It was lunchtime at Shibusen. It was always a chaotic time at the school, one that threaten to drown the more introverted miesters. Various students rushed about, shouting at the top of their lungs about their latest mission or conquest. Chrona herself, found she was no closer in her personal mission of finding a new place of residence. It was nice that Kid was willing to hear her request, with nary a judgmental look. Instead, he too seem perturbed that the dungeons deep within the school had signs of use.

"I see." Kid concluded as he walked to the cafeteria with Chrona. "I don't know who could have been in your room before you. As far as I know you're the first guest we've had." He didn't want to think too hard about what might have been down there.

"Oh." Chrona didn't want to seem ungrateful, but she couldn't help but slouch at the notion that nothing would change. Even a little information might have eased the gnawing feeling that something might be lurking in the shadows of her cell. She could feel Kid staring at her, which only made her curl in on herself further. The long silence between them was only further punctuated by roar of the lunch-room.

"Who knows, it could have been Black Star." Kid tried to offer the most reasonable, and non-threatening explanation that he could.

"Why would he be in my room!" Chrona fretted. Her friend Maka had told her there was a ninja in her group of friends, but she never wanted to become his next target. Imagining the easily excitable warrior hiding around a corner was enough to make the poor girl hyperventilate. Logically, she knew that he meant no harm, but his overly friendly actions were deeply upsetting to the pink-haired miester. Kid shook his head.

"He used to come here to train on the steps when he was younger. It could be that he played in the rooms of the school as well." She let out a sigh of relief as they walked toward their respective tables. "Library. After school." Kid reminded before sitting with Liz and Patty.

"Chrona!" Maka called. "Over here." Maka was a chipper, blonde with a pale haired scythe as a partner. Easily the smartest kid in school, Maka was determined to be the youngest student to create a weapon for Lord Death. It was a shock that she had chosen such an under achieving weapon like Soul to be her partner. The only thing he worked hard at was the illusion that nothing interested him. Perhaps it was a form of self defense? If he acted like the coolest kid in school, maybe then no one would focus on his jagged, drool producing under-bite.

Chrona sat next to them and across from their two friends Black Star and Tsubaki. Tsubaki was the kindest multi use weapon Chrona had ever met, her sweet personality made it easy for her to be partnered with the loud mouthed ninja. She was one of the few people taller than Chrona, with long whip-like black hair. By contrast, Black Star's was the shortest of the group. He often over compensated with a personality that demanded to be the center of attention, as if blue hair and tattooed arms weren't enough.

Maka looked over her shoulder at Kid as he sat down with his partners.

"What was that all about?" Maka asked, all too interested in her introverted friend's blossoming social life. Chrona bit her lip, not sure what Kid wanted to keep secret about their encounters. If she told them the wrong thing, Kid might stop trusting her. The only problem was, she wasn't quite sure what the 'wrong thing' might be.

"I…Um-" Chrona stuttered. She was saved by her own weapon partner, who seemed to only appear when Chrona felt the most distressed. Her friends had long since grown accustomed to the weapons emerging from her back without any notice.

"She was just pestering Stripes about getting a new room." Ragnarok supplied lazily.

"Oh, o.k. then." Maka eyed the weapon carefully. She never could trust if the demon sword had Chrona's best interest at heart. "Well if that's all then maybe you can come over to our place to study for the upcoming test after school." Everyone rolled their eyes. Despite a major exam coming, no one wanted to think about school. With daily battles and a god of madness on the loose, studying seemed impossibly mundane.

"…after school?" Chrona muttered. For once, she had plans. "I can't!"

"Hunh? Why not?" Maka asked.

"Uh… Kid said he was going to help me with a… a project!" Chrona exclaimed. "Yeah! A project! To catch up with the rest of the class! Kid suggested that I should learn how to resonant with other people like the other students did." It did seem that everyone else her age was able to synchronize their wave lengths with at least one other person. The concept was almost completely foreign to her, having been forced to partner with Ragnarok since they were young. Fighting was a necessity form them, not something that helped strengthen their bonds with the people around them.

"I thought you didn't know how to deal with Kid?" Soul asked with mild interest. Chrona froze, she suddenly became aware of the others' stares. She began to fiddle with the folds in her dress to alleviate the stress.

"Well Maka said I should learn how to deal with more people." She bite her lip. "So I thought I could do it one person at a time?" Lying wasn't Chrona's strong suit, so instead she did her best to produce vague truths in answer to their questions.

"O.k. then." Maka chirped. With a sigh of relief, Crona poked at the food in her lunch box. Truth be told, she still didn't know how to deal with him. It was strange, meeting Maka was the closest thing to Soul Resonance that Chrona had experience. It was as if they had known each other before, perhaps they had passed each other on the street or something. When they became friends, nothing in the world made more sense, and it filled her with a warm sense of comfort. If Lord Death had permitted it, she probably would have been staying with her and Soul.

When she met Kid however, she was terrified. Medusa had said that Shinigami were soulless monsters that hunted down witches and ate their souls. All it took was a glimpse of his soul wrapped in incomplete stripes to see he was a budding Shingami; a powerful one at that. One who wanted to defeat her at all costs and bring her mission to an end permanently. There was an underlying blood lust he had that had shook her to her core. She could only assume he was a boy who had killed many like her before. That was the soul she had expected to see when she joined their school.

Instead, Kid had approached her with an awkward kindness neither of them knew what to do with. His wave length was negative, yes, but it held the same warm familiarity that she had felt with Maka. That was what scared her the more than anything.

"You know," Maka said through a mouthful of food. "If you're going to resonance with another person you should first study souls." The bookish blonde was still trying to encourage her friends to share her enjoyment of learning. It was a pattern that brought Chrona comfort.

"Won't she just end up further behind?" Tsubaki asked.

"Actually, if she doesn't, she'll probably fail the class." Maka shook her head sagely.

"What! I don't want to fail!" Chrona pouted.

"That's why you have to start with the basics." The blonde smiled and gently held Chrona's hand. "If you jump to the end of a lesson without knowing the beginning, any information you gain will be confusing."

"Oh, I see." Chrona nodded.

"So instead of jumping right into resonating, you should review phasmology." Or before studying Shinigami-sama's involvement with the magical tools, study the tools themselves.

"Thanks Maka, that helped me a lot." Chrona beamed. She felt her blood boil as Ragnarok's mood soured.

"What!" Ragnarok cried. "You thank her immediately for that?"

"Why does that bother you?" Chrona asked. Her partner paused.

"Nothing… Now give me some food!" He growled.

Kid sat in the corner table of the library while he drummed his fingers on the wood surface. He had finally gotten Chrona's help, but with what? He had hoped to ask her about the witches' role in making the magical tools, but he didn't want to scare her off.

A small cough alerted him to the presence of another person. As he glanced up, he smiled at the girl who had found him among the shadowed shelves of books.

"Chrona, you made it!" He said. Chrona nodded shyly and sunk into the chair opposite of Kid. She picked at the grooves in the wood of the table, thinking of what to say. Finally, she looked up.

"How much did you know before you asked for my help?" Chrona stuttered.

"Magical tools are dangerous items that were built by my father and the wizard Eibon. The demon that guarded it said my father helped make them in the first place. I can't fathom the reason he would be involved in something so dangerous." The whole thing was giving Kid a stress headache.

"I meant a-about the magical tools, specifically." Chrona clarified in a soft voice. The Shinigami's features softened.

"Hunh?"

"Like, do you know anything about the magical tools?" Kid stared at her in silence. "Ah! I didn't mean to insult you, but if we don't know what the tools are for, how do we know Shinigami-sama is doing something suspicious? The demon you ran into could have been misusing them and making them do bad things. If they originally were built for something silly, like a toaster, then we'd feel silly for worrying about him being… but that in itself is silly- But still we should double check... and I… I'll just stop talking… now." Chrona hid her face behind her hands. She had never rambled so long in front of someone without a weapon in hand. And he was laughing at her too, there was no way he'd want her help now. Her actions sobered Kid's laughter as he waved a dismissive hand.

"I'm sorry." He said. "I'm just relieved is all. I never considered that the tools were for something innocent." But it certainly matched up with the image of the father Kid had grown up with. Chrona relaxed a little, peaking at him through her fingers. "There may be some books that reference the tools here, searching for them will be quite the daunting task. Would you be able to help me look." Chrona nodded, though she was still unsure of how much help she could be.

They managed to find sections about the magic tools in six different books. However the books were extremely thick, the smallest over three-hundred pages. As the candles burned down to an inch of wax, the librarian corralled them toward the exit. Books in hand, the pair walked down the empty corridor towards Chrona's room under Kid's suggestion. He assumed that, even with Chrona on probation, no one would find her borrowing books on witches to be suspicious.

"Thank you again Chrona."

"No problem." She said as she adjusted her half of the texts. "I don't mind lending you the space; I have lots of spare room, and technically it's not even 'my' room."

"It's just that I don't want Liz and Patty to find the books. It would just open up too many conversations I'm not quite ready to have with them." Chrona nodded in agreement. "As much as I'm sure they'd love to help, their idea of investigating might pose more trouble for us." During their last exams, Patty had scored the highest out of all of them, with a drawing of a giraffe. He hated to think of what she'd do to a priceless reference book.

"Ragnarok, could you open the door for me?" The weapon had been surprisingly silent the entire outing, and Chrona feared he might be holding a grudge. Still, her arms were full and she doubted Kid would want to risk touching the floor with his bare hands.

"And why should I do that?" Ragnarok huffed. "Is it my fault that you spent three hours in a boring library looking for heavy books to carry? No! I-"

"Please?" Chrona's arms burned from carrying the books down four flights of stairs. Ragnarok froze mid rant and sighed.

"Fine." He pushed the metal door open.

"Thank you." She said as she entered the room.

"HOLY CRAP!" Ragnarok clapped his hand to his forehead. "Hell has froze over! My little Chrona just thanked me without prompting! Did you hear that Stripes?" The blob turned to see Kid frozen in the door way. "Stripes, You alright?" Kid's face was pale, his hands fell limp and the tomes fell to the floor. 'Oh my god.' He mouthed as he took a step back.

"Shingami-kun, what's wrong?" Chrona asked. She set the books down and rushed to his side.

"Just look at this place! I have never seen something so… so horrible! The bed is forced against the left side of the room, there's only one dresser and THAT!" He exclaimed, and pointed to the worn desk in the corner. "That table has a stain in the lower left corner!" He turned to Chrona. "You have completely understated the severity of your situation." He bowed to her. "And then he had the nerve to bolt down the furniture. Taunting bolts!" He walked over the sink, prepared to contact his father about the matter.

"Maybe we should put the books somewhere else, somewhere you'd be more comfortable." Chrona suggested. Maka had told her before that Kid had issues if things weren't perfectly symmetrical. It was part of the reason he detested that the three stripes through his bangs.

"No, this room is perfect." Kid said hollowly as he stared at his dim reflection.

"But earlier-"

"This is the only room in the school that doesn't have a mirror." He turned to face Chrona and gestured to what she had previously thought to be a dingy mirror. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he forced a smile. "The 'mirror' you have is just reflective metal, not even a polished piece at that. I wouldn't be able use it to contact my father, which means he can't see us when we're in here" Kid's knees shook as he tried to maintain his composure. The last thing he needed was for his disorder to scare her off. Chrona didn't know what she could do to calm him down, so she guided him out to hallway where he had been comfortable before. He breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the discarded books. "Sorry, I was just unprepared for... that. Tomorrow I'll be able to properly brace myself."

"T-tomorrow?" Chrona asked as she took the books from his hands. Kid nodded, meticulously straightening every button on his jacket.

"Yes, we can start going through the books tomorrow after my mission." Chrona nodded in response and shyly waved as he walked down the hall. She hauled the books into her room and closed the door.

"He's coming back." She whispered, a puzzled frown crept on her face only to be drowned in a wave of panic "What am I going to tell Maka?"

Sure enough, Maka had tried to invite her to multiple outings through out the weeks. Most of the time, they landed on days she had already agreed to help Kid. She felt bad ghosting on her friend, especially since Maka was trying to help her in her own way. Still, Maka's ideas of fun was trying new things, new things made Chrona anxious. She found she was growing to prefer hunkering down in her room with a Kid and a few books.

Ragnarok refused to help her lie to the person that gave him candy, so Chrona was left to fend for herself.

"Another study session?" Maka asked in disbelief. "Chrona that's the twelfth one in a row!" It was true; Chrona had been working hard with Kid to solve the mystery of the magic tools. The tools seemed to be amplifiers for the soul, each with their own unique abilities. Of course she couldn't tell Maka that. Kid had made it clear that on one other than her was to know about the research. It was a shame, with as much as Maka loved reading, Chrona assumed she would be the best person to help them.

"Well I still have a lot of catching up to do." Chrona said. She looked down to the floor, unable to meet Maka's gaze. It hurt that she could lie to Maka so easily now.

"Still, you need to have fun once in a while." More than disappointed, Maka looked worried. And to hear the studious miester suggest not studying was mildly disturbing.

"I'm sorry Maka, we can go to the movies a different day." Chrona bowed and rushed off before Maka could object. She was becoming nosier about what Chrona had been doing during her studies. She didn't know how long she could keep this up.

That evening Kid knocked on the door to Chrona's room, and braced himself for the impending asymmetry. It had taken him a while, but finally he could tolerate the dusty cell. The immobile furniture bothered him, but he had put up with it for the sake of their research. Besides, he had a nice symmetrical room to return to at the end of the day; Chrona just had to bear with it until he could find a way to his father to move her without arousing suspicion. It didn't make it any easier, especially with his fits causing the pink haired miester to fret over him.

Chrona opened the door and let the young Shinigami in. She frowned as he slumped to the floor near the open books.

"Shinigami-kun, are you alright? We can go to the library if you want." Chrona suggested. Kid meekly shook his head.

"I'm fine." He dismissed. "Let's get to work." Kid struggled to read the font on the page before him. His body ached all over from exhaustion. His father had been giving him more missions as of late. Today he had to complete two hunts back to back. This wouldn't have been a problem if he went straight home afterward, but he had to find out what his father was up to. So instead of going home he told his partners that he had an errand to run and would be back in a few hours. At first Liz had objected to Kid being out at eleven in the morning, but soon gave up the fight.

What kept him going was the progress they'd made. Just as Chrona suggested, the tool Kid intially found wasn't malicious in nature. All the tools seemed to contain similar properties to boost the power of one's soul. One could double the power of a person's wavelength, another gave artificial soul perception; but one in particular had caught his eye. The brew; a magic tool said to have accidentally gained a dual property. The tool was designed to amplify the other magic tools, but it also could amplify the magic in a person's soul. It could unlock in humans abilities only know to witches. In a witch's hands, it could drive the user mad with power.

"Shini-kun?" Chrona asked as Kid once again slumped with exhaustion. "Shini-kun are you alright?"

"Hmm?" Kid murmured as he sluggishly turned to face the girl. "What did you say?"

"I asked if you're alright, you don't look so good." Kid shook his head and leaned against the wall behind them, and almost missing the stone.

"No, before that." He mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"Umm-"

"You called me something." His eye lids drooped as he fought sleep.

"Oh, that!" Chrona exclaimed, "Maka said that when people know each other a long time, they call each other by their first name and since we've been working together I thought it was O.K. to call you by your first name-" Kid's head lolled to the side and rested on her shoulder.

"I don't mind." He said softly, his eyes fell closed. Chrona sat ridged, face flushed, and looked down to the dark haired boy. She sighed and slowly relaxed under the weight. She brushed some stray hairs from his face. It was strange to see him completely calm like this. His breath tickled at her neck and she couldn't help but let out a little smile.

"Poor Shini-kun," She sighed, "you've been working so hard." Moaning softly, Kid shifted to curl up closer to her. Drowsy herself, Chrona leaned gently against Kid.

"You know, it's dangerous to trust a Shinigami like this." Ragnarok warned. Chrona chose to curl closer to Kid.

"I know." She murmured. Ragnarok sighed and pulled the sheet off of the bed. He draped the cotton around the two with a shake of his head.

"Just don't get yourself hurt." He said and receded into her back.