A/N: Was anybody surprised by who the patient is? Heheh... Time to begin unfolding the tale.

Part 1

'What would he say if he knew I was about to put a knife to his skin again...?'

"I hope you don't mind my filling in," Naigus said, bringing Stein back to the present again.

He sighed through his nose as he shifted his stance slightly, allowing the overhead light to better illuminate the gravely injured body that lie before him, and then he brought the scalpel down to tidy one of the more jagged wounds.

There wasn't a person at the academy from their day who wouldn't know exactly how Spirit would feel about this. Had he been conscious he would have panicked at the idea of being operated on by his former meister. He might demand a different surgeon, or more likely simply flee.

Stein couldn't help the tiniest smirk at the imagined scene of his former partner insisting he'd be fine without surgery and then passing out cold from blood loss. It wouldn't be the first time. But the smirk vanished as he could clearly hear Spirit's unspoken words in his mind. He knew the death scythe would rather have anyone but him.

And yet here Stein was, in a position that would have brought him elation in the past. Now it only brought pain.

"I'm glad you're here," he replied to Naigus's comment.

"You've already met the new nurse," she said, a question in her voice.

"I would rather work with people I know," he said plainly.

'And there's just something about that woman...'

He shook off the thought and returned his focus to the task at hand. He held the flesh secure with forceps as he deftly trimmed off millimeters where the enemy's weapon had done the most damage. It would make the scars less prominent when he stitched them up, and perhaps easier to hide over time.

Who was he kidding? His former weapon partner would still throw a fit afterward when he found out it had been him to operate. And Stein would endure his panicked ranting, the accusations of crimes committed against his person (new and old), and the alienation that would surely follow.

Stein had few regrets in his warped, twisted life. Lying to his only real friend for five years was one of them.

But none of that changed his present responsibility. It was his fault Spirit was lying there with greater injuries than when they had actually been partners. And he had to make sure he came out of it, no matter the personal consequences.

"It was Griffin."

Naigus gasped. "What?"

Stein wondered suddenly, in Spirit's last moments of consciousness, if he had begun loathing him again already.

It was an image he would never erase from his brain, of his one-time partner transforming out of weapon form after the blow had been struck, watching as the damage the enemy had been doing to the scythe's blade became a bloody reality, and the scream of pain that now echoed in his mind split the morning air. Spirit's consciousness had already been slipping away even before the cry died on his lips, and with instincts both vanishing and taking over, Stein had caught him as he fell, ignoring the enemy mere feet away who was sure to finish them both.

He couldn't recall any other moment like it in his life. He was paralyzed for what to do as he sat in the sand, his arms wrapped around his former friend and holding on tighter as he felt his soul begin to slip away, his blood soaking both of their clothes.

Had the instinctive, protective embrace disgusted his former partner?

'I screwed up.'

Stein sighed and glanced up briefly from his work to Naigus's curious but kind eyes.

"Lord Death called me to the Death Room late last night..."

The night before...

"With the surfacing of the Demon Sword and this mysterious witch, we cannot afford to take any threat lightly," Lord Death began without preamble.

At his right, Spirit stood with his hands in his pockets. He nodded lightly in grave agreement, but Stein noted the smallest upward turn of his lips.

'So they already discussed this without me.'

"I want you to take Death Scythe and go to the Forsaken Plains."

He was embarrassed to have flinched slightly. He didn't need Lord Death to go on to know what their assignment was. His gazed flicked to Spirit, who was staring him down.

Yes, he was definitely the last to know about this new task. And for good reason.

"The Invisible Man has been a thorn in our side for too long. I want you to eliminate him."

There was no stopping the wave of remembrance that washed over his mind at the mention of the madman, and for a brief moment he felt nearly mad himself—voices in his head of overlapping arguments and confrontations, insistent pleading, curiosities... All in memories that he had locked away for over a decade. There was no need to access them again.

"Can you do that for me, Stein?"

'Is this a test?'

"Yes. We can go immediately, unless you have any objections," Stein said, looking over at Spirit.

His former partner stepped down from his place next to Lord Death and passed in front of him before taking position at his right.

"Good. I look forward to your report of a swift conclusion to this matter."

"I never met him, before," Naigus said.

"He left a few months before you entered our class," Stein replied.

"It's never come up between Sid and I... Can I ask...why something wasn't done to stop him, before..."

"Before the incident?" Stein finished.

He glanced up again and saw the same kindness and curiosity, but also a hardness to Naigus's eyes. He knew that someone as by the book as she was would have insisted on nipping the problem in the bud. He hummed to himself in brief amusement, knowing the pair of them would not make good long-term partners.

"Perhaps it was simply naivete. Before Griffin, there had never been a threat from one of the DWMA's own."

Naigus was silent. He glanced up again and could see the swarm of questions behind her gaze, and hoped she would not ask. It was enough to know that the academy had simply chosen not to pursue and kill one of their students who went mad, and was at worst a mild threat.

Or, so he had thought.

He focused again on the more pressing job of tending Spirit's injuries. The deeper ones he was forced to probe into, to look for any sign of foreign contaminant. He did not find the work difficult, though it was meticulous.

Naigus would surely call him mad if he were to mention that he remembered this body. Of the countless operations and experiments he had performed in his lifetime, and despite the fact that all human bodies were anatomically the same...the inside of this body, he knew. It was as familiar to him as his own skin.

Spirit would hate that.

At least it made the task easier as he carefully picked particles of sand and torn fabric from Spirit's shirt out of one of the deeper wounds. This one had gone down to the bone, and Stein paused a moment to awe at the glimpse he had of the steady rise and fall of the lungs beneath the ribs. He glanced at the heart monitor that showed the greatly slowed rate, as Spirit was heavily anesthetized and drugged to stop him from bleeding out.

Stein had known from memory exactly how much of each drug to administer.

"So what happened this morning?"

Stein glanced at Naigus as he used the forceps to set a few green threads aside on the tray, and then pushed his glasses up with the back of his hand. He was sweating, again. That wasn't like him.

'I screwed up.'

"We left immediately."