Words could not describe how mortified Maka was. She hurried down the halls of Shibusen like she had been shot. Her head spun and her hands shook. She could hear the skittering laughter of the world at her back. Was this what it was like to be unable to deal with something?
"Maka!" Her friend's voice pulled her back to reality. She had run all the way to the front steps. "It's not true, is it?" She turned to see Black Star just a yard behind her. He searched her eyes for any trace of joviality, but there was none. She relented a small, affirming nod. "And your O.K. with it?" Frustration bubbled behind his words.
"Of course I'm not O.K. with it!" Maka defended. "I didn't want to- don't want to get married! I never wanted any of this to happen. Nobody asked me, they just decided they knew what was best for me and went for it." Shinigami-sama was still their ruler, no matter how child friendly he tried to appear. Once he had his heart set on something, there was little anyone could do to change it. "Now everyone knows, it's too late to make him take it back."
"So that's it! You're just gonna' lie down and let this happen?" Black Star shouted. "This isn't right Maka, it's not how it's supposed to be. You can't just do nothing!"
"Well what can I do?" Maka sniffled. "We can go on and kill as many Kishen eggs as we want, but we're still kids." Black Star froze as tears trickled down. "We can't do anything." That was where she was wrong. He could do something, about Kid.
Deep within their safe house, the snake witch continued her work. The artificial clown was now officially Medusa's greatest failure. Without a soul, it tried to latch onto Chrona's like a parasite. Unfortunately for it, Ragnarok's was still filled that role and triggered hideous rejection reaction. It had taken hours to extract the dysfunctional creation and it would take even longer to dismantle it now that it had, had a taste of madness.
"I'm too young to die." The clown whimpered. "How sad, I knew me so well." It was aggravating. She had to shoo Chrona out of the house just to concentrate. "Perchance, could you tell me the time?" The sooner it was gone the better. She fumbled for a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
"Be quiet." She snapped. "Your yammering won't prolong your existence."
"It is not my existence I worry for." The clown chuckled. "Tell me, foul temptress; if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a noise?"
"I don't have time for you riddles." She sighed. Next some boric acid, maybe arsenic for good measure.
"Unbusy your mind a moment and listen to what I ask." The clown insisted. "If the king is in the counting house and the queen is in her chambers, how do they know what goes on in the court yard?" It paused, but received no answer. "There are places in this world protected by magic, old magic, that even the eyes of the gods can't see; but I can see it."
"I am done with Grimoire and Chernobyl, the queens of the old world can't hinder me with their spells anymore." Old as it was, Claudia's charms had withstood time. Her seal kept Salem, and the Sarcophagus from the sight of her crystal ball. It was also, the only reason Chrona had gone to Chernobyl to begin with; as a spy. With the clown, she could make sure Shinigami's son had the last magic tool. Not the garish shell, but the small key Iroha had worn so close to her death. It warded off madness from the person who held it and could make the Brew safe to use. If Kid had the tool, then she wouldn't have to worry about a radical in her plan.
"I do not speak of spells and buildings, I speak of the heart." Medusa finished the concoction that would destroy the vile thing. It spat a cackled. "Your daughter is almost strong enough to break free of the soul that shrouds her. It won't take much to tip her over the edge."
"My research is almost done." Medusa stirred the mixture of chemicals together as she spoke.
"But will you be there to see it come to fruition?" She paused when it laughed at her. "I could tell you what goes through your daughter's head. What she thinks of you. What she'll do once your plan is through." She doused the clown with the concoction. It sputtered out another cackled as it's form corrodied into inarticulate mush. "But you'll never know." The rest of the clown sizzled like water on a hot pan.
She didn't want to know what the clown had found. Deep down, she knew it was right. Soon Chrona would be strong enough to stand on her own, and by then Medusa's words would no longer reach her. Ragnarok was the only thing keeping Lord Death from finding her. There was no need to worry, there wasn't time to. She'd have to execute her plan faster than anticipated.
Soul knocked on the frame of Maka's door. It had been two hours since Maka shut herself in her room. The apartment was dark, her shoes left scattered in the kitchen.
"Maka?" He hesitated, not wanting to be greeted by a Maka chop if he opened the door. The light under the door frame was his only clue she hadn't just gone to bed.
"Come in." He opened the door to see Maka at her desk with a book like any other night. "What's up?" Her off-handed attitude was over shadowed by her red rimmed eyes. Normally Soul would let it drop here, but now that he knew what was wrong, he had to at least try to get her to open up.
"How are you holding up?" He asked. The scythe miester sighed.
"I only had a day's notice of what was going on." She gazed at her book. She'd been stuck on the same page for a few minutes now. "I guess now that the shock's worn off it doesn't seem to matter as much."
"Maka-"
"Well, I mean compared to everything else." She snapped the book closed and set it aside. "Right now, finding the Kishen should be my top priority. I can worry about my petty problems after all of this is over." Soul crossed the room and hugged her from behind.
"You can't keep this up forever Maka." The girl nodded. There was a time and a place for everything. The hero that brought down the Kishen would be far better news than any wedding. If they could bring people hope in another way, canceling an engagement would barely be a blip.
"Then we'll just have to find the Kishen then, won't we?" He smirked into her shoulder.
"I think we can manage that."
Kid held the charm from Chernobyl in this hand. It was a gold key, about an inch in length, and perfectly symmetrical. Even down to the tiniest jewel. Though it looked a little dull in luster compared to the shell that housed it.
"Oi, Kid!" Black Star called form down the hall. Kid quickly stuffed the charm back under his shirt.
"Black Star-" In an instant he was slammed against the wall.
"You're got a lot of nerve shinigami." Black Star hissed. Kid's eyes widened in bewilderment at the angry ninja.
"I have a lot of nerve?" He caught Black Star's wrist before he could get punched in the face.
"You're going to pay for making Maka cry." Kid swung his leg and kicked the assassin in the face. Black Star was knocked to the ground which left Kid unpinned.
"What are you talking about?" Kid sputtered.
"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME!" He swung his leg under Kid's effectively knocking him to the floor. Black Star sprung up and pinned Kid to the floor with his foot. "This whole engagement thing has you written all over it. You just 'happen' to be missing all up to the announcement and then you act like nothing's going on?"
"...Maka's engaged?" Kid exclaimed. "To who? What does this have to do with me?"
"You! She's engaged to you!" Black Star shouted. He was angry, unreasonably so. But saying it aloud made it seem more real. Kid felt like a lead wight had been dropped into his stomach, or maybe that was Black Star's foot. Not that Maka was a bad person, but the idea of marrying her made him feel sick. His heart hammered in his chest as thoughts of everything that had been set in motion and panicked. He tugged on Black Star's wrist and pulled him to the ground behind him. Black Star stumbled to his feet and grabbed Kid's arm before he could run off.
"Where do you think you're going?" Black Star recoiled as blistering cold hit his palm. However, there were no marks on his hands and Kid was already shooting down the hall. Oblivious to Kid, the key around his neck was now further tarnished.
"Chrona, we need to talk." Medusa said coolly outside of her room. The pink haired miester slipped out of the darkness and into her mother's watchful gaze. "It's been a while since you've reported to me about your missions." Chrona nodded.
"They're pretty much the same now. I kill, Ragnarok eats, we go home." She had grown used to her training. Medusa nodded; it would make the transition easier.
"Would you like to test your skills?"
"I-I guess." No she didn't. Tests meant observations; observations would be bad if Medusa noticed what she'd been doing. "If I have to."
"You do." Medusa grimaced. Still Chrona's meek nod was encouraging. "Before now, you have been slaying meaningless individuals. Now it's time to see if you've been worth the time. Your next opponent will be a death scythe, one of Shinigami's most skilled warriors. You leave in ten minutes." Chrona nodded and began to wander off. "Before I forget," Medusa addressed, "what did you do with that necklace you were given?" Chrona resisted the urge to bring her hand up to her chest.
"I didn't want it," she said, "I threw it away."
"Good girl." Chrona remembered the pin her mother had found, how it had been thrown away the moment her mother found it. She didn't want that to happen again. So, she always kept the locket under her dress and she never told her mother why she 'flew' over Chernobyl. She didn't want her mother to throw the boy away.
"Father!" Kid's voice rang through his father's chambers.
"Kiddo, so good to see you again." His father chirped. "You've been so busy lately."
"Is it true, that I'm engaged?" He was out of breath from his mad dash to the room. Lord Death tilted his head to the side.
"Didn't Maka tell you?" Kid's features became stiff and sullen.
"No, she didn't." Granted, she had tried to talk to him a few times, but he'd been busy trying to rectify his father's others mistakes. Now his friends were getting dragged into it, and he knew very well this hadn't been Maka's iade.
"Well, you would have know if you had stayed at the party." Lord Death teased, but his son didn't react.
"I had other plans that day." Kid clenched his fist. "Might I ask why you've decided who I'll marry?"
"Yumi and I planned it when you two were about seven." Lord Death explained. "This was before we knew Maka's talents, it was more of a political maneuver than anything else." It was hard to believe that his father was so Laissez fair about the whole thing. "Yumi wanted Maka to marry rich and she seemed like a nice kid."
"But why me?" Kid insisted dryly. Shoulders slumped; his father contemplated how to answer his son's question.
"There was a time when shinigami and witches didn't fight, it was before my time; but my uncle used to tell me about it." He turned from his son to gaze at the mirror before him. "The first shinigami, was in fact, a demi-god. In order to prove that he was fit to be the next Death God; Hades had to bring his father madness itself, sealed within a box.
"On his way he passed a young girl, crying under a tree. He paused to try to help her and she asked to see the box that held. Though he warned her not to open it, she did anyway madness into the world." Shinigami continued. "Sound familiar?"
"No." Kid grimaced.
"Pandora," Shinigami frowned, "mother of all witches. She spread war and famine through the lands. It took all of Hades resources to take down what Pandora had built, and even that wasn't enough.
"She cursed our kind with mortality while plunging her own in a cycle of rebirth. Until a shinigami reaps her soul, madness will continue to run rampant no madder how many seals we place. It is my job as the descendent of Hades to protect people from our mistakes and make sure that the future generations don't make things worse."
"Father," Kid interjected. "I don't see how this answers my question."
"Witches and shinigami are very similar to the eyes of man. Our stories start in the same place, our powers mirror each other's." He faced his son again and rested a hand on Kid's shoulder. "I was worried that people wouldn't know the difference anymore and think you were a bad kid." It was a lie, one of his better ones. Doubtless Kid would blow off his lengthy explanation and grouse in his room when he got home. But all great lies have an element of truth to them. "I wanted to make sure, no matter what, there'd be someone on your side."