They were standing closer together than normal. Spirit was more quiet than normal. Stein wasn't smoking. Something felt off to the reaper that was speaking to the pair of men, but it wasn't until after he had dismissed them and the pair had left without a word, their strides matching and murmuring to each other in low voices that he managed to piece it together.
If they could have seen the face hidden behind the mask they would have seen the smirk that tugged at the corners of his lips. He stared wistfully up into the false sky before his gaze traveled out across the rows of soul graves.
"It would appear, dear Marie, that your two favorites are consoling each other regarding your loss."
A sound, the remembrance of laughter perhaps that would never be heard again, echoed eerily across the open area. Shinigami-sama smiled behind his mask.
"I agree. It's good that they are. You can rest easy."
A whisper of a voice brushed past him, yet the presence that he could still feel didn't diminish.
"I knew you wouldn't. Ah, well. Perhaps you will soon, yes?"
The same hauntingly distant laughter echoed and he just nodded, turning his back to it as he glided out of the room.
"He wants us to leave in the morning."
"Morning is only 12 hours away, Senpai."
Spirit laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess we did kinda get our sleep schedules messed up, didn't we?"
"Indeed." There was a warmth in Stein's voice though that Spirit hadn't heard before and he let himself relax a bit.
"So, dinner?"
"Senpai, we just ate breakfast an hour ago."
"I thought we could get the stuff and actually make something then crash…" Spirit trailed off as he stopped walking. "Never mind, I don't know what I was thinking."
"Senpai?"
Spirit didn't answer, just shook his head as he turned and headed towards his own home.
"Spirit?" Stein watched him go, his forehead furrowed, more than a little confused as he twisted the screw in his head.
Spirit stepped into his home and tossed his suit jacket to the side. He shivered slightly as he did, and went immediately to turn the thermostat up, noticing that it was unreasonably cold in the apartment.
He scratched the back of his head as he looked at the offending dial. "Now I know that I didn't leave this sat at 50… I never keep it below 70…"
A sound interrupted his train of thought and he whirled. "Stein?"
There was no answer from behind him, though a breeze rushed past him. Spirit's left foot slipped back without him realizing it, his body slipping into a more defensive stance. "Stein?" he called out again, hoping.
The sudden rush of wind let him know his hopes were in vain. A blade manifested from his arm as his assailant showed himself.
Themselves.
A pale woman stood in front of him, a mournful look on her face. Blue eyes were the only splash of color beside the pale blue of the veins under her skin that adorned her face. Her white hair was pulled into an artful bun, her hands slipped into the sleeves of her kimono. Curiously enough a butterfly was pinned through the bun, a startlingly vibrant shade of orange that seemed completely out of place on the woman.
"Are you…" her Japanese accent was thick, her words hard to understand, "the one known as Spirit Death-Scythe Albarn? Yes?"
Creatures manifested themselves around her, seemingly born of the snow that was following her. He could feel the temperature around him dropping even more steadily as she took a single step towards him. The things hovered around her, their forms breaking into snow flurries only to reform in a vaguely humanoid shape.
"You are Spirit Death-Scythe Albarn-sama are you not?" She spoke slowly and enunciated clearly.
"If you know who I am then you know that you shouldn't be revealing your presence here, witch." Spirit snarled, his entire arm transforming into a blade as he fell into a fighting stance.
"I am sorry, then. It is not my choice." She twirled then, her arms flailing out as the creatures dispersed, snow suddenly filled the room and hallway, flying into Spirit's eyes and blinding the man.
He attacked blindly into the snow, his weapon transformed arm striking something solid. A sudden force flung him away from whatever it was that he had struck and he hit the wall hard. A picture of him and Maka fell to the ground beside him and a foot stepped on it, shattering the glass in the frame.
"You have to understand!" her voice hissed out suddenly. "I do this for them!" She viciously kicked the portrait of him and Maka away from them and long fingers wrapped around his throat; sharp nails, nearly claws, broke the delicate skin. "You will not interfere again!"
Death scythes all share at least one thing in common- form manipulation. A blade sprung from Spirit's chest, impaling the witch through hers, and she coughed as it did, her breath coming in gasps as limp hands fell from his throat. The blade fractured and disappeared as her hands dropped, Spirit's mental command dissolving it. He reached up to wipe the blood from his face, feeling its cold sting against his only slightly warmer skin, only to find that what he wiped from his face was little more than freezing cold water.
In front of his eyes the witch melted, becoming nothing more than chunks of snow and water in short time. He didn't stay around long enough to watch that, he was already running towards the lab, his suit jacket lying forgotten where it had been flung on the couch.
"Stein!" Spirit's shoulder slammed into the door of the lab, knocking it open. It took the weapon a moment to realize that the door had already been cracked, and that there was no answering shout from deeper within the lab.
Weary muscles carried the man deeper into the lab, his voice echoing through the empty rooms as he shouted Stein's name. He skidded around the corner and into the research lab that Stein preferred for dissections and found the blood.
The room was in disarray, and Spirit counted more than one scalpel still embedded in the wall. He found Stein's lab coat, the side ripped open with blood on it, behind the operating table. There were pools of water scattered throughout the lab, some of them tinged pink.
He found Stein's glasses lying beside the door, the left lens cracked. A pack of cigarettes that he remembered Stein slipping into his pant pocket were a few feet away, leading deeper into the lab and towards another exit. Spirit bolted, his legs screaming in protest as he slammed the door to the outside open and stood looking out across the empty yard that surrounded the lab.
There was no sign of the scientist.
It took Spirit a long minute to find the drops of blood that led away from the lab, his hands clenching into fists when he lost the trail. Curses rose to his lips, and almost muffled the sound of the spell that was being cast.
He barely darted out of the way as a shard of ice flew through the air, impaling a tree that he had moved to following the trail.
A slip of paper was frozen inside of it.
We gave him the same courtesy with the woman. You know where he is. This time though, the stakes are higher. Come or he dies, and we will take your youngling as well. Run, weapon. Fulfill your duty.
A blade transformed arm slashed out as Spirit screamed out his rage.
A/N: I have probably the next two chapters planned out, I'll try to hurry and get them uploaded, though I am VERY far behind on a lot of things. I do apologize for that.
Also… for those that care; I go to the doctor on the 10th- wish me luck. I need it. And if everything goes right, I'll have 6-8 weeks of recoup time, which means a lot of time catching up on my writing ;)
I don't own Soul Eater.