Chrona stood on a beach of blackened sand; the sky had been flooded with clouds, the sun absent from view. She kicked the sand with a pout. Wasn't something supposed to happen, some grand revelation? All she saw was the same tarnished world she saw last time. In her aimless wandering she stumbled upon the white rose. It was still alive, with a healthy blossom, but not thriving. She frowned at it.
"Now what? What more do you want from me? Haven't I done enough?" A leaf fell off the plant. She closed her eyes and let a large shadow loom over her and black out the sky. Wait a minute, there should be nothing here that could cast a shadow.
Behind her a large castle floated, independent from her piece of land. Faintly, she could recall a time where someone had ventured into her soul. They had the power to change her, and that scared her. She didn't want that to happen again. So, she ventured forward. If she was in someone else's soul, they couldn't mess with hers.
A twisted bridge from the castle barely reached the sand. She was wary of the large holes between the black branches that formed the bridge and started to climb. The walls were built so high she couldn't see the towers inside. As she crossed, her limbs grew longer and her features sharper. By the time she reached the stone and mortar structure, she appeared to have aged three year.
Large double doors blocked her path to the castle's interior. Her slender hands grabbed the handles of the doors and tugged. However, the door did not budge. After a number of tries, she relented and rested against the doors. Slowly, the doors swung inward.
The moment Chrona stepped inside, she was surrounded by cold, damp air. The doors slammed shut behind her, leaving her trapped in the stone maze. Two torches closest to her lit with dim blue flames. She took a few steps forward and the light seemed to follow her, jumping from torch to torch and dying behind her. On the walls, scenes and people were painted. Some in elaborate frames, others bare against the stones and weathered.
"Hello?" Chrona called. "Is anyone there?" Her voice echoed back from several places, the network of halls bent in different directions. She continued to wander aimlessly when she caught a glimpse of black fabric vanish around the corner. She tried desperately to catch the person, until she realized it was leading her away from the center of the building. Chrona shook her head and back tracked to where she had been at the beginning and tried her hardest to ignore the tempting trail her mystery person was trying to recreate. At the center of the labyrinth, was a locked room. A cold, steel door that withstood countless beatings blocked her way.
Upon closer inspection the door had a simple chain lock on the inside. It held the door closed, but something had forced the iron door to open so that is was about large enough for her to squeeze through. She glanced around her before slipping past the battered door.
Once again, two torches lit a dim blue. It was a large room with barren walls, save for the torches. On the floor, a torn up red carpet stretched to a single chair. A throne made of human bones. Behind it, a charred picture of a woman in white, her face lost to the flames. Chrona walked down the worn velvet to the throne, to find a black mass with a white face in the seat. At the sound of her footsteps, it tensed; and Chrona realized there was a person under the heavy cloak.
"...Shini-kun?" She asked. The white mask looked up at her, a hastily carved skull.
"How did you get in, the door was locked?" The younger form of Kid asked. He sunk as far back into the chair as possible. He couldn't pretend to be something he wasn't here, unlike the maze outside.
"It was," Chrona replied, "but the door was open. You must have let me in." She tilted her head. "Why won't you let me see your face." Her hand came dangerously close to his mask.
"No!" Kid leapt from his chair to put distance between them. "Don't touch it."
"Why?" Chrona frowned."What are you afraid of?"
"...me." Kid back away, but was stopped by the wall. "I'm disgusting; a monster. If you see what I am, you'll hate me too." In a twisted way, Chrona was flattered. She had reduced the proud shinigami to a trembling mess. However, she couldn't be the only reason. His soul was cold, and negative; it had to have faced horrendous rejection at some point to end up like this. What was so bad that he had to hide himself with in these walls?
"That is for me to decide." She reached out and gently took the mask away from him before he could move. Without the mask, his cloak fell. His clothes were ancient, lovingly stitched together by someone else's hands. In the torch light, she could see the disconnected lines of a dormant shinigami. Her hand cupped his cheek to make him face her. "Open your eyes."
Carefully, he looked up at her. His left eye was the brilliant gold she was used to. Though at the moment, it only reflected fear. His other eye was jet black, a sharp contrast to his pale skin. She regarded him for a moment, surprised that there wasn't more conflict with in him about his nature; only shame.
"I don't hate you." She said finally. He did not want to deceive her, but he still had ties to his old life; much like she once did. If only she could redirect his energy toward her. "They were wrong; whoever it was that called you a monster. You aren't. You are just you, and if they can't accept that, it's their loss."
His goal had been achieved, her faith in him had been restored. However, an unexpected side effect had occurred. Every touch, every word she spoke; gave away a bit of her own nature. She had indeed fallen deep into madness, starved of affection for so long it was hard to fight. But Pandora's efforts still fought to keep a part of Chrona alive. The part that could care for others again. Just as the door to Kid's soul was slightly ajar. There was a chance, slim, that they both could be saved. And in the right hands they could be.
"Do you trust me?" She asked. Kid nodded slightly. At this Chrona grinned and gently brought her lips to his. She moved slowly, and let her wavelength brush impossibly close to his. The torches in the room lit ablaze, exposing every cobweb in blue light. "Good." When she kissed him within the locked room, it was easy to forget there was anything outside to go back to.
What remained of the Spartoi gang sat in Black Star's sanctum above the school. If any more people found out about it, it wouldn't be much of a sanctum. He considered getting a real door for the place to keep people out.
"Is everybody here?" Soul asked.
"Just about." Liz sighed. "Kim has work and Harvard got a flu." An awkward silence fell over the group. Black star finally broke it.
"So, what's the verdict?"
"Undecided." Maka said simply. "They don't want to write down Kid's name unless they absolutely have to. The likely hood of that happening though... they just don't know. Everyone's still searching for pieces."
"Don't worry Onee-san." Patty gave her sister a comforting hug. "Kid will be just fine."
"We do have a bit of an update of our own." Tsubaki admitted. "We have an idea why Kid left with Chrona." Everyone looked at her expectantly. "We think he's been secretly seeing Chrona."
"That doesn't make any sense." Soul shook his head. "I mean, this is Kid we're talking about. He follows rules to the point of insanity, he wouldn't go out to secret meetings with an enemy of Shibusen."
"He would," Maka realized, "If he started meeting her before she became an enemy. Remember those study sessions they kept having?"
"Wait," Black Star interrupted, "they were studying together?"
"You didn't know that?"
"Dude," he said, "I don't pay attention to half of Kid's wierdnesses." At this Maka rolled her eyes.
"Anyway," she continued, "when they were having those study sessions; they were always really secretive."
"Then Kid got really angry," Liz said, "back when Chrona was banished. He'd be up in his room for hours organizing things."
"The engagement probably didn't help." Ox said.
"He wasn't even there." Black Star shook his head. "He didn't even know about until after all of us." Only too late did he realize his mistake.
"Do you think he was with her?" Maka asked with a soft voice.
"Hey," Soul soothed, "we're just speculating here."
"I'm not so sure." Tsubaki said. "We found a note to her in his pocket, on the airship. It said that he was glad she had kept meeting him and that they had to stop after the Kishen was defeated. But if it was in his pocket, then he never gave it to her." All of them had the same thought. How long had Kid been lying to them?
"Does Shinigami-sama know?" Ox asked.
"We gave the note to him," Black Star shrugged, "he didn't say much. I don't know how he's taking it."
"Not well, I'd imagine." Soul said, looking at the Thompson sisters.
"Not well at all." Liz agreed.
Chrona stared up at the weathered chandelier of city hall. Their resonance had ended and they were back to doing what they had when they first arrived. The down side of holding up in an abandoned town was that there was nothing to do. She wasn't like Kid, she could just busy herself trying to repair what was broken.
"Shini-kun?" Chrona hummed idly. "Is there anything else you haven't told me yet?" The shinigami sat up from his lounge on the couch.
"Like what?" Kid added another bag to his discard pile. "You said you didn't want to bother with the past."
"No, I know that." She swayed back and forth in her chair. "I mean like, important stuff. You know, stuff about shinigamis." Kid thought a moment.
"Well I know we've always been at odds with witches." Kid said. "It comes from an old legend."
"Really? How old?"
"...I didn't ask at the time." Kid sighed. When if father first tried to teach him about the shinigami, he was still terrified of his father. If Spirit wasn't in the room, he wouldn't even listen. "A lot was going on then. It'd have to be as old as Pandora's box."
"...Pandora?" Chrona stopped swinging in her chair, her feet planted on the ground. He had looked up at her, or rather, at the gossamer wings that now extended from her soul.
"Yeah, the witch with the girigori soul." Chrona shortly came up beside him. She took the inane garbage he'd been sorting through and set it to the side. She urged them both to sit with a small smile on her face.
"Could you tell me it please?" He took his hands back from her, growing more uncomfortable with the topic.
"Well, basically what my father told me was that a long time ago witches weren't very common. The first shinigami gave a human this box, and told her to watch if for him and never open it. She did; and in doing so, became a powerful witch that drowned the world in madness. Hades tried everything in his power to destroy her. But in the end, it was a draw. Pandora died, but she curse him with mortality. If fa- Shinigami-sama believes if he can't reap the soul the curse is sustained on, then something terrible will happen."
"So, your father's mortal then."
"I guess." He sat up in surprise as Chrona sat on his legs. She pulled him close and kissed him passionately. Kid felt a jolt of excitement run through him until she pulled away.
"You have no idea what this means to me." She kissed him gently on the forehead. Despite how powerful and all knowing Shinigami-sama presented himself as, underneath the robe was a fragile shell. "I'm going to go for a walk, I'll be right back."
Chrona relished the night air on her skin as she walked through the broken city. If she wanted to live, truly live, then she would have to kill Shinigami-sama. This went beyond petty grudges. Regardless of her mother's wishes, she wanted to be rid of that thing's judgmental eye for good. Shinigami-sama was a fearsome opponent. No doubt he had been training to defeat someone like her for years, surrounding himself with powerful weapons. If she was really going to go through with this, they'd need more help.
Being of awkward social standings, she didn't have many allies. The fact that Kid still had bonds with his old life was somewhat concerning as well. She would have to find a way to sway his opinion permanently. An incentive of some kind for turning on his father completely. At this, she grinned. If she had to destroy everything to protect him, he'd have to do the same.