"Where is she?" Kid demanded. Tyler didn't say anything, but Kid saw the teen's eyes flash in one direction before looking back at the shinigami.
"Kid, wait!" Tyler ran after the man after he took off.
"Which room?" Kid asked, kicking open doors down the hall.
"Kid, please!" Tyler reached out for the shinigami, but he was too late when Kid opened one door and stood in shock.
"What is this?"
A grown woman laid on her back on a tattered room, her arms and legs bounded to the bed. She let out a scream when she saw Kid and Tyler. She started flailing and cursing harshly and speaking words that sounded like pure gibberish.
"Great, you woke her." Tyler said and walked into the room. "Hi mom."
"Mom?" Kid slapped himself to make sure that he wasn't dreaming before entering the room after Tyler.
"How are you feeling mom, are you hungry?" Tyler asked the cursing woman, who had started to foam at the mouth from all of her screaming. "I can try to get you something if you want. There isn't much since the fire earlier." Tyler tried to brush his mother's bangs out of her eyes but had to pull his hand back when the woman tried to bite his fingers.
"Hello Kid." Miriah greeted weakly as she saw the man standing in the room.
"I see you've meet Tyler's mom." Kenna stated.
"What is this?" Kid asked.
"Tyler's mother was out on a run one day and she...she just went insane." Miriah started.
"She was perfectly fine coming back, besides being hurt obviously, then she just went mad." Kenna finished. "Like she's some kind of possessed monster."
"Do not call my mother a monster." Tyler snapped.
"Your mother is not a monster, but that thing you're calling your mother is."
"Take that back." Tyler growled.
"Or what? It's not like you can do anything to me."
"Kenna!" Miriah pushed Kenna to distract her from the argument.
"What!?" Kenna glared at Miriah, but her anger soon went away when she saw her girlfriend's still red eyes from crying earlier. "I'm sorry."
"Burn! All of you will burn!" Tyler's mother screamed at the top of her lungs.
"That's a new phrase." Tyler said.
"One by one, one by one!" The woman screamed and ripped her arms out of the rope that held her down.
"Mom!?" Tyler stood still as he watched his mother launch herself towards him.
"Move!" Kid pushed Tyler out of the way and punched the woman across the face.
"No! Don't hurt her!"
"Hold him down!" He ordered Kenna and Miriah, the girls hesitated before grabbing their friend.
"No!" Tyler cried. The shinigami got a good look at the woman's eyes, he thought he had seen them before. Her beady eyes were the same ones that the demon kishins have.
"It's not your mom." Kid stated and punched the woman again.
"Stop it!"
"Cover his eyes!" Kid said as he pulled a knife out of his pocket.
"What are you doing!?" Tyler thrashed wildly, trying to escape his friends' grip. Kenna tried to put a hand over Tyler's eyes, but was too late and Tyler witnessed Kid stabbing the woman that looked like his mother through her chest.
"I told you to cover his eyes!" Kid snapped.
"Mom!"
"She is not your mother! Would your mother be able to survive this!" Kid stabbed the woman through the chest again and again and again, but the thing kept coming after him. "She's a kishin demon!" He took the knife and ended the fight with a final stab through the top of the woman's head. The thing fell down face first and stopped moving, the thing that disturbed the teens the most was that there was no blood coming out of the corpse.
"Mom..." Tyler's body went numb and the girls had to hold him up to prevent him from falling to the ground.
"I'm sorry Tyler." Kid said.
"Ninety-nine." Kenna stated softly.
Kid had the teens go to their room and he told Tsubaki about what had happened. She said they would hold a ceremony tomorrow for Tyler's mother and to just leave the body since it was hallow. Black-Star didn't question what took Kid so long to return with the blanket since he was asleep. Kid climbed into the bed after closing and locking the door and curled up next to his partner, just wanting to make sure that nothing was going to happen to the person he cares most about.
He had stabbed Tyler's mother several times in front of the boy, what was wrong with him? Maybe he does have 'daddy-issues' as Black-Star had put it. This place was getting to him and he needed to get out of here as soon as he could. The shinigami decided that he and Free were going to attack the DWMA tomorrow morning.
Kid woke up and everything was silent...too silent. He reached out and found that his bedmate was no longer there. Black-Star would normally either try to wake him up or wait for the man to wake up on his own. Was he sleeping through Tyler's mother's funeral? Kid rolled out of bed and threw a shirt on before exiting the room.
"Morning sunshine." Black-Star chuckled.
"Where is everyone?"
"Either at Olive's funeral or out on a run group."
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"I wanted to let you sleep."
"Where's Free?"
"He's with the run crew."
"Damn it." Kid cursed.
"Did you want to talk to him?"
"No, no...I just wanted to know if..." Kid couldn't think of a good enough lie.
"Don't even bother trying to come up with a lie. Just don't do anything stupid."
"I usually say that to you." Kid chuckled.
"It's nice being on the other end." Black-Star kissed Kid's cheek.
"Miriah!" The men turned away from each other and watched Miriah burst into the room with Kenna right behind her. "Miriah, are you okay?"
"Get it out! Get it out!" Miriah cried, pressing her hands against the side of her head.
"Get what out?" Kenna asked her girlfriend. Miriah let out a scream and threw herself against a table, pounding her head into the wooden surface. "Miriah!" Kenna grabbed Miriah by the shoulders. Miriah let out another cry and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small knife.
"Kenna, get back!" Kid lunged for Kenna and pulled her away, but Miriah had swung her arm around fast enough to cut a small slice on Kenna's cheek.
"Make them go away!" Miriah begged as she slashed at the air. "Make them go away!"