A/N - Told you it wouldn't take seven months. :D
Oooh, look at that, a new sub-arc title! I hope you lot like italics, because there's going to be a lot of those this chapter. The woes of flashback formatting. I've tried to break it up a bit here and there, but yeah, there's a lot of it.
I'm also doing a bit more work with that Fairy Tail fic I teased a long time back; once I get a few chapters done I'll start posting it alongside Tempus Fugit. I think you guys will like it, if Fairy Tail is your thing.
Thank you for the eight people who left lovely reviews~!
OfAllTheShizz: Thanks, I'm glad you like it! ^_^ And don't you worry, Crona will definitely be making an appearance; remember, this story is following the general plot of the anime, and the plot doesn't really exist without Crona. Pink-haired little bastard is a pretty pivotal character.
Drachegirl14: Pfft, I'm not going to abandon this story completely. In the end I think the break, impromptu as it may have been, gave me the chance to work up the enthusiasm for this project I had at the very beginning. For a good several chapters I was sort of forcing myself through it out of a sense of obligation, but now I'm back to writing upwards of 1000 words a session, so yay! And I'm really happy that I've managed to get the tone right; that balance of silly shonen fun and serious mindbendery is part of what I love the most about this show!
(Also, I still love that Timelessshipping is a thing now. People are invested enough in this relationship to assign a name to it,that is mind-boggling in the best way possible.)
Baka-Beka: Haha, glad to see people are enjoying the backstory arc! (Which should last for this chapter and the next one, assuming I don't have to split a chapter again.) Don't worry about the romance; as I've said before, I feel like half the fun of romance subplots is watching them develop, so I have no intention of rushing things. I mean, they've known each other for what, a couple of months at this point? It's late January/early February at the moment, and the story started in October-ish… yeah, it's been a while, they're taking their sweet-ass time. The romance isn't even the biggest focus of this story; while it certainly plays its role, a lot of it is just about Alecto and Tempus as characters, and how they grow and react to the unfolding story.
Midnight15: Would you believe that I actually put more effort into spellchecking this chapter than I usually did? Welp, that's what happens when both of your spellcheck systems are complete crap. I'm glad that you live the development that Alecto and Tempus have been receiving, because it's not gonna stop with this arc! *double pistols and a wink*
Doragon no Namida: Well, I wouldn't say there's no angst. There's already been angst, and there'll be a bit more as we go on. I'm just not going to end this story with everyone dying because sadness sells, you know? Happy thoughts!
MegglesGG: Glad to be back! :D Well, their relationship reminding you for your relationship with your brother is a good thing! (Assuming you have a good relationship with your brother, which I hope you do.) Tempus and Alecto weren't planned on having that familial bond from the beginning, but it shoved its way in and I just shrugged and ran with it, which I really think worked out for the best.
Menou Rontu: Oh, goodness, I'm flattered, I'm glad you like it so much! As for the word count, you are in luck, because we're only almost a third of the way through this fic in terms of arcs; we're on arc 12 out of 40! But arcs can have anywhere from one to many chapters, so that percentage could be a lot lower, especially when you take into account sub-arcs! (For example, Arcs 26 and 29 are going to have three sub-arcs instead of the usual one or two! Coincidentally, Arc 26 starts out the turning point for Alecto's character arc while Arc 29 rounds it off. Hmmm.) So yeah, all things considered this story is very, VERY likely to break 500K words, if not higher, so if Doorstoppers are your thing, you're in luck!
(Speaking of, this chapter made the fic break 200K words, yayyyyy!)
PondRiverWilliams: Oh, dear! I'm torn between being glad that you're excited about my story and regretting that I accidentally caused you to make whale noises in public.
Notes and translation for the Latin will be at the end of the chapter!
DISCLAIMER: Soul Eater is the intellectual property of Atsushi Ōkubo. I have no intention of monetizing my fanwork, and this is merely an enjoyable passer of time.
Chapter Forty-Four - Peppermint and Strawberry - Inexperienced Against the Snake Man, Part 1
"You know, the travel brochures always talk about the cities and the shrines and the man-made parts of Japan, but they always seem to neglect mentioning just how gorgeous the countryside is. I mean, look at that."
Ally cast a cursory glance out the train window and the rolling hills and mountains beyond the glass. The closest trees and flowers moved by too fast to see beyond a faint blur as the train sped along the tracks, but what she could see was stunning, as the rich greens of the grass and the forests and the mountains contrasted sharply against the crystal blue of the midday sky. "Certe, pulchrum est," she said, before returning her attention to her book. It was a quite dystopian story about a world in which everything was controlled and decided by a council and individual expression was crushed under the heel of the "needs of the many."
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Temperance frowning at her. "You know, I'm generally not one to speak up against the using of books for their intended purpose, but you were the one that decided that we were going to go all the way out to Japan to roast some dude the day after we moved up to EAT classes. The least you could do is appreciate the scenery."
Alecto hated to admit it, but Temperance had a point. True to Lord Death's word, the two of them had only been in the Normally Overcome Target Class for a short amount of time so they could get associated with each other's souls before being advanced to the Especially Advantaged Talent Class due to their time abilities. Not wanting to be left struggling to keep up with the kids who had been in EAT classes from day one, Alecto had immediately marched the two of them down to the mission board and had chosen the first one-star mission she could get her hands on. One of the ultimate goals of being a meister in EAT was increasing the strength and power of one's weapon though souls acquired on missions, and she wasn't going to falter in that duy. She'd sworn a silent oath to both her partner and the Academy, and she intended to keep it.
That was how the two of them had ended up on a train crossing the Japan countryside. It was a fairly empty train; there was no one else in the car they were sitting in, and Alecto had only seen a couple other people on the other cars as they had made their way to their seats. It was to be expected, what with the attacks in this region.
Taking a sip of the special matcha tea she'd purchased back in the city before catching the train while careful not to spill any of the precious liquid in the cup, Alecto took another look out the window, longer this time. Yamakagashi, the locals called him. The "snake-man," notorious for kidnapping hikers in the region and whisking them away to wherever he'd set up camp. How is it, she thought sadly, that such a beautiful place can be home to such a dark monster?
But that was the danger of Kishin Eggs, wasn't it? Any human could become one if they surrendered enough of themselves to the corruption gnawing at their being. It didn't matter how beautiful their home was if one's soul was ugly as sin.
"Oi, Ally. Are you spacing out again?" Temperance snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Earth to Ally."
Alecto frowned. "Dēsine," she said. "Quoque, non sum 'Ally.' My… my name is Alecto Bellatore, and I would appreciate it if you refer to me as such." She had to fight the urge to speak to him entirely in Latin; while the social implications of such a task would end up being disastrous for her state of mind, the actual act of speaking it was in and of itself strangely liberating. She could say anything she wanted and unless someone within earshot had an advanced enough grasp of Romantic linguistic roots to decipher what she was saying, no one would be the wiser. She could tell Temperance exactly where he could stick that stupid nickname he'd given her.
Besides, he'd taken it so well when she'd told him. It was almost a relief to slip into the more comfortable language without someone shooting you bemused or dirty looks.
Temperance raised his hands in front of him defensively. "Look, you were the one who started it with the whole 'Tempus' thing, okay?"
"I-I stopped! So w-why do you keep on going with it?"
"Hmm…" Temperance stared down at his shoes. "Dunno. Just habit, I guess. Also, you're name's a bit trickier to pronounce. Is it uh-lehk-toh or uh-lake-toh?"
"U-uh… Uh-lake-toh. And my name isn't that difficult."
"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that." Temperance peered out the window. "Hey, I think we're almost at the station."
Alecto jumped. "Already?" she asked. She knew the trains in Japan were fast, but she and no idea just how fast. But, sure enough, she could feel the train began its deceleration beneath her, and as her gaze trailed across Temperance's line of vision she did in fact see She chugged the rest of her tea as fast as she could, ignoring the scalding sensation in her throat as hot water burned at her insides. Normally she would be trying to savor the flavor and calming feeling that tea brought, but they were about to head out into the mountain and forest paths, and there was no place for delicate teacups on a mission. Maybe if she had something sturdier… She put the empty teacup away and got to her feet just as the train shuddered to a halt. "Well, l-let's get going, then. This is our first mission, we can't really waste time."
"We can alter our personal timesphere exponentially with very little consequence," Temperance pointed out, getting to his feet and stretching his arms over his head. "Wasting time is absolutely something we can do. But yeah, sure, let's not keep the snake guy waiting."
"S-snake man. His name is Yamakagashi, and he's supposed to be in this region of Japan." Alecto sidled out into the aisle and down the train, moving from car to car to the frontmost exit. "A-and we can't underestimate him. He's killed a bunch of people already, so he's going to be pretty strong. We're going to need to give it all we've got so we can take him on!"
"Excuse me." A voice speaking in slightly shaky English piped up from their left. Alecto turned to see a short-haired Japanese woman dressed in a grey cardigan and slacks. "Did you say you were going to go find Yamakagashi?"
Alecto nodded, looking down at the ground as she felt her face grown practically crimson. "Y-y-yes, we are. We're members of the Death Weapon Meister A-Academy, they sent us here to find him and make sure he didn't hurt any more people."
"Mm." The woman frowned slightly. "The Academy has good people. I've met one of your kind before, a strange man with gray hair and a lab coat. If they think you can fight Yamakagashi, you can fight him. Still, be careful. He's killed so many people now..."
"R-right. Don't worry, w-we won't lose to him." A thought came to Alecto. "Is there anything else you know about Yamakagashi? Something that might help us find him quicker?"
"Not much," the woman admitted, looking down at her hands folded together on top of her lap. "I'm from Tokyo, see, so I don't know everything that goes on up here. I have a friend who told me that Yamakgashi was a simple farmer who went made and started killing people after his wife died of a sickness. They were very isolated, providing for themselves and staying far away from the cities, so when she fell ill he was unable to get them to a hospital for help. If you find where he lived, that might help."
That made sense; the brief reading she had done before leaving Death City for Japan had indicated that many Kishin Eggs stayed near the place where they had lost their humanity. If anything else, it made hunting them easier. "I see. Thank you for your help, ma'am," Alecto said, bowing her head respectfully.
The woman bowed her head in return. "Thank you. You are young; it cannot be easy for you to put aside your lives to fulfill your duties like this."
The train lurched forward, slowly moving forward towards its next destination. "Yeah, yeah, sure," Temperance said, grabbing Alecto's hand and dragging her down the car. "We'll contemplate the gravity of our burdens later, thank you for the help, lady, bye!" He threw open the door and jumped out of the train onto the platform awaiting them, pulling Alecto with him just as the train picked up pace and departed for good. "Geez, way to cut it close there. Next time can you condense it a little? 'Hey, where can we find the snake dude?' 'Oh, just look for his farm.' 'Okay, thanks, bye!'"
Alecto frowned at him. "Tempu… Temperance, that was rude. She probably thinks terribly of us, now."
Temperance let out a huff and shook his short, shaggy blonde hair out of his face, his burnished gaze boring through her as he gave her a pointing look. "Yeah, well, Lord Death would think terribly of us if we completely flubbed our first mission and let this guy run loose, wouldn't he? I'll take an offended stranger on a train instead of an irate death god any day."
Alecto blanched as she remembered how Lord Death had spoken to them that first day, how high of expectations he had held for the two of them. If she disappointed him… if she failed… she wouldn't be able to face herself, with that weighing down on her shoulders. "N-no, you're right," she said. "Me miseret, I-I… I wasn't thinking. Of course, we need to go find Yamakagashi immediately." It was her turn to drag Tempus along, ignoring his surprised yelp as she pulled the gangly boy down off the platform and towards the hiking paths. This particular train stop wasn't connected to a station or a city or even a small village in the middle of nowhere. Rather, it led down into an intricate series of unmarked routes through the forest formed by the many boots of hikers and tourists. They had a lot of ground to cover.
"So, was this around the time you guys were finally starting to get along?"
Tempus shook his head before sinking his teeth into the thick slice of pizza in his hands. It was classic pepperoni, as he was with company and he couldn't let them see just the sort of unhealthy, gross-looking but remarkably tasty junk he usually consumed on his pizza. Not that his company was much better; Patti was well into her second meat lover's pizza, with a few empty breadsticks baskets beside her. My monthly allowance is going to feel that one in the morning. Kid really is rich if he can provide for an appetite like that. "I wouldn't exactly say we were getting along," he said through a mouthful of flatbread and mozzarella in response to Liz's question. "But we'd sort of reached an understanding. As far as we knew, we were never going to like each other, but we both wanted similar things and being partners was the only way to reach those things so we settled for tolerating each other."
Liz snorted. "Yeah, I can see how well that turned out."
Tempus let out a very ungentlemanly snort as he swallowed his bite of pizza. "Yeah, I suppose there's not a whole lot of tension in this tale. Will the dashing and witty clockwork weapon ever get along with his quirky and neurotic time meister? Well, gee, I don't know, how well were we getting along an hour ago?" Speaking of which… he checked on his connection to Alecto's soul wavelength. The distance had caused it to weaken, but he could still catch enough of a glimpse to see that everything was stable and that she wasn't in the middle of a breakdown. Whatever she and Kid were talking about, it was enough to keep her calm, and that was good enough for him… for now, at least. "Still, you know what they say about journeys and destinations."
"I don't think either of those apply here. You're basically just telling us about stuff that's already happened to you."
"Eh, fair enough." Tempus glanced over at Patti, who was on slice of pizza number thirteen. Hell's satanic bells, she eats as much as Black Star. "You know, Liz, if this is her usual appetite, I'm not surprised that she has a bigger chest than you despite being younger. All those calories have to go somewhere."
Liz reached over the table and slugged Tempus across the arm. "You jerk! It's not my fault I've got smaller boobs than my little sister!"
"Ow-ow!" Tempus rubbed at his arm where she'd hit him. Forget his monthly allowance, he was the one who was going to be feeling that one on the morning. Note to self: don't press Liz's buttons. Ow, goddamn. "Geez, I didn't say it was your fault at all! What is it with women and being all weird about their boob sizes?" He'd only brought it up because he'd heard her talking about it in the hallways at school a few weeks ago. "Like, who cares if one set of boobs is bigger than another in the end, they're all pillowy sacks of fat and glands on your chest!" It's not like dudes went around obsessing over the size of their diokay wait that's a really bad example.
Patti laughed. "Ew, gross!" she exclaimed, looking down at her chest.
Liz scowled and leaned back in the booth, folding her arms over her chest and affixing her cerulean-blue glare onto him. "Just finish your damn story, asshole."
"Watch it, this asshole's paying for all that pizza your sister's eating," Tempus shot back. "And the breadsticks. This ain't Olive Garden, those aren't endless. But yeah, okay. Like I was saying, the roads were tricky, and there were a lot of them. We used our time distortion to save a bit of sunlight on the search…"
"...But it still took us a while to get through the hiking paths and find the farmstead that Yamakagashi supposedly living on," Alecto said, pouring out the newly boiled water into the cups once more. "Between the walls falling off and the t looked like it hadn't been touched in years, even though there had only been evidence of Yamakagashi attacking people for a few months. Either there were some pieces missing from the story, or he let himself go to ruin far before he became a Kishin egg."
"There wasn't anything else unusual about the house?" Kid asked.
"You mean like blood seeping from the walls or a basement full of his previous kills? Non, nothing quite so morbid. But something about it was…" Alecto paused, her hands hovering in midair over the teacups. "Aliēnum. That's the only way I can truly explain that sense that something about the place was just plain wrong. There was this emptiness about it, not just because it was an abandoned farm that could only be found after miles of hiking through some mountain forests, but because it felt like whatever used to live there died and took any sense of home with it. I-if that makes sense. Of course, it didn't exactly stay empty forever."
"You know, I'm no expert, but I think we should generally stay outside of haunted-looking places. I know I was all gung-ho about finding this guy, and I still kinda am because hey, the sooner we kill him, the sooner we can go home, but we can find him outside, right? Just wait for him to show up and we can kind him to the curb from the safety of right here, right?" Temperance lingered on the path just away from the fence gate, eyeing the ramshackle farmhouse warily. "Abandoned" wasn't quite the right word to describe this place. It was rotted, little more than a skeleton of its old self as shingles dangled precariously from the edge of the roof and the surrounding land was barren as a desert in a drought, only sparsely littered with the occasional dead stalks and small clusters of weeds.
Alecto frowned. It seemed that Yamakagashi's wife's death had left its mark in the very land itself. This had to have been the right place, then. "No. He may not even be here, but clues about where he would be may be. Let's go." Carefully, she pushed open the gate, wincing as it creaked on hinges so rusty it was a wonder they moved at all.
Temperance hesitated for a minute before following her. "You are… remarkably calm about this situation. No stuttering or anything. Who are you and what have you done with the real Ally?"
"A-Alecto. And… and… Non timebo mala! W-we are going to be meisters, hunting Kishin Eggs like this for as l-long as L-Lord Death deems it necessary. We can't… we can't afford to be fearful." Alecto clenched her hands into fists. Could he really not see how important this was? If they failed here, they were dooming who knows how many other people to a likely painful and horrific death as Yamakagashi hunted them down and consumed their souls. And if he became too powerful… No, she wouldn't let that happen. She couldn't let that happen. She was a meister now, and that meant there was no room for failure."
"Uh, we absolutely can. Fear is the little voice in the back of your head that tells you not to do dumb shit. If you lose that, you basically become Black Star."
Alecto flinched. Black Star was Tsubaki's partner, a loud-mouthed, self-absorbed jerk who seemed to care more about stroking his own ego than actually fulfilling the work assigned to him. How he had managed to make it to EAT, she would never know; Tsubaki had to have been carrying that particular partnership. "Don't say that. I'm nothing like that bliteus belua.
Temperance shrugged. "If you say so. Well, if we're going to simply walk into a spooky farm that might possibly be the hunting ground for a dangerous soul-eating asshole, don't you think we should be a little more prepared in case we have to fight anything?"
"Uh… oh! Ita. I-I mean, yes! You should change into your weapon form. Just in case, like you s-said."
"I really should, shouldn't I?" As Alecto held out her right hand, Temperance shifted into weapon form, the glove forming snugly around her hand and fingers as his own clock-like spear hands spun into place. When he spoke again, his words rattled around inside her head as if they were her own thoughts. "I really hope you know what you're doing. It would actually genuinely suck a lot if the only chance I had at a proper meister got herself killed going up against some isolated snake weirdo."
"P-please don't be so morbid. I won't fail, I promise." But doubt gnawed away at her. What if she wasn't strong enough? What if she was about to get the both of them killed? No, she thought, I can't afford to think like that. Remember that phrase you once read. Qui audet adipiscitur, right? Whoever dares... wins. With her breath caught in the back of her through like a wedding ring in a garbage disposal, Alecto stepped forward into the ramshackle house.
It was quiet. Too quiet. From the tilted shelves to the creaking floor, the inside of the one-room house was covered in a thick layer of dust that looked like it hadn't been disturbed in months. "Y-you know, I don't think Yamakagashi spent a lot of time here even before he became a Kishin Egg," Alecto remarked, proceeding further into the house. "This place looks like it hasn't been touched in ages. The timeline just doesn't add up."
"Or he was a Kishin Egg for a while before he started killing regularly," Temperance responded. "This is a pretty remote part of Japan, and people die hiking all the time. It makes sense that there might be occurrences that haven't been connected to the guy."
"T-that's… also a possibility."
"Sometimes people just go missing and no one cares enough to go looking for them. It happens." In an instant, Temperance's demeanor changed from somber to curious. "Hey, what's that book over there, by the sleeping mat?"
"Quid?" Alecto glanced over to the far corner of the room where an untouched sleeping mat lay. Sure enough, next to the mat lay a small, leather-bound book. She went over to it and picked it up, shaking the dust off of it. "Some sort of journal?" She opened it up (back cover first, she knew enough about Japanese writing to know which way to read) to see rows upon rows of Japanese characters. "I can't read this at all," she whispers, flipping through. As she passes page upon page, she saw the penmanship grow shaking and shakier as characters and entire columns of characters began to blend together until the last page, which was just a smeary, tear-stained mess. "Do you think he was writing this while he was turning into a Kishin Egg?"
"Anything's possible when Kishin are involved," Temperance responded. "Maybe we should take it with us. Even if we can't read it, there's gotta be someone at the DWMA who can make use of it."
"Y-yeah, you're right. Come on, let's go find the snake ma-"
Alecto was cut off mid-sentence by a sharp, biting pain in the back of her neck and a sudden numbness spreading across her body. Her muscles weakened and grew slack, and as she fell to the ground she could hear a thin voice behind her say, "Little children were never taught not to trespass… how could their parents let them wander so far off the paths…?"
Alecto's vision began to blur and darken, and a distinct haziness enveloped her consciousness. The last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was Temperance shouting at her in the back of her mind. "Ally? Ally?! Shit, shit, goddamn shit..."
Oh no…
"Alecto, wake up!"
A/N - One of the bad parts about writing a character in danger in a flashback is that you know exactly what's going to happen to them. Like, we all know Alecto and Tempus are going to get out of this in one piece. Ah, well. That's not the real focus of this arc, anyway. What is the real purpose, you may ask? Good question!
… :)
Also, to those who may think that Tempus's comments on Liz and Patti's chest sizes is out of character because he hasn't shown much interest in that, let me remind you that this is the same boy who admitted to spending an inappropriate about of time ogling Tsubaki's legs in his inner monologue in chapter five. He's a bit more of a waist-down sort of dude, but he notices things up above, too. (Why am I talking about the specific manners of pervertedness my characters exhibit?)
Anyways, the idea for Yamakagashi came from a nature documentary I was half-watching with my sister that mentioned a snake that lives in the really far east part of eastern Asia. While the snake itself (a tiger keelback) isn't super dangerous in the grand terms of poisonous creatures (it was mentioned on the documentary for the way it eats toads to steal their poison), it was the Japanese name that intrigued me. Yamakagashi just rolled off the tongue, and I wanted to use it somewhere in my fic. So, here we are. Yamakagashi the snake man.
Speaking of things that just roll of the tongue, it's Latin time!
Certe, pulchrum est: Literally translates into "certainly, it is beautiful," but can be translated as a simple "yes, it's beautiful." Overall, it's an affirmation of the beauty in Japan's nature.
Desine: "Stop."
Quoque, non sum 'Ally.': "Also, I am not 'Ally.'"
Aliēnum: "unusual." Like I mentioned a few chapters (and many months) ago, this word has a much more negative/put-off implication than just plain old "unusual" might have, what with its secondary meanings of hostility and suspicious stuff and all those sorts of things.
Non timebo mala: "I will fear no evil." Apparently this was a thing on a magic gun or something in that gay angel show, Supernatural? I don't watch it, but I've heard mixed-positive things. Either way, I'm stealing it for my fic. Sucks to be you, gay angel show.
Bliteus belua: My source has it as "beastly idiot," and it's definitely in that general range. And yeah, Alecto hated Black Star pretty much immediately. Chalk it up to jealousy and ideological differences.
Chapter forty-five will be out soonish and should wrap up this arc. The next arc will be relatively short, but it will continue the train of Tempus and Alecto dynamic exploring that we've been riding for the past few chapters. Actually, the same could be said for the arc after that. It's just a meister-weapon relationship jamboree up in here! In the meantime, feel free to favorite and leave a review!
- Diana "Nocte"
