Kid sat on the floor, the gears all clinked together again in perfect harmony. The world felt lighter again as greased gears rushed to compensate for lost time. The leaves folded over to green tinted metal and expanded once more. Fresh bronze glimmered like polished stones amongst the old replica of soil.

Termino to Exitus.

Finio to Finitus.

Mors to Obitus.

Some gears they couldn't find an adequate replacement for. Nex, a natural death, still was devoid of all magic. Why was the nature of death changing?

"You promised you wouldn't do this." Chrona startled him away from the broken puzzle. "You said you'd let things naturally change the way they wanted to."

"I am." He pulled himself off the floor, not wanting to show how long he'd been fixated by the creases in his clothes. "You said not to interfere, you never said I had to like it." He was perfectly fine with change when he got a say in what direction the world shifted. Either way he'd blame himself if something bad happened. So, to have no say in the matter whatsoever was deeply unsettling. "Death is in my name after all, it's only fair to be concerned if that means something else in this new era." A cold hand guided his gaze away from the clockwork tree.

"People love you, I love you." They said. "I can only imagine it's a change for the better." He nodded, but the way Chrona looked away didn't have him convinced. "Should we tell the parents?" Chrona asked, their lip split and raw from being worried between their teeth all night. "I know it's impolite to butt in, it just seems kinda off... Even if there's nothing we can do about it, they deserve to know."

"We can once they're born." Kid said. "Though it may be difficult for you to be there."

"That won't be an issue."

The range of excuses Maka had come up with for doing her bridesmaid's duties from home had become infinitely more interesting once they looped Tsubaki into their plan. Black Star may joke about a lot of things, but when he got an idea in his head, it was hard to shake. The group calls to include Tsubaki in event planning were made all the more sweeter when Patty asked Angela to be their flower girl. Eventually, it was impossible to keep up the facade over phone calls, because the sound of hospital equipment would either give her away or cause a string of panic amongst their friends.

Maka felt bad for their nurse. She was far too green in her position to process Black Star calmly asking over the call light for a towel only to find the baby out in the bed. Everyone had expected thirty hours, not thirty minutes of her being there before they needed to flag down a doctor. Maka could tell by his little soul, he was fine, more worried about the mess. Black Star had been saying for weeks this was going to be easy, despite Maka wanting to kill him anytime a tiny foot kicked her in the bladder. They'd seen the world almost end too many times to be phased by their son patiently waiting for his first bath a few days before schedule.

"His first disguise." Black Star held the rosey babe up. A poof of white hair, glowed almost like a halo in the florescent light. They let Angela in once he was swaddled in his bed, a great distraction while Maka counted down the minutes until she was allowed to eat real food again. "You ready to meet your sister?"

The question caught Angela by surprise.

For one, the sleeping baby could care less if she was in the room or not. She'd be away at school off and on for the next few years, so their first meeting in his mind would be years from now. There was also the fact that since she'd been on her own in the human world, none of her guardians had mentioned being family. People had assumed Black Star was her dad after the years had aged him, and he never pushed back against the assumption. She just figured it was more convenient that way. The casual way he just assumed that his first born was of the same permanence as her was sweet if not alarming.

"Orion?" The name hung over his head in inky black letters. It had been months since her divination spell. She had asked why she'd managed to survive so long, so for the name of that star to crop up in this way was quite a surprise. "Maka," Angela could hear Black Star get ushered out of the room by Kid, "he has magic." Maka nods, because her and Black Star had been puzzling for months on what could have caused that. "But that means..." Angela doesn't remember what her human father looked like.

"He's very lucky to have someone like you." Is all Maka can say.

"It's good magic." Angela added quietly, even though her teachers have told her time and again there is no such thing. "I can tell." She hugged Maka as best she could from half sitting on the bed.

There were birds hiding somewhere in the alcove of the hospital courtyard. The happy trills did little to calm Black Star's friends, who he suspected may never learn to calm down for the rest of their immortal lives. In the twenty some odd years since they had taken over, nothing had tried to end the world. They just couldn't seem to internalize that. The cheap cafeteria coffee he nabbed on the way out had long cooled when they finally let up what had been eating at them.

"He's like us." Chrona said.

"I told you." Black Star looked Kid dead in the eye as he jerked a thumb toward himself. "Warrior God."

"Black Star this is serious." Kid, who wouldn't wish this scenario on anyone, would rather have this conversation with literally anyone else on the planet. This was a serious discussion about the fate of the world, not a new way for Black Star to stroke his ego. "You are a human being with a mortal lifespan." Black Star rolled his eyes.

"Most kids outlive their parents." Black Star said. "I'm not going to let my kid run wild. Need I remind you; I can still kick your ass one on one."

"It's not that we don't trust you and Maka." Chrona stepped in. "It's just..." They toyed with letting it go, but some things called for a blunt hand. "You need to have a plan. I can drag my feet on things all I want, but once the thread runs out there's nothing I can do." That time was far sooner than they would have chose. They could sense Kid's frustration when Black Star let the thought roll off of him like water off a duck's back.

"You'll take care of them if something happens." Black Star said. "Isn't that what you're here to say?"

"You should be the one-"

"We'd like permission first." Chrona interrupted, the light in their eyes reflected a warning back at their fiancé. This was not about either them being right. Not this time.

"Granted." Black Star looked out over the courtyard at some old lady getting escorted back to her car after getting discharged. He ripped a chunk out of the styrofoam cup mindlessly, one bit after another. "Maka had a feeling, you know, soul sight and all. You didn't have to act like it was some big secret." Chrona nodded, but they had seen the golden spool of thread weave in real time, at a speed that dwarfed witches. The first of a generation of children with branching threads, each end neatly crafted, but of varying lengths.

"I wanted to give you some privacy." Chrona said as the pile of styrofoam grew. "You weren't together when I first noticed, saying something then seemed a little presumptuous." Black Star ran out of things to tear up. It hadn't really mattered to him how things happened the way they did, but one thing had been nagging at the back of his mind.

"What are the chances it would happen again?" He was met with silence, as both gods couldn't give him a clear answer. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a streak of red make a bee line to the postpartum ward. "Hold that thought." He booked it down the hall to make it to the door first. Maka had only asked for one thing, and that was to keep her father at bay for as long as possible. Though tackling a grown man in a hospital probably wasn't what she had in mind.

"Haven't you done enough you demon!?" Spirit yelped when the two hit the floor, though there was hardly any malice to it.

He'd been caught between the joy of being a grandfather and posturing as a protective father for months now. It seemed like yesterday his baby girl had been babbling in the back seat about how excited she was when she saw a soul she thought was pretty. He cursed the witch that sharpened his intuition to a razor's edge, knowing full well he'd never be believed. He had a feeling then, but he now knew for sure; this happy future was not the one that had been laid out for them, but the one they chose. Even if no one around them quite understood the steps they'd taken to get there.

"Papa," Maka's eyebrow twitched, "get out." He was only able to catch the glimpse of a few hairs before getting dragged out of the room.

"Your dad had white hair." Spirit said without thinking, halfway down the hall. Black Star paused, his head tilted ever so slightly toward Spirit, though he pretended not to listen. All joking aside, he'd heard a few comments already and rumors often spiraled. "Your aunt too, when she was younger."

"Thanks." Black Star muttered under his breath. "His eyes are looking pretty blue right now." He glowers back at Spirit's deep blue eyes, and the man instantly got teary. "They could change in sixth months." He tried to back pedal and keep Spirit from throwing him into a wet embrace.

The last two weeks leading up to the wedding had been a nightmare, as Soul did his best to prepare for the worst. A cool guy like him would never have his own expectations for how things should go. A few ideas may have crossed his mind, like for food or being outside. That was just, normal thinking about the future stuff, nothing to be disappointed about.

There's no point in getting frustrated that his mother thought she could out flex the grim reaper in terms of wealth, or dwell on how needlessly extravagant every corner of the castle-like ballroom looked. Another freezing, glittering pony show for his family to post pictures of to their parasocial brood. Though delaying everything by three months had been annoying. He'd known from the beginning this wasn't going to be about him.

It was about his aunt, hijacking the position of preacher just to wax poetic about some self-help mlm nonsense while all eyes were on her. It was Liz almost getting into a fist fight with his mom about who was the 'lucky' one in the relationship. It was someone sneaking a trunk full of alcohol to the dry wedding like a back alley dealer, which just further fueled the conflicting egos that had been shoved into one room. Seeing Patty beam ear to ear as she tried not to rush behind Angela was the highlight of the evening, but it was far from over.

"Did you hear that?" Patty whispered. They thought they'd heard a squawk come from the pews during the ceremony, but there weren't supposed to be kids around, so Soul wrote it off. Sure enough, later in the night a tiny thing in a suit was being passed around by his relatives with a thousand yard stare at all the people around them.

"It'll be fine." He wasn't too keen on being held verbally hostage by any of the Evans' to find out who's kid it was. As long as they didn't force a crying child to hang around the event, he really didn't care. It was the least of their problems. Then Tsubaki came up toting the same child around and curiosity got the better of him.

"Congratulations," Tsubaki said, "sorry I missed the ceremony. We've been having issues convincing some of the shades that the underworld is open again."

"Don't be," Patty laughed, "you came for the best part anyway."

"Cool baby Tsubaki." Soul said, a little unsettled by how intently he was getting stared at by tiny eyes.

"Oh, he's not mine." Tsubaki said with a laugh. "Cute lil guy though, isn't he?" She made the baby wave a limp chubby hand. Before Soul could ask any follow-up questions, she craned her neck and made the baby wave in another direction. "There's my girl." Angela was a tafata bullet that crashed right into Tsubaki's side.

"Everyone else got to say hi first!" Angela said. She transformed into a well dressed chameleon and crawled up Tsubaki's free arm.

"Sorry," Tsubaki said, "I promised I'd do this a while ago. We'll got out tomorrow before I leave."

"Tsubaki, who let you kidnap their kid?" Patty asked as Black Star and Maka came to join them and Black Star took the baby.

"Sorry," Maka sighed, "I swear he won't make a peep. That's actually part of the problem. Last time we tried a sitter, they forgot to feed him for six hours." Her brow twitched, the memory of her poor son waiting patiently in the dark for someone to come get him still fresh in her mind. Apparently, he was so used to being perceived through walls and such, he hadn't felt the need to cry. For his entire life, someone would peak on him before he had the chance.

"Yeah, I didn't believe her at the time." Black Star said. "Then the lil guy vanished in the crowd."

"I've been watching him!" Maka said indignantly.

"When," Soul could feel the stupid grins on their face forming before he could even finish his sentence, "did this happen?" He still wasn't entirely sure they hadn't just borrowed one of his relatives kids, because in no universe would Black Star have a quiet kid. The piercing starry stare was unmistakable though. "I didn't even know you were together."

"Yeah," Maka said, "I've been trying to keep Papa out of it for as long as possible. You know how it is." She laughed when he gave her a dry, unamused look. "No, seriously, I'll tell you everything later, it's been wild." She'd gotten cold feet about the prank a few weeks ago, but things had gotten in the way. "I didn't want to stress you out more with how out of control the wedding was getting. The actual wedding cake is in the fridge by the way."

"How old is that baby?" Patty narrowed her eyes.

"Three months." Black Star said. "Why?" Immediately he had to dart away as the bride chased him down with one of her heels in hand.

"Y'know, this is actually an improvement." Soul laughed. "I was expecting him to break something."

"Don't jinx it." Maka braced herself as the two rounded the buffet. "I did not think to have a backup buffet on standby." She handed him an envelope. "I did remember to bring this though." He eyed her suspiciously before opening the unsealed envelope. On a gilded card was PTO approval with Kid's wax seal for an extra month.

"You're not gunning for my position are you Maka?" He teased. She rolled her eyes and he nudged her shoulder. "Thanks."

"It's the least we could do. We're going to be local for a while either way." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a puff of white hair sail up into the air and disappear back into the crowd. "If I don't kill him first."

"The guest book's right there." Soul laughed when she took his suggestion and chased after Patty and Black Star. Tsubaki had taken to the dance floor with Angela following her like a duckling. Liz had commandeered the DJ booth to slip some of Soul's old records from back in the day on. Blair had shed her furry jacket, scaring most of the older guests off with her brazen attitude. When his bride resurfaced with some odd trophy of her victory over their old classmate, he couldn't help but laugh. As crazy as things got in Death City, he could always count on his friends to scare off the people he really didn't want to deal with. The rest of the night would be spent partying under the light of a faceless moon.

Five years was a respectable amount of time to train a death scythe, especially given their current circumstances. Tired didn't begin to cover how draining it was to convince a tiny, powerful being that they were not allowed to call the shots. Stubborn ran deep on both sides of the family and it was a constant battle to remind Orion no matter how smart or strong people said he was, he was still a child. Which meant Black Star would always be stronger than him and Maka would be smarter, at least in the entirety of his life thus far. Convincing him of that, and that it was okay for things to be that way, had been their greatest struggle.

Any free chance they got Black Star would sign them up for, admittedly, an inhuman number of missions to make up for the days they couldn't go. The purification process made any souls they collected weaker than the average Kishen Egg like Maka theorized, but the number of families calling into the tip line had increased. Black Star was a sucker for being requested by name, though that wasn't the reason for their break neck pace. No, Black Star had a plan.

"Wait, if we're only taking two missions, why'd we get a sitter for the night?" Maka couldn't help herself and had looked ahead at the missions he'd signed them up for. Their target was just around the bend, if he could just keep Maka distracted a little longer. "This is one ninety nine, we could knock out one more easily."

"Maka, just trust me, okay?" He caught sight of the faceless Kishen Egg, long and lanky, that stared at him silently. They had to time this just right.

"You were the one that said we had to finish training as quickly as possible." He turned the opposite direction and felt the wind rush as the Kishen Egg charged towards him. If he so much as caught a glimpse of it in a reflection, it would freeze and be stronger than stone. "What's going on?"

"Nothing!" He stabbed the creature in the gut blind, and wheeled it around. All the while, he kept his eyes closed, going by sound and senses alone.

"You spent a stupid amount of money on something, and now you're wanting to take the night off?" Maka slipped out of his grasp to grab the soul. "I'm supposed to think that's nothing?"

"It wasn't a stupid amount-" He cut himself off when she started to smile. "No. Nothing's going on."

"Angela's been really excited about Tsubaki coming back in town this week." Maka said in sing song.

"She's always excited when Tsubaki visits." Maka dangled the soul, about to eat it when she changed gears.

"I didn't miscount, did I?" She asked. "This isn't actually our two-hundredth."Black Star rolled his eyes, but his relief was immeasurable.

"No, that's one nine nine."

"So, I did miscount." Damn it.

"Maka," he put a hand on either of her shoulders, "just play along, okay? Nothing's going on." She was almost bouncing in place. "We're going to finish this mission and report back to Kid, in person, for no particular reason."

"You sure?" She said, with that smug little grin. She took her time eating the soul, like someone was going to pop out of the woodwork to surprise them. Though, true to his word, nothing happened. It was difficult to dodge her needling questions. Especially when she was so certain she figured it out.

"You remember Shin village?" Black Star asked as they walked up the steps of the DWMA. "The first Kishen Egg we hunted together; you gave it to Kid remember? I asked for him to hold onto it just in case."

"You're serious?" She ran up the steps and cut him off just before the landing. "We weren't even partners then. Did you really?"

"Keep walking Maka." Black Star said. She turned, and caught a glimpse of a golden glow coming from outside the closed school. With a last passing glance she ran up the rest of the way. Lights had been strung about courtyard. "You made it pretty clear you didn't want to be involved until after we finished training. Now that you're basically a death scythe, I figured I'd try asking again." A nice, simple banner with 'will you marry me?' in green letters.

"You're an idiot." Maka's hands were over her face. A huge swell of emotions came crashing down knowing this wasn't some silly surprise party. They were standing where they first met. All the late nights pushing themselves was just so he could get them here faster instead of just asking her like a normal person. Which of course he wouldn't.

"That doesn't answer my question Maka."

"Yes." She could him try and think up another way to give her a hard time about her reaction. "Yes, I'll marry you." There's no way he'd do anything this small. All it took was a peak to see a cluster of souls in Kid's office waiting to know what she said. She was already blubbering more than she would have liked. He was laughing, half from relief that she hadn't actually caught on before the big surprise. Any pent up anxiety he had channeled out as he crowed up at the sky.