What remained of Chernobyl's city hall was a pealing maze of stubborn walls. Blackened plants determined to grow through the cracks waved with their deformed leaves. Chrona sat in a large weathered chair. The small area in the world she'd been allotted was suddenly wide open, but she couldn't help shy away from it. The phantom feeling of being constricted hadn't left her, even if Ragnarok had.
"I don't think you should have removed me from the list like that." She said. Still uncertain he had that power at all. Shinigami-sama may be anchored to the school, but his legions of followers didn't leave when they did. "I've hurt everyone I was ever close to, and killed the rest. I'm not a good person."
"The fact you think that is proof you are a good person." Kid said. "Bad people don't realize when they've done something wrong, or only regret it when they've been caught. Right now, you're the only one punishing yourself."
"Someone has to. There's no one else that'd mourn Ragnarok." She bit her lip. "I thought I'd finally figured out how to make us both happy. It was probably impossible, but I had hoped..." Maybe that was what she was regretting most. Towards the end Ragnarok was more of a shadow of himself than the child he grew up with. The potential that things could get better, that was what was gone now. Ragnarok had died when she lost her memory. "I don't want you to die either." Kid implored. "That's why we have to stay here. If father found you-"
"Father?" Chrona raised an eyebrow. "Who is your father?"
"My 'father'," He grimaced, "is Lord Death."
"...what are you doing here?" Chrona shook her head and got out of her chair. "This is what I'm talking about. You siding with me isn't going to remove me from the list, it's going to put you on it. Look what happened to the Kishen."
"I know." Kid said. "I spent too much time worry about if that would happened." He walked up behind her. She flinched when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I lost you once already; I'm not going to lose you again." The weight on her back was comforting.
"Y-you knew me?" She trembled in his arms. "You knew me, and you never told me?"
"The others tried to get you to remember, but had no luck. " Kid said. Chrona stilled, but said nothing. The ninja, and that other girl too; they both said they knew her. "Making sure you were safe was my priority, I figured the rest would follow after." She was quiet for a while, at first he thought she'd try and run. Her eyes were closed and she tried to picture it, chasing that feeling of warm familiarity. But there was a wall there, like her mind didn't want to remember, even if in her heart she did.
"What were we to each other?" She asked. His forehead dropped to the back of her head. What were they? Classmates? Friends? Both were accurate, but they didn't capture how important those quiet moments were. That Kid was the second person she was willing to be vulnerable around, that he had trusted her with keeping treasonous secretes and she had.
"Partners, I guess." He said. "We never had a chance to talk about it, really. What I do know, is you're unbelievably important to me, and I regret not risking myself to protect you sooner." The starless night mocked them. Evidence that the world would not let them pull away from humanity unchallenged. "If my father found you..." He faltered. "I'll never let that happen."
"And when he does?" Chrona angled up to see Kid's face.
"I'll kill him."
Moral during the debriefing was low. Several seasoned miesters were severely injured. His students had been trained to hunt witches and kishen eggs, not the playthings of gods. Now instead of one rogue deity reeking havoc, now there were two.
"We've taken a step back. Kid..." Shinigami sank into a convenient couch in his room. "He had been doing so well, and with Maka's wavelength I had thought-"
"Maybe Maka wasn't the only reason Kid had been doing better." Spirit said. "I mean he's been having problems for a while." Stien and Spirit were the only ones left in the room at this point. Acting as the voice of reason was not his style, but he knew the others weren't the best with children.
"What's more perplexing is why he gave the Kishen's soul to Chrona." Stein sighed. "Most aberrant miesters would take as much power as possible for themselves."
"Kid's never lusted after power though." Spirit shook his head.
"As a shinigami, he had no reason to fear Death." Shinigami-sama said. "The only reason a miester ever strives for ill-gotten power is to escape Death."
"Well not necessarily," Spirit said, "the fear of losing someone else can be just as powerful."
"Don't you think we've avoided the real issues long enough?" Stein sighed. "Will Kid's name go on the list?"
"Kid has done nothing to deserve that." Spirit shook his head. There were stills steps that could be taken, even if the past few times they had failed. Kid hadn't hurt anyone though. It just seemed a little reactionary to assume the worst already.
"He stole the Kishen's soul." Stein said.
"We don't even know why he took it." Shinigami said, but the writing was on the wall. Ever since Kid took down the Kishen, nature the world over had been thrown into chaos. There were blizzards in deserts, drouts in swamp lands. Once dormant volcanos were erupting in waves. It was clear the world order was not responding well to the full awakening of a second god of death. The most logical conclusion would be to eliminate the anomaly,
"I know he's your son," Stien said, "but he's a rogue miester now." A sudden rush of power was enough to detached even the most grounded of individuals. Death magic in particular had a thrall that drew people to be cold and clinical about mortals. It seemed, despite the past few years mingling with humans and weapons alike, even Kid wasn't immune. Shinigami-sama shuddered, thinking of the devastation he'd caused in his early years.
"We don't know the severity of Kid's condition." Shinigami still hoped maybe there was a kinder solution. "I will reserve judgment until we know more." He sighed. "But if he spills innocent blood, I won't hesitate to add his name. We've taken too many chances as is."
Outside of the meeting room, Maka slipped away from the door; she had heard enough.
Gopher woke in the attic of the church, and in a sense, her room. Last she clearly remembered; they were on the moon in search of the Kishen. Then Justin had attacked Noah.
"Noah-sama!" She tumbled out of the tattered sheets and onto the floor. She began to weakly run down the steps to the main chapel, her head dizzy from the sudden movement. "Nosh-sama? NOAH-SAMA!"
"I'm here." Noah said coldly. He was at his desk, going over dated school books from his days at Shibusen. It'd been forever since he'd taken an interest in them.
"Noah-sama, thank goodness." Gopher breathed a sigh of relief. "I-I couldn't remember what happened."
"You injured yourself needlessly," Noah said, "I had to bring you back here and mend your wounds. Thanks to you, we lost the Kishen to the young shinigami." He closed the book. Yet another dead end in his quest to figure out why things were the way they were.
"Noah-sama!~" Gopher couldn't believe. Noah had chosen her over the Kishen. "I'm so sorry-"
"I wasn't finished!" Noah snapped. "You swore yourself to me, correct?"
"Of course Noah-sama." If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't be able to walk or speak. The fact he'd made so many bodies for her, never satisfied with the final product, was reciprocation enough for her. At least, that was the way things had been before finding the Book of Eibon.
"Then why is it, that you have a 'birth mark' on your side? You weren't born. There's no reason it should be there." Gopher's heart sank, with the realization of what had happened.
"N-noah-sama. I-I"
"Stop your sniveling!" Noah roared. "Who did, it? What else did they temper with?"
"Nothing, he- Giriko didn't touch anything else. It was just a quick repair. You were just so busy at the time-"
"That you thought I wouldn't notice?!" Noah sneered. "Where is he? I'll kill him." He slammed his fist on the table.
"Noah-sama?" Gopher frowned. He'd lost his memory again. What had that horrible book done that would cause this to keep happening? The change in personality too, it was like he was a different person.
"When I get through with him, he'll wish he was never born!" This was still him, she knew that, but now would begin the painstaking processes of reminding him what had been. He hadn't wanted to listen before, but maybe now that he wanted answers, she could try again.
"Noah-sama!" Gopher called out. "Giriko is dead."
"There's no point in defending him, I-" Noah stopped his triad. She was disappointed, not scared or groveling like usual.
"Giriko is dead. He has been for months." Gopher reached out to him. "I lent him the prototype body and he had a rejection response." Noah looked away, his stance defensive.
"O-of course I remember." He stalked away from her. "I was just making sure you remembered."
"How much have you forgotten?" Gopher wrapped her arms around herself.
"Nothing! I just I was testing you, don't contradict me." Noah snarled.
"I wish I knew how to help you." Her shoulders shook as her voice threatened to give. "Thank you... for saving me." She ran off to her room before she started to cry before him. Behind her, she left him more confused than ever.
The airship was deathly quiet, even the steel frame didn't dare to creak. The dim moonlight peered through the window onto the cold floor. It had all been abandoned, save for two figures that walked down the halls.
"Liz and Patty have been through so much already." Tsubaki sighed, "I figured it would help them if we got Kid's stuff for them." Black Star nodded curtly.
"I hate this," he said, "gloomy doesn't suit you either." Tsubaki offered him with a weak smile.
"I thought by now the sun would have come out." They passed window after window of a reddened, hazy sky. Even the clouds were too afraid to take shape. The airship was merely a reminder things should have been better by now. It was nice to think that they could still move on. They reached the room where Kid had stayed briefly and began to collect his things. Black Star took his friend's bag from the chair.
"Maybe after this we can get everybody ice cream or something." He looked over to his partner who stood eerily still over Kid's jacket. "Tsubaki?"
"I think ice cream will have to wait." Tsubaki said. "Look." She handed him a folded sheet of paper. Black Star took the page cautiously, like the contents might burn. He unfolded the sheet. "I found it in Kid's pocket." It was Kid's farewell note to Chrona.
A part of Chrona still didn't trust Kid. It was clear to see that she had kept a bit of distance between them. Kid couldn't profess enough to her that he wouldn't leave, but it didn't matter. She couldn't understand the difference between inconsistency and loyalty. Still, she wanted to believe she had made the right choice for her. That running off with a death god was the lesser of two evils. At least now there was some color to the sky again.
"Chrona?" He stepped into the decayed office that Chrona had adopted as her room.
"I'm okay." She said, gazing out at the ruined sky. He sat on the desk next to her.
"I'd like to try something if you're up to it." Kid said. "A friend of mine did this once, she said it helped her. Maybe it can help." She looked up at him, he held the same indifferent coldness he had with his old partners. Something had definitely changed, and she wasn't sure she liked it.
"What will it do?"
"It might help you get your memories back. At the very least, it will make it impossible for me to hide anything from you." He offered her a hand. There was so much about the past he wanted to tell her, so much that was hard to define. He wasn't naturally soothing like Maka was, but he wanted to at least try. Even if it was a lost cause, they needed to be able to trust each other. "Do you want to give it a try?" She frowned, then held out her own hand, forcing him to take her's instead.
"I'll try." All it took was a touch for the two souls to connect. To anyone on the outside, it would appear the two had collapsed where they sat.