Maka's eyes fluttered open as she took in her surroundings. The hallway was gone; she now lay in a hospital bed in the nurse's office. Bandages were wrapped heavily around her torso, making it hard for her to move. She let her head loll to the side and saw someone occupied the bed next to her.
"Hello?" She groaned.
"Maka, you're awake!" The curtain was pulled to reveal Black Star's battered grin. "It's good to see you… How do you feel?"
"Heh, I've been better. What happened?" He too had quite a bit of bandages on him. But it didn't seem to slow the ninja down too much; most of his injuries were superficial.
"Noah wasn't working alone." Black Star said. "We were caught off guard when we found out that Kid and Chrona were the ones behind the attack. From what I heard, we stopped them, sort of."
"Kid?" Maka would have sat up, but it hurt too much to try. She pin pointed three different places where she must have been hit by Gopher.
"There can only be one fully fledged Shinigami at a time, and it kind of threw Kid off the deep end." He said. "He must have come to his senses or something because he stopped Chrona from reaching the Death Room, she got him pretty good though." Black Star sighed. "He's being treated in a separate room. Apparently he's still out of it, though not as much as before." The starry sky and a blank, faceless moon shown down on them. Some things would never go back to the way they were. "Shinigami-sama's gone."
"A lot happened while I was out." Maka snorted. She supposed it was Gopher who did this to her, fighting the crazed girl was the last thing she remembered. It was hard for her to picture two of her friends attacking the school with the previously deceased sorcerer. The idea of Shinigami-sama dying, it was a little much to wrap her head around.
"Look, Maka…" Black Star hesitated. "I'm sorry, none of this would have happened if I had asked for more help." Maka raised an eyebrow. She hadn't disagreed that the less people they involved the better. Everyone had been burnt out from the constant fighting, and Noah was a dangerous foe.
"You couldn't have possibly predicted everything." Maka sighed. "We all were caught off guard by Kid showing up." It wasn't like Black Star to be humble.
"But that's just it. A good leader would be prepared for anything." During the time it took for everyone to cool down and lick their wounds, Black Star had concluded that he was the one truly responsible for Maka's wounds. Several 'what ifs' spun around in his head, each one pointing to a better future. However, he couldn't rewrite time.
"Well you aren't a good leader." Maka said.
"Maka…" Rolled his eyes, that smug look on her face said enough.
"I'd even dare to say that you were a very small leader."
"Hey!" Black Star lightly punched her shoulder. "Maka, I already apologized. There's no need for name calling."
"Then grow up." Maka said. "You managed to get everyone out alive, that's better than most of our missions lately. You can't expect to be great at everything on your first try. You did fine." Black Star couldn't help but smile a little. "So why are you in here? Shouldn't you be jumping off of the roof or something hazardous?"
"Well apparently that Nova Barage move I used to defeat Noah was something my mother used against Shibusen soldiers once." Black Star rolled his eyes. "Now they're checking to see if I'm susceptible to the 'sway of magic' or something like that. Which is ridiculous, I'm not a witch. I don't think it's physically possible for me to be a witch. I mean, I'm a man for goodness sakes." Maka chuckled, knowing good and well that gender did not stop you from being a witch. But it was true, there was no way Black Star would suddenly become another person. The pair looked up as Soul entered the room.
"Maka, you up yet?" Soul stopped when he saw Black Star. "Well if it isn't the leader who fell short on the job."
"That's funny," Black Star grimaced, "usually you're the one who stays cool under pressure." Within a couple of seconds the two were laughing. Though there was still a slight sting from each other's comments.
"Still under probation I see." Soul sighed.
"Yeah, I should have known better then to cry wolf. Now they won't let me go until I prove I have a halo." Black Star chuckled. Soul turned to Maka and offered her a flat package.
"How does it feel being on the other end of the bed?" Soul asked.
"Alright I guess." Maka said. "Once you guys leave I'll be bored out of my skull."
"Yeah, they said you should make a full recovery in a month." Soul snickered as Maka groaned in frustration. "Relax, that's why I brought you this." Maka carefully unwrapped the gift to find a kindle. "I know you have a thing for 'real' literature, but I figured it would be better than nothing. Plus you won't have to move too much to use it."
"Thanks Soul." Maka beamed. "Where's everybody else?"
"Well Liz and Patty are with Kid." Soul answered. "Tsubaki went to get us some food and the Death Scythes are dealing with the book of Eibon."
Spirit glared at the apparition that floated above the open book of Eibon. It swayed back and forth, a strange avatar left behind by the god of knowledge.
"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific than that." Eibon sighed.
"Why did you aid these children in attacking Shibusen." He repeated. Stein and Marie were on either side of the book poised to strike.
"You act like these things haven't happened before. The transition of power was long over due. Death clung to his post far beyond his time. The pawns that aid that transition are as irrelevant as the ones that cling to the past." It shook its head. "A human's will is one of the things I can't capture or fathom." It shrugged. "If you are looking for a motive other than idol curiosity then I suggest you ask them yourself."
"He keeps talking about a curse," Stein said, "what do you know of it?"
"That old thing?" Eibon flipped the pages. "I don't have much, but Iroha was kind enough to give me the verbiage of the spell if that helps you any. Dominium super animas vestras voluntates elit. Victoriam metetur liberum. Kishen exigit fugam. To put it plainly, they are the stipulation of the spell; the exit clause if you will. In order for Pandora's lineage to be free from death, they would have to offer up the Kishen in exchange, but there aren't any left. The only other way out, would to reap Death before he could collect his prize."
"Then, is all of this finally over?" Spirit asked.
"Good question." Eibon said.
"You've been a great help." Marie rolled her eyes.
"My pleasure; it is, of course, my job to be helpful." Spirit closed the book and handed it to Sid.
"Have this locked up down below." He commanded. "Marie, bring in the girl." Moments later Gopher was dragged in. She was dressing in simple prison garb. "I suppose," He said to the girl, "the first question is who are you?" She looked up at him with scorn.
"I'll answer your questions on one condition." Gopher huffed. "You release Noah."
"Of course, I don't suppose the DWMA remembers every one of it's ventures." She scoffed. "My name is Gopher."
"And why did you attack my students?" Stein asked. He carefully observed her soul for any tremors. Though he had to admit, her soul was stranger than many of the witches he had encountered over the years.
"Because Noah asked me to." She shrugged. "I owe my life to that man and you've killed him in front of me. Twice! I have every reason to despise you after the way you treated us! You left us to die!" Stein frowned. She wasn't lying, but something was off.
"Spirit, Marie, Sid; leave me with the girl."
"Sir?" Marie began.
"She's bound and unarmed, I'll be fine." Reluctantly the death scythes left the room. "What are you?" He had noticed the way different sections of her soul lit up anytime she spoke, like baby birds all crammed into the same nest.
"I'm human." Gopher said, with all her spirit, she believed it.
"Humans typically live in the body there were born with." He went to touch her face, but she flinched away. "Just how many souls did they try and splice together?"
"Ask your boss." Gopher glared.
"You were at the Horrorscope massacre." Stein grinned. He had heard the monks were experimenting on how to save the bits of humanity left inside Kishen eggs. So this was the result. "Justin said there were no survivors."
"You wish that were true." Gopher hissed. "The student that was sent to clean up your mess refused to reap me and was eaten by the Book of Eibon. He's still in there." She glared at him. "For years he collected people from your list to piece my soul back together and give me back the humanity I had lost." The body she's been in had been ruined by the Kishen egg before her, it was so painful to be in. When she lashed out, they decided to scrap the project and her with it. "Let Noah and I go." Nothing happened. "We didn't do anything wrong."
"You kidnapped Kid, have been involved in multiple attacks on the school." Stein said. "And you specifically injured one of my top students."
"Last I checked, Lord Death was the one who passes judgement on people." Gopher said. "Who was that again? Oh, right, the kid we helped get here. Shinigami-sama got you into this mess throwing that girl out, you really want to make the same mistake a second time?"
Liz and Patty watched over Kid's sleeping form. When they heard Kid had returned to Shibusen, their first reaction had been elation. That is, until they were told that he lead an attack on the school with the very people they had fought earlier. Patty took it harder then Liz had. She felt betrayed by Kid's past actions. On the streets, you looked out of each other no matter how bad things got. It was almost as if Kid had forgotten that, and that's what hurt her the most.
Kid finally stirred, his arm still badly mangled. Had he used his shinigami powers, it would have healed faster. However, it was hard to do anything while losing buckets of blood. He sat up slowly and took in his surroundings. He was back at Shibusen, which meant he would have to face what he had done.
"KID!" Liz shot out of her seat when she saw the young shinigami sit up. "You're awake!"
"Liz, Patty; what are-" He was stopped by a firm smack to the face.
"Do you have any idea what you put us through?" Liz shouted. "For weeks we heard nothing after you abandoned us on the moon. Then when we finally track you down, you attack our friends with the psycho nut case that was supposed to be dead! The only reason we got you back was because someone else tried to kill you! I was worried sick about you this whole time and you almost got yourself killed twice." Kid looked down at the sheets as he was being scolded. "What were you thinking?"
"Father had a hand in creating the Kishen, the destructive witches, everything we've been dealing with for him. He lied to us, and he used human children as his soldiers. It didn't make sense..." He said. "I didn't want to get you in trouble, not after we fought so hard just so you could be my weapons." Liz sat down. She'd been there when Kid intervened with Maka and Black Star's remedial exam. It had seemed funny in hindsight, but to think Kid had been investigating the school this whole time. "When he went after Chrona… I couldn't take it anymore. I had to get out." He looked up at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."
"You idiot," Liz sniffled, "I'm just glad you're okay."
"Oh sure, he's sorry now." Patty said. Her arms were crossed as she leaned against the far wall. "Just wait until he does something like this again." Liz looked at her with concern.
"Patty-"
"You're going to defend him? We could have talked him out of this if he told us what was going on." Patty declared. "Heck, if he had told us from the get-go what was going on we could have helped him do something normal, like run away instead of killing his dad." She shook her head. "If he can't even trust us, how can we trust him again." Kid looked at his partners and sighed.
"Patty, it wasn't that I didn't trust you." Kid confessed. "But going behind Shibusen's back is a serious offense. I didn't want to ruin your chance of becoming death scythes just because I had some doubts about my father's credibility." Patty's resolve softened a bit.
"We didn't come here to become Death Scythes," Patty said, "we came here to help you." She didn't care about the prestige of the school or the ridiculously large mansion. When Kid asked them to be partners, it was because he swore they were the best possible choice.
"Did you honestly think a couple of street kids like us needed your protection?" Liz scoffed. "We're your partners, not princesses, remember?"
"It won't happen again." Kid said. There was no one left to hide from now. He had always assumed being a full fledged reaper would come with omnipitent knowledge or some grand revelation. It was more like he could see every soul as they currently were. It was overwhelming, so much needed to be fixed. "I definitely need to listen more to the people around me."
"You bet your ass!" Patty shouted. "We're, like, blood brothers man! We fight to the death for each other." Patty grinned and held out her pinky. "You better swear it." Kid looped his pinky with hers.
"I swear." Kid chuckled. It seemed both of his weapons forgave him. He just hoped it stayed that way once he told them everything.