"This is so stupid!" Gopher chuckled. "I can't believe something like this bothers you." She drew another heart on Kid's face. Traditional methods of intimidation had done little to unravel the little shinigami, but one comment about his hair had revealed his weakness. He couldn't stand his sides not matching.
"Please stop~" He stuttered. He trembled on the wall and bit his lip to distract him from the ink that was only on one side of his face.
"Hmm, and why should I do that?" She asked as she drew a squiggle on his hand. "This is way more fun than leaving you alone." She kicked him in the left knee. "Besides, you deserve it."
"I'm sorry!" Kid shouted. "Please stop!" Gopher frowned and stopped harassing the boy. He had never apologized before.
"What was that?" Gopher asked. She looked up to see the shinigami rock back and forth as best he could. He muttered apologies in a mantra as he swayed. "Hey." Gopher waved a hand in front of his face with mild concern. She snapped her fingers, but his eyes were out of focus; staring at something beyond her or where they were. "Stop it... if you're trying to scare me~ it's not working!" He made no move to acknowledge her. "Hey, come on, don't break on me."
Gopher panicked; she had just wanted to punish the shinigami. But if Noah found out she had been playing with his collection without permission, surely he would hold a grudge. She looked around for something to pull the Shinigami out of his trance. She grabbed the bucket of soap water she had planned to clean him with and threw the contents on him. Kid snapped out of his trance to see Gopher loom over him, relief flooded her features.
"What on Earth are you doing Gopher?" Noah asked from the door. He looked from the bucket to his vassal to the dripping wet shinigami.
"I was... well... umm..." Gopher stuttered, unable to think of a logical excuse.
"I see," Noah stated. "Obviously I can't trust you to be alone with my collection." Gopher spared a forlorn looked at the book then back to Noah. He opened the Book of Eibon and pulled Kid inside.
Inside the magical space, Kid's friends were trapped within the fourth chapter. The guardian had refused to help them other than offer vague answers and progress through the dimensions had been slow. Each chapter offered it's own temptations and challenges. It was hard to tell how long they'd been trapped. Some of their bodies had yet to revert to their original forms after being warped by the lust chapter. Eibon bowed to its guests within the book.
"I'm sorry," it said, "something has come up. I will be back with you in a moment."
"Wait!" Patty shouted, "Where do you think you're going! That little jerk left us to rot!"
"Then we just have to wait for it to get back." Tsubaki sighed. The bright red desert was excruciating to look at. There was no hints as where to go, and every time she thought about how hot it was, it felt like the temperature increased.
"What the hell is that thing anyway!" Kilik shouted. Other than being told it was like a table of contents, they were no closer to figure out the mysteries of this place.
"It doesn't matter, we'll just have to wait for it to get back, right Maka...Maka?" Soul turned to see his miester sulking on a rock. They had been following the index through the book to find Kid, each chapter they traveled through had embodied a deadly sin. Frankly Maka was sick of it. The index could enter anywhere immediately, but they supposedly couldn't. It was obvious to Maka that the index was stalling, but everyone was too stupid to notice. They were too busy laughing at their gender bent bodies to care about anyone other than themselves. She turned away from the group in silent protest of their behavior.
"Fool!" Exactly.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Black Star shouted, "What are you doing here!" He proceeded to fight with the image of the holy sword Excalibur, which irritated Maka more. At this rate they'd never find Kid; she hated it, she hated the index, and she loathed the chapter Wrath.
A little girl wandered around her empty beach. There was no ocean, no shells, and the sun was black as night. Everywhere its shadow fell the sand had turned a dull gray, tinted red by the sky. As she wandered, she found a patch in the beach where the sand was still a rich tan. She quickly ran and sat down on the warm space which was illuminated by a halo of blue, cloudless sky.
"I don't know how to deal with gray memories." She pouted. She saw a small puddle on the ground and poked the reflective surface. Her reflection rippled and melded into a black and white image. A girl like her, only in gray scale with vibrant purple eyes. The reflection looked at her tiredly. "What are you doing here!?"
"I know you said you didn't need me-"
"When did I say that?" Chrona asked. "Who are you? What happened here!?" She cried. She couldn't remember, but she knew this was wrong. It didn't feel like her space at all. The reflection cringed.
"I see you still have that spark." She muttered. "Look I need you to listen to-"
"Stop acting like you know me and answer my question!" Chrona accused.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" The reflection shouted. Chrona stumbled back a bit. Her reflection was in tears.
"W-what?"
"It's a simple question really." It whimpered. "At the rate you're going, you'll die before you turn 100." She looked at Chrona with pleading eyes. "It may not seem so bad, but when you consider the average witch lives to be 1035; it's not too far off."
"I-I don't know. I don't see why I should live that long." She looked down and played with the sand absentmindedly. "It's not like anyone cares about me."
"Don't say things like that. There are people; you just can't remember them." Chrona looked at her reflection dully.
"If I don't remember them, then they don't exist." She said darkly.
"You don't really believe that, do you?" The water started to evaporate.
"Pass."
"Please change your mind!" The reflection begged, her breath became ragged and weighted. "You need the Kishen's soul if you want to survive~" The water disappeared in the middle of the reflection's plea, all that remained was a half buried, shriveled white rose. She poked it tentatively.
"Oh well," She sighed, "it doesn't matter anyway. No one will notice if I disappear."
Kid ripped the other sleeve off his shirt in disgust and wiped of the ink. He took a deep breath and did his best to calm his nerves. After Noah threw him in the book, Eibon had shoved him in the back most pages with strange urgency. When Kid asked why, the apparition flatly told him he was too busy sorting new information to bother with menial housekeeping. It was because of this that Kid found himself once more suspended in an empty void of space.
Above him was an endless expanse of cream-colored sky. This characterless space surrounded him at all sides. Yet below him a dark shadow swirled and billowed. Maybe there was someone or something down there? He closed his eyes and the shadows rose around him and encase him in the darkness.
"Hello?" He called into the darkness. There was a rough exhale of breath and he could hear something slurp and curdle in front of him. Black mist wafted past him and collected at the base of a massive figure. Its body was a shimmery oil slick that smelled of dried blood on desert sand. Two luminous eyes gazed down at him from a jawless face and fixed on him with a blank stare.
"It has been a long time," its voice surrounded him, "since death has ventured to my realm."
"You know me?" Kid asked.
"No," it replied, "but I knew your predecessor fragment of Shinigami."
"Who are you?" Kid asked.
"I have been called many things, Khonsu, the Gen of Marvo, the Dark Age; if I spoke of the eight warlords, would you understand then? Four were eaten by Asura, the remaining were myself, Shinigami, and one other you know."
"You... Khonsu, do you know where Asura is? Shibusen is tracking him now. If you're one of the eight warlords, you must know where he might be, right?"
"You misunderstand fragment, I am not your ally, nor am I your anything. I seek to sustain my own existence, which as I recall, was almost obliterated for the sake of 'balance'. That is what you want, is it not? The power to uphold balance." It's stale breath washed over the younger Shinigami. "Such trivial pursuits will tear apart your soul. You cannot maintain balance and loyalty to one side at the same time. Your father has forgotten this." It paused. The Shinigami had started to scratch at his left shoulder, there was a look in his eyes, one it had not seen in a long time. The look of a trapped man. "Perhaps I can help you. What do you have as payment?"
"Payment?" Kid asked.
"Yes, something in exchange. Someone freed me, I freed them. A young man came looking for a body to transmute a girl's soul into, he gave me his in exchange. What do you have to offer for what you desire?" It pulled at his wavelength. "Is there nothing, nothing you wish to sacrifice? Hmm... but the results would be preferable." It drifted toward him. "I will give you a small token of what you seek."
The Book of Eibon flipped its pages and Maka found herself in a new chapter. When in the chapter Envy everyone had been locked into separate rooms to deal with their own insecurities. Now she sunk into one of the many chairs in the new chapter.
In her room she had seen her friends. Only she guessed they weren't really her friend, just images projected by the book. Each had laughed at her figure, her parents. All of which hurt, but none so much as what 'Soul' had said.
'Friends? Please, we weren't your friends. You never let us. You try to over compensate for your trust issue by being nice all the time, but you aren't are you? You're a fake, a phony, you just hang around us to make yourself feel better about yourself.' She had tried to tell him off, prove him that he was wrong. 'You aren't honestly trying to tell me that you really wanted to be friends with me? Kid? Chrona? You just were nice to us because you thought were we more sad and pathetic than you. But your wrong, I'm not like them. I'm not so mentally messed up that I can't stand on my own. I'm better than you and you know it.' It was here that she managed to break free from the book's spell. But the image of Soul had still smirked like he won. 'You may be Shibusen's protégée, but I don't have to lie to make my friends.' Then the page had flipped and left her here.
She could feel the tears well up in her eyes. Normally a fight like that would roll off her back but 'he' was right. Not only that, the others probably thought that about her too. Every time she tried to do something, she ended up failing. Maybe she'd be better off not trying at all.
"I thought I taught you better than that." A shrill voice chided. Maka looked up to see a clown before her in lotus position.
"What do you mean?" Maka asked.
"The world you live in is full of opposites." The clown said. "But the real world isn't so simple. You of all people should know there is no black and white. Only varying degrees of gray."
"Go away, I don't want to talk to you."
"Then you must want to listen." The clown smirked. "There is no right and left. There is no stop and start. There-"
"That's not what I meant." Maka said. "When I said I don't want to talk to you I meant that I don't want you to talk to me either; not for you to continue talking. There's a difference."
"No there isn't." The clown rebutted. "By remaining silent you allow me full range to speak since you refuse to stop me. Thus is the answer, thus is the truth. So tell me, what is the difference between watching injustice and aiding it."
"You're insane." Maka spat.
"With all due respect dear," clown replied, "I'm not the one talking to myself."
A cold substance dripped over Kid as the creature past over him. He closed his eyes and saw a burst of light behind his eye lids. He was dreaming again, of the Grimoire palace. Dusk had settled over the castle, the warm light of the setting sun reflected off the walls with an iridescent glow. He was alone. It was odd, since usually there was a hand full of people on the ground floor at all times. An explosion shook the castle, Iroha ran into the room from the tower stairs. She was more bedraggled then when he last saw her. Eyeliner streaked her face, her lips once rosy and painted were now chapped and bleeding. She was hideously unkempt, but above all she was scared.
"What was that?" He asked. Heat radiated from the windows, Iroha guided him to the far wall and kneeled before him. Tears flowed freely from her eyes as she rested her hands on his shoulders.
"Honey," she said. She looked at him with deranged golden eyes. "there's something you need to know about this world."
"But-" She pressed a finger to his lips.
"There are people in this world who are very bad people. They take the lives of innocent witches and they listen~" She choked on her tears, "they listen to a very bad man." He looked away to the window, a glimpse of black flitted in the sky.
There was another explosion. This time a chandelier fell from the ceiling, vases jumped from their tables. Iroha slipped a bit, but did her best to hold him up. He could hear screams and shouts from outside the palace. His lower lip trembled.
"Mommy I'm scared!" He cried. Iroha glanced nervously to the front door and back to him.
"Promise me you won't become one of those people!" She said hurriedly.
"Mom-"
"Please just promise me!" She shouted. Another explosion shook the building. She kissed is forehead and stood up. "I have to go." A dull itch in his shoulder pricked at the back of his mind. Iroha turned and ran to the front door. She pushed them open and he saw the grounds were a blaze. She slipped out the doors and closed them behind her.
"Mommy don't leave me!" He cried. The itching in his arm prickled, but he ignored it, he was scared and his mother just ran outside where the screaming was. He took a few steps forward and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall. A little boy in a smartly trimmed, blue uniform. Cheeks sticky with tears, his golden eyes bloodshot from crying. Ebony locks had been messily combed.
Not a white hair on his head.
His arm burned, liquid slid off of him and he opened his. A smile twisted up along his face, hardly holding back a twisted laugh.
"My skin is crawling."
AN:
Khonsu: An egyptian god of the moon who had the duel nature of compassion and rage. Khonsu's name has many translation, but it is said that he holds power over evil spirits that attack men through pain, disease, decay, madness and death.
Gen: A creature more commonly referred to as a genie, these creatures are on the same mortal plan as humans; yet legend tells that most can't see humans. Rumored to be the cause of dust storms; sometimes these creatures have been contained and forced to do a mortal's bidding.