Eventide

Chapter X

Everything had gone so quickly. One second I was running and the next I was on the ground with the Kishin on top of me, and the next second, I was gone, just drifting around.

Soul came to my mind, what will he think now when I'm dead? Would he be sad or mad? Most likely he would be mad because he lost his Grigori Meister, now he can't control me anymore. Maybe this was for the best for him, now he will finally be free from me and do whatever he wants.

It feels like someone punched me in my stomach. It hurts, I don't want him to be relieved about my sudden pass. I do like him, especially now when he has opened up to me, but there is still so much I want to know from him. It was wrong for me to lash out on him like that. It isn't my business to get into their fight, it wasn't about me so I shouldn't hold it against him. It is their thing to work out.

I regret it so much.

The darkness slowly goes away and is replaced with light. The light grows brighter and brighter and voices penetrate the silence.

"―aka."

"Are you for real? She actually did that?" Who is that? It sounds like a male's voice.

"Yeah, I know what I saw." That's Soul.

"Do you realize what crap she has gotten us into? This will put everyone in danger!" That's Jaqueline. Disgusting bitch.

I groan and I find myself looking up at a very high wooden ceiling with spider web where the leaning walls met each other.

"Maka." Tsubaki says and moves into my vision. "You are awake. It was about time."

I yawn and I support myself on my arms. Tsubaki lays her hand on my shoulder. "You shouldn't move too much. You got badly wounded and even if Stein healed you up, it will still hurt a little and be sore."

"What are you t―" I let out a chocked cry. My stomach twig with pain and immediately I lay down in the comfortable covers of the bed.

How am I alive? What wound?

"I know what you are thinking." Soul says and he moves toward me, taking a seat on the bed with his hands in his pockets. Why isn't he touching me? Is it because Jaqueline is here? I could really need just holding his hand. "Hiro is fine and both Kishins are dead. He went home after the fight ended." Oh Hiro wouldn't just walk away like that from me. Soul must have been quite mean toward him if he just left. Who knows what they got into when I was out.

"What is the last thing you remember?" Tsubaki asks quickly.

I raise my eyebrow and look at her. "I don't really know. I remembered everything turned really, really cold and then the Kishin was on top of me, then I was wrapped up in unbearable warmth and then everything turned dark." My eyes narrows. This is the right time. "And why didn't you tell me there is a fourth Meister type. If you thought I was a Grigori, then why didn't you tell me about it?"

"I can answer that." Soul says, not looking into my eyes. "Remember when the Kishin had cut you in your leg?" Oh yeah, that. My leg had been mysteriously healed when I was supposed to change the bandages. "You had been overwhelmed with the information. I couldn't just keep drowning you in more, especially with something like this. You needed time for yourself and when you were ready, I was going to tell you more."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, now tell her about what you saw. You can't keep this a secret from her, not when she is their main target." Kilik says. "We can't keep tiptoeing around the subject. Our suspicions were confirmed so now we need to deal with it."

Soul growls irritatingly. "Yes I will. Can we at least get some peace and quiet? Everyone doesn't need to stand here like snowmen. Go and work out or something."

"Actually," A blond girl with very long hair steps forward, "You promised you would handle the situation with her and you failed. Twice. I think we have every right to stay here and make sure you get the job done."

Huh? What does she mean? What exactly did he fail at doing with me?

Soul curses and runs his hand through his hair. "Just leave! That's an order! I will tell her everything. It will be hard enough explaining it to her and she doesn't need to have an audience."

"You heard the man." Black*Star hollers. "Let's give them privacy. We all need to train after the night we all had." Black*Star pushes the Thompson sister away. Kilik rolls his eyes and grabs Chrona's arm and pulls him away. The rest leaves without any means of force. Except one little bitch.

"I'm staying." Jaqueline crosses her arms and stands her ground.

"For the love of―" Soul growls and stands up from the bed. "You aren't going to stay. Now stop being difficult and go and join the others in the gym."

Jaqueline's face turns first to hurt before her eyes spark with anger. Her anger is then directed at me, she gives me the most hateful look she can muster before she snorts and walk away from us.

"I'm staying." I turn toward my right and I almost gasp in shock. There is a grey haired man standing behind me with a giant screw going through his head! He has stitches going through his face and he wears a giant white lab coat, not a doctor's rob! What the heck is he?! "I think I'm the most suitable to explain her medical condition."

Soul sighs and takes a seat again on the bed. "Sure, whatever."

"And I'm stay too." I look right behind me and I see Soul's brother Wes stands behind me. "You know my presence here is needed. I need to make sure she has all the information she needs and make sure you do your job properly."

I hear a small sneer coming from Soul. "I chose to not tell you anything about the Grigories because you are a smart girl. I know you would draw some parallels between you and Grigori Meisters and you weren't ready to deal with that kind of information." Soul ignores Wes and keeps explaining. "Before I tell you what happened when we fought the Kishins, you need to know for us to be able to kill a Kishin, we are not only required to use Soul Force, we need to be in the spiritual world where the Kishins residence in order to kill them. By entering the spiritual world, we need to switch place between our heart and soul, and that way we switch between a physical body and our spiritual one." Soul's eyes meet with mine for the first time, and I know why his left eye is bruised. It is a deep purple color. He didn't get that during the fight with the Kishins. Hiro must have done it. "When we are in spiritual world, we are exposed to their world and that is why everything feels so cold since we don't have the warm of our physical body."

"So that was what I was feeling? I turned to my spiritual body?" I ask and Soul nods. Soul's hand gets out from his pocket and his hand finds mine. I almost want to scream in joy when his warm fingers entwine with mine and I find myself utterly at peace.

"Yes. Somehow you managed to find your soul and manage to switch to your spiritual body. That is when the Kishin drove itself insane. Your wavelength was exposed and it got pass Hiro and ran for you. When it got to you, it dug its claws into your stomach and that is when you used Soul Force on it. Your whole body lit up instead of just your hand, the Kishin turned to ashes before the Soul Force even hit him." Soul's thumb caresses my hand and I squeeze his hand back, showing that I encourage us to hold hands.

"What does this mean for me?" I ask.

A spark of sadness flies in his eyes and he let down his poker face. He bites his lower lip and slowly he shakes his head. "This means you are in danger like never before. You switched into your spiritual form in the middle of the city, meaning you exposed everyone your wavelength, every Kishin inside of the city felt your wavelength and now they know there is a Grigori. Kishins will drive toward the city which will put the civilian in danger. Other Meisters will pick up on this and they will hunt for you as well. You aren't just in danger for Kishins, but for Meisters as well." Soul squeezes my hand and he moves closer to me. "That is why I'm h― we are here. We want to protect you. I consider you a part of my group and we take care of each other."

Tears burn my eyes.

My whole life I put my family and friends in danger, the few friends I had at least. My mother died because of me and my father is an alcoholic because of me. He hates me because of me.

And now, I put the whole city in danger because of me. I put innocent people in danger of the Kishins and I put Soul in danger. I'm a burden to everyone.

"Maka." Soul whispers and he reach over to me, wiping away tears I didn't know were there. "Tell me what is on your mind." His hand gently caresses my cheek and I lean into his touch. I shouldn't be this attached to someone who isn't my boyfriend.

"Okay!" Wes exclaims. "Stein, I think you will have to explain some other time, these two obviously need some time alone." Stein is about to protest but Wes quickly drags him away from Soul and I.

"I feel like a burden. For my whole life I put my family in danger and my mother died because of me. Now I have put so many innocent people in danger, I don't know how I'm going to deal with everything." I sniffle and more tears trickle down my cheeks.

Soul quickly wipes away my tears. "Then protect them, learn how to control your soul and fight Kishins with everything you got. You can save lives with your powers. You can run away but what will that do? You will get more people killed that way than staying and fighting against them."

Soul's eyes pierce mine. His eyes are so strong and filled with fire, the fire to keep fighting. My heart fills with joy and I feel, just maybe, maybe I can actually be a Meister. Maybe I can actually protect people.

"Do you really think I can be a Meister? Do you really think I can do it?"

Soul chuckles and moves closer to me, only a small amount of air separates us. "Of course I do. I have never doubted you." Soul smiles a real smile, not his damned smirk or anything, a real smile with his lips and his eyes. "The sun is up. The Kishins are gone for now."

My eyes widen. My father. Oh my! He must have sobered up by now! "Oh no!" I exclaim and get up too quickly since my stomach jabs with pain. Soul quickly lowers me down on the bed.

"Relax Maka. You can call your father and say you are with Tsubaki. You aren't fully healed yet to be moving around."

"Then get Tsubaki or Stein and get me fully healed! I have to leave! My father must be worried―" That is a lie. I know my father wouldn't be concern, he wouldn't even notice I was gone. All he does is work and drink. That is all he does and quite frankly, he should hate me for letting him drink for my own benefit. I let him drink so he will be too drunk to leave the house at night. I'm an awful daughter. "Just forget what I said."

Soul slowly nods, looking confused at me, but he did let it go. "When you are ready to talk about your family, I'm ready for it." Soul drops his hands from my cheeks and his eyes also drops, but they stay at our hands. "But there is something I want to talk about." Soul lifts his eyes and he looks into mine with sorrow. "I want to come clean about something."

I raise my eyebrow and look confused at him. "What is it?"

"You have to promise you will hear me out. You can't interrupted me or question me, you have to hear everything out before you say anything. Clear?"

Geez, he sounds like the Soul that leads his gang, not the Soul knew, although, through that, I can see the twinkle of fear in his eyes. "Okay, I promise."

Soul inhales deeply as if to gather strength. "I lied to you about cheating on you. I was never with Jaqueline. That same afternoon I was here at the barn with the others. There had been activities of another Meister group around Death City and we didn't want them to grow suspicious of you, so they all told me to break up with you in order to protect you―"

My eyes widen, but I don't interrupt him. I had given him my word and I intend to keep it, but, this. I had no clue he would tell me this. My heart beats fast and I feel like crying, if it is tears of joy or sorrow, I have no idea.

"― didn't want to lie to your or break up with you. That was the least I wanted. I would rather take you to the barn and keep you there until they had gone away, but I knew keeping you away from us was the greatest disguise for you." Soul squeezes my hand and he pushes hair strands behind my ear. His face is so close to mine. "These few days apart from you made me open my eyes. I know I was gone a lot because of Meisters stuff, but hearing you say that you didn't know me, it really made me realize how little you actually knew me and how much I wanted you to know me." His finger follows my jaw before he gently cups my cheek. "What my biggest discovery was just how attached I had gotten to you. I discovered that I did not just like you or had a small crush on you, I came to discover that I'm very close at falling terribly in love with you."

That is the moment I actually think my heart leaped out of my chest and left me. Did he just say what I thought he said? So he doesn't just like me, he is falling in love with me while I just like him even though I don't know him. How can he be so attached to me?

"Okay, can you say something? Anything really." Soul says. His cheeks are pink as he gently scratches his cheek. He is insecure! Him! Soul Eater! He is nervous around me of all people! Wow, that is kind of… astonishing.

"I don't really know what to say." I confess. "It's just, you really hurt me when you lied to me."

"I know and I'm very sorry. Please, let me make it up to you. I can take you out on a date and I promise I will be upfront about everything. You will get to know me for who I actually am and maybe we could start off our relationship again." Soul says. His eyes sparkle with hope. His jaw is tense, he is waiting for my answer.

What should I say? Do I even want to get back together with him? Oh, who the heck am I kidding, I have wanted him back and now when it proves to have been fake, I want him back right now. It would be unethical of me to go back to him without truly knowing who he is, maybe I will wait with getting back together with him and see where things go after this date. Who knows, it could spark something new.

"Okay, I will give you another chance, but we aren't going to get together until I get to know you better." I lean toward him and smile playfully, poking his nose. "If you stand me up this time without an explanation, you bet I will kick your ass to the curb."

Soul looks alarmed when I poked his nose, totally unprepared for it. A large grin grows on his face and he cups my face. "Deal. You bet I won't ever stand you up again." Soul's lips collide with mine and his lips move eagerly against mine, which I full-heartedly return without any doubts clouding my mind.