A/N: Slightly shorter chapter. The story continues to unfold~

Part 3

"Please, help me talk him out of this. I don't know who he is anymore," the emotional, female voice said. "This is all too crazy. If he doesn't stop I...I don't think he can be my partner anymore."

The others in the room gasped. Stein had been about to protest at the same time his other two peers began voicing their agreement, the small group sitting in the classroom after hours discussing their colleague who had been absent from class again.

And then, in an instant, Stein felt the presence of another soul. One that was bleeding evil from somewhere deep within. It startled him to his feet. But before he could speak, the younger meister across the room in front of him suddenly fell with a cry of pain and blood spurting from the back of her head.

"What!? Sachiko!" Marie cried next to him, also standing. Stein felt a cold shiver of fear race over his skin as he saw the weak soul in the room that the others couldn't. And he watched as the girl's body on the floor convulsed with each invisible blow that was struck, brutally and deliberately, her blood beginning to stain the wooden floor.

"What's happening!?"

"It...it must be Griffin! Griffin, stop!"

"He's not turning visible this time. What should we do?"

"Stein can you see his soul? Is he there?" Marie asked.

Stein stared at the wavering, pulsing soul that appeared to be without a body. He was fascinated at the same time he stood in shock of what was occurring, as blows continued to be struck. Finally...Griffin had succeeded in his experiments.

"If you see him, hit him with your soul wavelength!"

The girl on the floor had stopped screaming, and her body stilled. Yet the blows continued to be rained down upon her, her limbs jerking unnaturally with each impact.

"I'm...not...crazy!" a familiar, disembodied voice said, causing them all to take a step back.

"Stein!" Marie shouted desperately, shaking his arm.

He couldn't move. As he stared in a combination of fascination and horror, he felt his own wavelength faltering. The power he had instinctively begun to call into his strangely clammy hands at his classmate's suggestion was weak.

"What are you waiting for!?" Marie cried.

"I'll get help!" their junior said, turning and fleeing the classroom.

"You should come with me, you know," Griffin's voice sounded eerily from above the body of his meister, the blows finally having stopped. "You know you're better than all of them. You know you're just like me."

"Stein?"

He wasn't sure how many seconds passed between Griffin's chilling request and the sound of the running footsteps of the teacher their junior had found to help. All he was certain of was Marie crying into his ear as he watched the soul that now seemed to bleed evil from within flee the room, while the blood of the slain girl who had trusted her weapon pooled across the classroom floor.

"Usually it's just robbery, and the occasional injury from an attacker no one could see," Spirit answered. Then he yawned and stretched broadly, his knuckles nearly glancing Stein's cheek. "So I guess he's still invisible."

"That won't be a problem," Stein said.

Spirit glanced at him, and Stein was gratified to see the briefest of smirks on his former partner's face.

"Lord Death said the incidents have been more bold in the last several months. Before that it was just two or three a year. I wonder what changed."

They were far outside Death City now and had nearly reached the border of the dried slough. Together they observed the tall, impassible wall of stalk-like grass that rose in front of them and wondered how to proceed. Beyond it, golden light was just beginning to touch the sky.

"I was hoping we wouldn't have to go through that, but I guess the intelligence reports were wrong," Spirit commented. Then he glanced at Stein with a raised eyebrow. "He's not here?"

Stein dropped his cigarette and put it out under his shoe as he shook his head no. The only soul he could sense remotely nearby was Spirit's.

"Well, I guess I can transform and you can 'reap' some of this useless grass, haha," Spirit joked.

Stein couldn't help the small smile that came to his lips at the sound of Spirit's laughter. He turned toward him, about to comment. But then as if struck by lightning, everything changed in an instant.

Spirit's laughter was replaced with an involuntary grunt of pain. In a scene that was frighteningly familiar, Stein watched as something unseen struck the side of Spirit's head, causing him to stumble, and tiny droplets of blood flew into the air as his former weapon partner fell and hit the ground with a thud. And as a disembodied voice he knew began laughing from mere feet away, he found himself frozen as he had been before, but this time from fear.

Spirit wasn't moving.

As the horrible laughter continued, a memory—the image of a girl's body filling with wounds from a brutal beating—suddenly snapped Stein out of the involuntary paralysis. He crossed the distance between he and Spirit in two strides and planted a foot on either side of the fallen weapon, standing in a defensive stance over him as his eyes darted around the landscape.

In one direction, he was trapped by the dense dry slough grass as far as the eye could see. In another the butte rose out of the sandy terrain, serving as another barrier to escape. Various trees and shrubs that were peppered around them could provide a quick but temporary hiding place if necessary. And back to the west and its black horizon lie the open desert that would take them home to the DWMA.

The disembodied laughter continued, echoing off the rising stone walls of the butte and making it seem as if the sound was coming from all around him. Stein continued glancing around trying to pinpoint the source and desperately seeking a strategy, but inevitably his gaze kept falling to the man who lie unmoving beneath him.

"You can't protect him that way," a voice said, so close that it startled him.

Stein grit his teeth and closed his eyes. The voice was more mature, but it carried the same misguided mixture of confidence and arrogance he remembered.

"Griffin."