Chapter Six: The Moon

"Fly me to the moon; let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. In other words hold my hand; in other words, darling, kiss me."

"What song is that?" Jacob asked.

She'd drifted off in the silence that had lapsed between them. She came back to reality and heard the low murmur of a dozen conversations that filtered in and out of Deathbucks Café. She blinked at Jacob sitting across from her blowing on his tea. He looked up through his bangs when he noticed she was gaping at him. "Albarn-sensei?"

"Eh?" she voiced.

"Are you dreaming?"

"I'm…" she was a lot of things. Lethargic, not sleeping properly, not eating properly, annoyed, angry—and yet her work was flourishing with all of the frustrated energy she'd been pouring into it. Michael Lee learned to avoid her the past few days. Unbeknownst to her he described her as "intense" and "scary."

"You were singing a while ago. It sounds familiar." Jacob began to hum it, trying to place it, eventually shook his hair in resignation and drank his tea.

Maka mumbled, "I don't remember." She crossed her ankles and wiggled her toes on the inside of her sneakers. The motion reminded her of the groceries by her feet that she had picked up just as Jacob spied her and asked her out for a little. It was partially out of guilt that she agreed, but she was welcome to friendly company.

Jacob was disappointed when she told him of her reassignment, but he took it well and found a meister soon after. "I wanted to be a meister or an autonomous weapon, but I really liked being partnered up with you so I decided to give one of my classmates a shot when he asked," he told her one afternoon. It had been a few weeks since then.

"How's your partner?"

"He's alright. I think we're friends now. We've started fighting a lot."

Maka giggled. The idea reminded her of Soul and their arguments and then of their latest spat. She sobered, sighed, sipped, slipped out of reality. Half an hour later she was alone again taking her time up the stairs to DWMA. The sunset's light was on her back. She was nibbling on a piece of chocolate and took the stairs two at a time. She was counting to keep her mind clear.

"Fifty-two, fifty-four, fifty-six, fifty-eight," she started taking them three at a time. "Sixty-eight, seventy-one, seventy-three, seventy-six."

She had purchased a white shirt and jeans trousers to spend the night at school after her bath. She didn't want to go home. She hadn't been home for a week.

Her thoughts were tottering towards self-pity when she exited the showers. She was pulling her hair into a ponytail when she crossed paths with Michael Lee. "Miss Albarn," he called.

"You're still here?"

"I was planning on spending the night."

Begrudgingly, "So was I."

"Ah, I see. That's perhaps just as well. I've sent the others home. There's no reason you and I couldn't work in the same space."

He was mature, for which she was thankful.

When Maka discovered him again at midnight she found him listening to blood samples. She asked him what he was doing.

"Listening to blood samples," he replied.

She hesitated to ask her question again.

"The Black Blood is independent, you wrote that in one of the journals you presented, isn't that so?"

"In part," Maka attempted to recollect exactly what she had written. "In my initial battles against the Black Blood, every aspect was weaponized and returned to the body that it was infused with. But the Black Blood is not independent, it cannot truly act on its own."

"Yes, I agree, it's like a virus, it needs a host to thrive."

Maka bristled. "I wouldn't call it a virus," she began in the defense of Chrona and Soul.

Michael Lee paused and removed his thumb from under his chin. It was then that he remembered with whom he was speaking. He promptly apologized but it was as a matter of formality, stuffy and emotionless. Maka grew irritated at such a response but listened as Michael Lee went on: "Because of the accounts of the Black Blood having a separate soul I was curious if I could find soul frequencies in the samples collected. Unlike you and Stein-hakase, I don't have Soul Perception so I need to use other means."

"Hence you were…listening for soul frequencies?"

"Not unlike the Last Death Scythe's ability to convert soul wavelengths into sound waves, I was trying to create a similar affect in the lab. Of course it's a very rustic prototype but it's worked in my trial runs." Maka observed the machine he indicated to. It was a reinterpreted analogue radio taken apart and had pieces added onto it. In its wired paraphernalia she recognized a gauge of sorts that was, as of the moment, dead.

"What makes you think that these samples have a wavelength? They've been without a connection to anyone with the Black Blood for years." It's true it retains some bizarre properties but none that were vaguely threatening or even helpful, Maka thought. And what's more is that its dead here without Chrona.

Michael Lee said, "You're right. I would need a live sample."

Maka blinked.

"Can you request on my behalf an audience with the Last Death Scythe?"

She answered, "I'm sure he would answer if you asked him directly." She evaded.

Lee frowned in curiosity. "Soul Eater is your partner, is he not? As a member of the Black Blood research there's none as qualified to ask for his time as you."

She sighed her consent before marching off to her half of the room. Michael Lee watched her a moment in speculation and returned to the task at hand: he would have to perfect this instrument for the actual experiment.

"That's In Other Words by Frank Sinatra isn't it?" Michael Lee appeared in front of her desk with two mugs. He set one down next to her paperwork. This was hours after they last spoke. The question and the gesture floored her. She did nothing but stare at the mug for a while, identified it as hot chocolate.

"Excuse me?" she said eventually, sounding almost winded.

"The song that you were humming," he clarified and sat in a nearby chair. "It's an old song performed by a myriad of musicians but popularized by Frank Sinatra."

She was singing again? She sipped the chocolate. She murmured her thanks. Lee inclined his head in response. He said conversationally, "You never struck me as the sort to listen to jazz music."

"I'm not…I don't, it's my partner," she stopped. "You're talking to me."

"An astute observation."

"You've never spoken to me—truly—before," she went on.

"Ah, well, yes. That's true."

"I thought you hated me."

"Hate? No." He sipped his coffee. According to Lord Death I'm frightened.

"I've had my head cleared out by one of your teammates recently. Havar, I believe his name was. He made me realize that I was upset at you because of your pedigree."

"My…?" she was ready to take offense. Was he comparing her to a dog? A well-bred dog?

"Your father is a Death Scythe, your mother a respected technician from whom you inherited your abilities, your best friend Lord Death himself, your partner the Last Death Scythe; you struck me as the odd one out in this assemblage. I assumed that you were only on the Spartoi team because you had friends in high places."

Maka said lowly over the rim of her mug, "And now?"

"Now? Actually, I rather like you."

Her eyebrows rose. She sensed doubt in him, but she felt truth as well. "And Soul?" she asked.

"What of your partner?"

"Do you like him?"

"By extension."

They were silent a moment. Her newfound comrade asked suddenly, "Is he the reason you haven't gone home?"

She flinched.

"After all these years you'd think you two would get along."

Did they? She wondered. She was in the middle of questioning herself as a technician. It was as Michael Lee said, actually, even if he hadn't meant it in the following: was her power her own or was it a result of her heritage and who was around her? Her Soul Perception, her anti-demon wavelength, her natural capabilities as a mesiter, they were hereditary. Her strength on the battlefield was drawn from her friends. She constantly relied on Soul. All she had to call her own were her books and her courage and the latter, though she was praised for it, seemed to hold no real power at all.

And now that Soul had been wielded by Lord Death, now that he had had the truest of all meisters, she felt that he doubted her as his. She felt incapable. She felt redundant. She felt unworthy, and that was the strangest word she could find that struck so close to her heart. She had felt this way before, so many times before. But who was she? Jacob had said she didn't stand out—she only went on missions as a last resort and spent most of her time researching, reading, and teaching while her comrades were ambassadors and inventors at the frontiers of the new age.

Her despair descended into her stomach.

"I'm going to get some rest in the infirmary," Maka alerted Lee.

"Alright." He was quickly engrossed in his own findings.

Maka walked through the hallways with a flashlight as a solitary guide. Where there were windows moonlight was provided. She didn't need it besides, too acquainted with the innards of Shibusen. The infirmary door was unlocked—had Nygus left it so out of habit for Maka's benefit?—and threw herself into the first bed she saw and cried.