The sky was painted with streaks of pink, red and purple crested with a golden light. Every shop had lit ornate red lanterns outside of their doorways. Sakura trees shook in the breeze with a never-ending stream of pink petals. The air was perfumed with a sugary floral scent of a bath house in the first hour after opening. It was a picturesque painting with the silhouettes of women waiting in the illuminated windows. Faceless, moving statues in various states of undress, but their movements were uncanny. Backs didn't bend that way, necks weren't that long and thin. Whatever lied on the other side of those doors wasn't human.
Soul didn't come here alone. Despite the Book of Eibon's best efforts to make the outside world feel like a vivid dream, Soul knew this place was far more dreamlike then where she came from. That was the other thing. Soul remembered quite vividly being a cool rebellious dude, with a variety of interests and talents. Ever since waking up, she felt like she was staring at a blank page.
Predictably long hair, a vaguely feminine face, a plain replica of the dresses she'd seen at her parent's parties a hundred times over. The person looking back at her in the mirror could only be described as generically, conventionally attractive. The visual manifestation of every time she shrugged off the question, what's your type?
Which wouldn't have been that much of a problem if she didn't feel so absolutely devoid of a personality right now. Soul Eater Evans runs head first into battle and asks questions later, a killer death scythe in training. Soul Teio, as the index kept prompting, was kind of uncomfortable being alone in a strange place and wanted to go home. The heels she was wearing were killing her feet and totally not pretty enough to be worth it, but there wasn't anything but sex shops and brothels for as far as the eye could see. Shopping for different clothes felt like such a shallow thing to be thinking about when Kid had literally been kidnapped and needed rescuing.
"You separated us on purpose." Soul muttered as she hobbled up the stupid rolling hills of the red light district. If Maka were here, she could have just transformed into a scythe and been carried instead of fighting with a cumbersome skirt. "Damn it." Everyone must be going through the same thing. There was no reason to get in her head about it.
Chapter 1 : LUST
Blood on the ground was usually a bad sign, but there was a good chance the people killing things were her other teammates. So, Soul followed the trail deeper into grimy territory. Obnoxious, neon cabaret signs masked smoke filled alley ways in an artificial night. The noises coming from the shadows were, in Soul's mind, wholly unpleasant. She added being skittish and easily distracted to the number of things Soul wouldn't talk about as soon as they got out of here.
With steeled nerves, she approached the first humanoid figure she came across. She recognized the skull symbol on a boy's jacket as a DWMA emblem. He had a wool beanie rolled up over a piercing stare. The minute he saw her, a wicked toothy grin spread across his face.
"Oh, thank god." Soul sighed with relief. "I feel like I've been walking around here for hours."
"It's a good thing one of us is still themselves." Patty laughed.
"Don't say that." Soul pouted. "Wait, why would you say that?" Patty held up his hand, his knuckles bleeding and bruised.
"Ran into Liz briefly." He said. "We were beefing pretty hard about which direction to go in and I got so mad I had to punch something. Hit a wall instead. In his defense, I've wanted to punch most of the guys Liz went out with, so, it's whatever." He tucked his bruised fist back into his jacket pocket. "He's around here somewhere, but we agreed to find everyone else and meet at the big ass tree. There's a bunch of weird shit in here that tries to draw you in." No doubt someone found the thrill of walking in an unsavory part of town alluring, the same way some would read endlessly about monsters or vampires.
"Right!?" Of course, it was some kind of honey trap. That was why Soul was having a hard time focusing on the task at hand. "It's like, um, that one movie. With the witch and the red flowers." No, no no, why couldn't she remember the name of it? "It was the first DVD I ever owned, you know, the one with the bricks. Had like two or three musicals." Someone take her mouth and let her die in a hole. "I know what it is, give me a sec." Her shoulders sank. "Oh my god, just kill me now and put me out of my misery."
"Aww, are you embarrassed?" Patty circled Soul, taking in for the first time how comically out of place she was.
"Yes!" Soul could feel her face heat up. "Is it really that weird? I'm barely a human being, like if you looked up 'girl' on Wikipedia, it's mortifying."
"Eh, could be worse." Patty shrugged and continued to follow the trail of carnage with a slouch in his step. "Better to act like nothing in particular than someone you know."
"Like, someone here?" She gasped. In hindsight, it wouldn't be that out of the ordinary for people to be acting like their crushes right now. "Who?" Patty looked at her, his brows up to his hairline. She hadn't noticed the graphic tee he was wearing, or the ripped up jeans, or the bomber jacket that wasn't their uniform.
"You're working with one brain cell right now, aren't you?" He couldn't help but be amused, especially after all the time he spent worried about the fallout once everyone was in one place.
"I hate this, so much." Soul agreed through helpless anger. She stormed ahead with Patty laughing behind her. She wasn't this stupid and shallow, regardless of gender, she refused to acknowledge this parody of a girl had anything to do with Soul Eater Evans.
"Can you still transform?" Patty asked as they rounded a corner. "Just curious if people's tastes would cramp their style."
"I don't know." Soul sighed. "I thought I could, but I don't know what it'd look like. It might be, you know... not the most battle ready." Which she hadn't really thought about until now. She definitely wasn't sure this vague collection of tropes had a strong enough spirit to form a sharpened blade, let alone fully transform. Forget about being carried out of here, no one was going to see what that looked like. She caught the childish grin that spread across Patty's face out of the corner of her eye. "Not a word." At least Patty was trying not to laugh now. A streak of ashen hair darted into a nearby alley a few paces ahead. "Maka!?" He popped back out of the alley at the sound of his name. A well-cut suit in neutral colors, and a fluffy crop of hair. Maka was a predictably, boring looking dude. "Thank god." Soul quickly covered her relief with a more logical explanation. "Thank god that we found you. Being miesterless on a mission is weird." She could always count on Maka to be a clean cut goodie two-shoes. In the event things turned into teasing, she'd have someone else to drag down with her instead of uncomfortably standing in the spotlight. Soul stopped just a few steps from hugging him. "You're bleeding!?"
"Hunh?" Maka looked down at the red speckles on his shirt. "Oh this, this isn't mine. It's other people's face blood."
"Oh no." Soul took a step back. Maka's usual silk gloves had been replaced with battle worn brown leather. Deep creases had been pressed into the junction of his sleeves from multiple attempts to push them out of the way. The evidence of bloody combat they'd been following had lead them here.
"Succubus' are really squishy." His manner of speak distinctly casual in a way Maka Albarn would have found uncomfortable, supposedly. "You'd think, cause they're demons, they'd put up more of a fight." He shrugged. "Haven't gotten any one of them to talk yet, they cleared out of here fast once they saw me coming. You get one good punch in and they take it personally."
"Oh no." Soul said again. She'd kind of just assumed if Maka liked anyone, it would be other dweeby nerds. While he looked the part, actions spoke louder than words. "I was kind of counting on you to get us out of here."
"That's what I'm doing!" Maka gestured to a trashed area of the veranda where he'd clearly been chasing someone down.
"By punching everything in sight?" Soul sighed, because honestly it was better than what she'd been doing, even if it was still a stupid idea. "Of course, because Maka Albarn has to always be the smartest person in the room."
"What's that supposed to mean princess!?"
"None of us are acting like ourselves right now." Patty quickly stepped in between the two. "We need to regroup and accept that, for a bit, someone else should take the lead to get everyone out of here."
Steam hung around the grounds of a vast hot spring, the sort that travel magazines would use to draw in customers to a designated tourist trap. It boasted an authentic traditional feel, with expensive modern amenities shoved in, but far more inviting than anything Soul had stumbled across thus far. Even if it was humid and warm.
"Maybe this place has a map." Soul ducked around the hanging red flowers in the shops entryway just to be grabbed by the collar.
"Don't go in there." She was let go and instantly recognized Black Star's high lighter blue hair, even if had been mussed up with a handful of sakura petals and leaves. "You shouldn't be talking to anything in here unless it's one of us. It could be a trap." She shook out the rest of the debris from her hair as she took stock of how many of their party had arrived with a pensive frown. A small crop top and even smaller set of shorts was the only thing that protected Black Star from the elements, save for a long matching set of black gloves and stockings, and even then, the shirt had a few well-placed holes that Maka immediately took notice of.
"What happened to you?" Maka asked, and did his level best to keep his eyes at neck height or above. He failed miserably, a thin trail of blood dribbled down from his nose to chin, decidedly not from his past scraps with demons.
"Tsubaki ditched me!" Black Star openly cried. Soul almost felt sorry for her, if nothing else, the memory of ugly crying in front of their friends would be a miserable burden to carry. But her friend also seemed blissfully unaware of how quick Maka was to lend a shoulder and it stung at a dusty corner of Soul's heart. Jealousy? Unlikely, as the very thought of being fawned over made Soul feel queasy.
"We all woke up alone." Patty said. Black Star was quick to push everyone back at arms distance as she tried to collect her composure.
"I know that, but we just ran into each other." Black Star said. "We made eye contact for half a second, and next thing I know, Tsu's booking it in the other direction." What remained of her explanation tapered off as the mere memory of the insult to her pride was enough to make her get choked up again.
"Aww don't take it personally." Patty looped an arm around Black Star's shoulder. "Everyone's a little off their game right now." Again Soul felt a twinge, she realized with dawning horror, of resentment that Black Star wasn't the least bit embarrassed by the situation at all. Maka was dumb as a sack of hammers right now, and just as strong, so Soul assumed he was simply disengaged from the situation entirely. The two genuinely seemed unbothered by how plainly their inner thoughts had been pulled out of them for everyone to see.
"Maka, can you use your soul sight to track everyone down?" Black Star asked. "I have to kill Tsubaki." Patty let Black Star go and held his hands up in defeat. His words having fallen on deaf ears more times in the last hour than he cared to admit.
"You know how when you put a bunch of small lights together, it looks like one big light?" Maka hissed, reluctant to seem useless for even a moment. "There's easily hundreds, if not thousands of souls all crammed into one tiny spot. It's all one multicolored blob."
"So much for that idea." Black Star craned her neck to look down the way Soul and the others had just arrived and then back the way she thought Tsubaki had gone. "Then that way's our best bet for now." She swung her arms around behind her and once again Maka's eyes drifted down.
"You are never allowed to give me a hard time about Blair again." Soul said. When she didn't get a response, she backhanded Maka's shoulder with as much gentleness she could muster given the essay's worth of hypocrisies that were coming to mind.
"What?" Maka had enough decency to whip his nose before feigning ignorance. Though, when he saw the lake of irritation behind Soul's eyes, he seemed genuinely perplexed. "What?"
"Unbelievable." Soul huffed.
Kilik was no stranger to a sound stage. Even in this state, she could tell something about the set wasn't quite right. The lenses of the cameras were more eye-like than ever before, and the shadowy figures manning them had an intangible quality to them that read as both shallow and sinister. For all of a few seconds she soaked up the heat of the spotlight with devilishly attractive co-stars. Then, noticing a distinct lack of four-foot individuals in the room, panic set in.
"Where are they?" She'd had nightmares like this before, where under her watch, her little cousins had been carted off by some unknowable stranger. A fear now magnified by the index's helpful indication of the chapter's content. They were only eight, and no good would come from anything in this chapter coming into contact with them. She barreled out of the room when the only responses she received were stupendously unhelpful. It seemed asking where children were was a rather unsexy thing to say amongst this crowd. At least that was somewhat comforting. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."
Their grandma was quite clear if anything happened to them, Kilik would be responsible. Now, this had been in the context of getting injured, but it should have gone without saying that keeping children away from the book of deadly sins was also on the list of things that shouldn't happen to them. What had she been thinking jumping in here with them like that?
She always had to bow out of more dangerous, fate of the world type missions because of them. After a while, it seemed, Kilik had barely been considered a top meister in their class. For once, being asked to help Shinigami-sama by name, it felt all their hard work was finally being recognized. She didn't think twice about what the mission would entail. Once they got out of here, she'd really be in for an earful.
Out on the main street, a blonde man had Fire in his arms with Thunder trailing close behind.
"I'll fucking kill you!" Kilik wrenched Fire away and added a solid kick to the man's hip for good measure. Thunder ran over, elated to be reunited so soon. Usually this amount of vitriol was enough for an instant transformation from the two, so Kilik could only assume they were paralyzed by fear. "I swear to god, I will rip out your teeth with my throat." That was backwards, but it felt right to say in the moment.
"It's Lizzy." Thunder pointed as the man spent more time smoothing out it shirt than fearing for his life. "Prince Lizzy is going to take all of us to the pretty tree after we win Hide and Seek." There were no follow up questions from the children, and Kilik swore she could hear angels sing. Of course, if anyone had experience distracting an innocent mind in a sketchy part of town, it'd be Liz.
"That's great guys," Kilik sighed, "I haven't had a chance to play yet though. So can you transform real quick and help us find the others?" If they were focused on detecting other souls, they wouldn't have a chance to look at anything. At the very least, being in weapon form would make it easier to forcibly divert their line of sight to the ground. "Sorry about kicking you Liz." Kilik said. "I really owe you one."
"Nonsense," Liz said with a dazzling smile, "what kind of man would I be were I to leave such innocent flowers all alone?" The sincerity of his words rattled her. To kill the silence she laughed an unsure sort of laugh out of kindness. "Now, by my calculations, there should be two more fair maidens to find while my brother deals with the others. Onward!"
Negative emotions had been easier to swallow before ending up here. Now Soul felt every grisly, over chewed bit of resentment ricochet back up the pipes by the thin tendon that was her partner's oblivious favoritism. Black Star wasn't having a hard time with this at all, not like Soul was. So her partner ran off, at least she hadn't been forced to watch Tsubaki fawn over someone else for the last hour. Maka hadn't even asked if Soul was okay, he just assumed she was.
It was unfair. These feelings were unproductive, and maybe not even really her's. The last thing they needed was a big fight slowing them down. Then Maka would offer Black Star his coat for modesty, even though the ninja clearly couldn't give a flying fart about what anyone thought about her, least of all Maka and Soul felt a vile resurgence of anger.
"I don't get it." Soul muttered under her breath.
"What's your problem!?" Maka asked in a harsh whisper. He'd caught the dirty looks and the eye rolling, but he had tried his best not to call attention to it. Soul was usually annoyed by how Maka acted, but now it seemed like every other word out of his mouth was being thrown under a microscope.
"Why would you like someone who doesn't like you!?" After the long-winded rants Soul had to listen to about how all men were perverts and cheats, why in god's name would Maka act like one? Especially when of the two of them, Soul looked and acted more like Maka would on the outside. He caught her glaring at Black Star's back and groaned.
"Wait, are you jea-"
"I am NOT jealous." Soul narrowed her eyes. Each step she took, she poked the dense boy in the chest with a manicured nail. "I'm merely frustrated by the sheer lack of empathy you've shown me given your questionable taste. Or rather, the lack of empathy you've shown to anyone with less than C cup tits!"
"It's not like that!" Maka covered her mouth with his hand. "We've known each other since diapers. Quit making things weird." She would have hit him had what Maka said not been so wildly wrong. She stepped away from him, a deep furrow creased between her brows.
"You told me you met when you were in kindergarten." She said. "You've been friends, but never super close friends." Nothing she said seemed to be getting a reaction from Maka. "What was the last book you read?" He was thinking too long. "It was in your bag when we entered the book."
"I don't carry a bag." Maka looked at Soul like she was crazy.
"Yes, you do." Soul nearly shouted. "It's got a bunch of patches from the coffee shops we've gone to on it. You're Maka Albarn," Soul hissed, "and the only reason I'm making things 'weird' is you're acting like your dad." Many stages of realization went across Maka's face, like he was watching a slow train scrape up a stationary car toward a row of trees. Confusion, then disgust, until Maka had gone pale as the similarities became hard to unsee.
"No." He said in a small, horrified whisper. The sort of horror that sinks in at odd hours when mindlessly going to the freezer. "No, I'm not." He repeated softly when no one came to his defense. He certainly couldn't think of one. Though later, Maka would swear up and down if Soul had an iota of knowledge about boy bands, other comparisons would have been much clearer.
"Are you sure?" Soul warned. "Because it kind of sounds like the longer we're in here, the more time this place has to rewrite our memories to fit into whatever will get us to stay. Doesn't that freak you out?"
"Do you want people to be upset?" Black Star asked over her shoulder with a small pout. "That's kind of mean."
"That's not-" She didn't want them to be upset rather, she was sick of being the only one that felt uncomfortably exposed, figuratively speaking. As greatful as she was for keeping her sense of self it was at the cost of knowing as soon as they were out of here, this would all be a funny joke to everyone. Everyone, it seemed, except Soul who felt unfairly cast as an intrusive, unappealing other. Boring, thoughtless, in circumstances Maka would probably describe as karmic. "This isn't what I signed up for. It's not fair."
"Don't sweat the details." Patty said. "It's just us in here." And Soul was outnumbered.