RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD

3 months 1 week 4 days after asura

She could drop at any moment. The weight of not only Tsubaki -who towered over her- but Black*Star -who was pure muscle- was right above her threshold for how much she could carry. The added difficulty of walking in sand made her legs tremble every time she picked them up to take a step. There was also the pressing matter of her mental state.

She had abandoned her sister for their enemy. Rudra had been lucky enough to know what her purpose was in life, but she abandoned it when she was supposed to step up.

Not to mention, she was still experiencing bouts of violent madness. She could remember the last time they abandoned Asura; it was like withdrawal, mixed with a bad acid trip. There were eyes watching them, everywhere, making a noise like static. It filled their thoughts, and it consumed them when they tried to rest.

While the weapons dosed normal humans with madness, they were not mad themselves and were hardly affected by it. However, when the weapons bonded to their kishin, he took in their memories and they took in his madness and wavelength. This came at a cost, as she was trying to find shelter from the sun under the forest canopy that she was convinced was overhead.

"I'm gonna sink in this damn quicksand." She hissed, pushing harder with her legs and sprinting through the sand. In her mind, she was making absolutely no headway; and as such, couldn't understand why she was so out of breath. She felt herself sink another inch or two and groaned, Black*Star and Tsubaki falling from her arms.

She fell face first into the sand and couldn't keep her eyes open. Rudra passed out, her last thoughts about her sister. Soon after, Tsubaki was on her feet; her hands were grasping the kusarigama that came from her ponytail, and she was shakily pointing it at an unconscious Rudra.

What the hell were they? Why were they working with Arachnophobia, why did they break Maka? What were they going to do with Soul? She inched closer to the sleeping weapon, coiled like a snake about to strike. If she killed Rudra here and now, what effect would it have? It would ruin all of their plans, as it probably required the combined strength of the weapons. It would devastate Agni, and it could possibly make her ineffective in the fight that Tsubaki knew was coming.

But what good would it do? There were so many possibilities, but Tsubaki didn't think it outweighed killing her. For now, she decided that Rudra was better to them alive. She knelt down beside her and wrapped her tightly in the chain of her kusarigama. She turned to attend her meister, who was sweating bullets and turning fitfully. She didn't know what Rudra did to him, but she would pay for it when they got back to Death City.

"I think you know what we want you to do." Rudra seemed much different than she had before she was chained to the table. Her eyes were dark and it looked as if her hair was growing as the interrogation went on. She was refusing to answer them, under the pretense that 'surely you could beg better than that'. She sneered at Stein again, regretting her choice to be brought back here. She was being interrogated, chained up, and Stein had even tried to hurt her with his wavelength.

He was repaid with a bloody needle piercing his arm. She had been smiling ever since. He sighed wearily before sitting back in his chair. He took his cigarette from his mouth and tried to puff out a perfect smoke ring, only for his efforts to be thwarted every time; his suspicions were confirmed when he saw Rudra's finger shooting out little bursts of air at just the right time. He put it out against his heel, deciding that he needed a break. He stood up and adjusted his coat before exiting her little dungeon room.

Why did they have a dungeon, the question came back to her and she chuckled. Now she knew why; they built it for people like her, who they couldn't kill but hated. She had been repulsed by the idea of Crona living here - but now she understood why. They stuck him in here because he wasn't eating human souls anymore, but they couldn't forget such a serious transgression that easily. She pulled against the chains again, making them clank and echo noisily. Her mind began to wander, her left hand holding the chains of her right hand, when the door opened.

"I didn't expect this. To what do I owe this visit?"

Death the Kid felt much like her at the moment; he regretted coming here. Why did Stein send for him? He frowned, sitting down in the chair across from her. He saw her hand holding one of the chains and felt a pang of sympathy - if only for the fact that a wind spirit never liked being chained. He reached over to her and set down the key, and she slowly slid it back to her and undid the cuffs. She let out a sigh of relief before throwing her hand over her shoulder, the hair that had grown falling off immediately. She gave him a smile and a thumbs up.

"Thanks. I hate when it gets too long. So, like I asked, what would Death the Kid want with me?"

"Do you have any friends here?" Her eyes clouded with confusion, unsure of his direct tone. She danced around the question for a few minutes, wondering if she should give him a bullshit answer or if she should tell him straight. She chose for something inbetween.

"Not anymore."

She squirmed under his gaze, and his fingers threaded together and came to rest in front of his mouth, elbows propped up on the table. Agni and Rudra feared very few in this world, but among them were the reapers. If he so chose, he could force her to transform and suck her soul out from the handle of her weapon. It was terrifying, to think one individual held such a power to make humans and weapons alike stop in their tracks.

"Why did you come back, then?"

"You really wanna know?" It was a full five minutes before she had bothered to reply, but she got his attention. Of course he wanted to know; he wanted to know everything. Why bother coming back? She had the kishin, she had a plan. Why would she return to the place she was being hunted, if only to seek punishment.

It never dawned on him that she would do something reckless like this. Treason was a word that came to mind, but he reminded himself that she had never been on their side in the first place; she came here to twist a soul into a kishin, and to do that, she had to get close to people. It must be a sham, this whole act must be fake.

"Maka Albarn was our target. She was gonna be our kishin; but her soul was too pure, and we abandoned her. She's been swimming in her own madness for weeks. We destroyed her life; she was gonna go on a trip with her mom, she was gonna make Soul into a Death Scythe. And if I had anything to do with it, her and Soul were totally gonna get married and have cute kids. But we ruined that. And then Soul slipped up somewhere, and we dug our fangs in him and we broke him, too.

"But the worst part of this is that I really shouldn't care. My mission was to destroy their lives anyway, right? I was going to destroy their lives, and Kilik would never get to box again, and Black*Star would never surprass whatever the hell there is left to surpass, and you'll never surpass your father. No one would be able to do what they were fated to do, if I did what I was told to. I can sacrifice that. I don't know what'll become of me, or my sis, but saving Black*Star and Tsubaki and coming back here is the only thing I think I've ever done right."

Her brow was pinched, and she was staring at a particular point on the table with an intense look of confusion and guilt. He hadn't expected her to admit that she had no reason to care about the damage she had done; and he certainly didn't expect her to feel bad about it.

For one of the first times, he was able to see the soul surrounding her. He leaned back inconspicuously in his chair and gave it a good once-over; he was startled to see what resembled a shrunken head with its lips pulled into a stitched grimace. Her soul was blue, and its eyes were boring into him. How the hell had no one noticed before? He was staring at it, the eyes drawing him in. She was calling his name, but he ignored her. Suddenly, the soul was replaced with a small, blue-ish glowing ball in her chest.

"It's a mock-up of soul protect. I'm surprised it got by everyone for so long."

"Oh, it didn't." Her spine was rigid and her eyes were dark again. If she were an animal, she would be growling and hissing. Stein had come back, and Kid had to wonder what it was that made her so nervous around him. He took a deep drag from his cigarette before he was suddenly behind her. Rudra was rigid as a board, his fingers wrapping around her neck to tighten a collar to it. The smoke that had been dispersed by her aura, but it was stagnant the moment the collar was attached.

"Lord Death wants to see you. Everyone's got questions for you."