In the dark of night, behind the back allies of the school a small frog was pressuring Chrona into doing something for Medusa. Maka didn't know what that something was, but they had just had an internal investigator pass away. Dr Stein had been falling apart at the seams and was under probation for the time being.

"Remember," the frog said, "Medusa's counting on you."

Maka had said nothing.

She was by herself when she found out Medusa was alive and talking to Chrona. So running in, head first, just so Chrona wouldn't be approached was out of the question. She would have just gotten herself killed in front of her friend. Chrona had been getting bolder in their twilight days at the school, but not nearly enough to raise a hand to someone who'd treated them like a used rag doll their entire life. Maka could barely defending herself from her mom anytime her grades drifted toward B's, she could only imagine what Medusa's version of discipline was.

Last time, she had run away, but this time she forced herself to stay. It could have been that easy. If she'd just waited, pretended like she hadn't heard anything and walked back with Chrona to the school. Maybe things would have turned out differently.

Maka thought they were close enough, that after coming in contact with someone so scary, Chrona would come to her. Then together, they could have warned Shinigami-sama that an enemy with a detailed understanding of the inner workings of the DWMA was alive and using Chrona to spy on them. At least that way, Chrona would have been able to tell them whatever it was Medusa was holding over their head. Marie, that witch Eruka too, they had snakes in their bodies that could kill them in seconds for stepping out of line, Chrona probably had them too. She wanted the full story before doing anything that might have gotten Chrona in trouble.

Only Chrona never came to her. By the time Maka went to visit them, they'd already run away and it was too late. If she had gone to one of the adults as soon as she heard, would that have been soon enough to intervene?

Maybe, but the internal investigation was going on then. If they found out Chrona had anything to do with it, they may have been kicked out anyway, and ended up running to Arachne all the same.

It didn't matter, none of it mattered. Chrona knew where she lived, and still they hadn't tried to contact her. She had no way of finding them and no support from the school to do so. As far as the DWMA was concerned, after getting Kid, Asura was their top priority. The longer the god of madness was on the loose, the more people got hurt and Chrona...

Chrona was too much of a liability to welcome back into the school.

She'd let them sleep on the floor of the apartment if she had to. Or now that they knew there were other witches in town that had been pardoned by Shinigami-sama, they could stay with one of them. The Chupacabra was probably under fierce surveillance now, it could work. She could find a way for anything to work, she just needed a chance to talk to them.

Slowly, Chrona turned away and started down the path toward the school. Their shoulders hunched up around their ears with a tremor in their breath. They didn't want to leave, she knew that to be true, no matter what Spirit had tried to tell her.

"Am I that unreliable?" She was sitting on the cobble stone pavement with her back against a scummy brick wall. Eruka had also been blackmailed into attacking the school. If she could be let into the school to cast magic, surely Chrona would be offered a second chance. Chrona paused and looked at her with red rimmed eyes. They didn't answer her. "Where did you go?" She was their best friend and she had no idea where they would have gone. Medusa would undoubtably keep them hidden until whatever she had plotted came back to bite them. The DWMA shouldn't have trusted them, she'd said as much, but no one listened. What else could she do?

"...pass..." This book was supposed to have all the knowledge in the universe and the best it could muster up was a non-answer. The Chrona she knew didn't talk like this, there had to be a reason.

"Weapons are only allowed one witch's soul each," Maka said, "as soon as I can, I'm hunting Medusa down." It was an empty promise. She had no idea when that would be, or where to start looking. "I haven't given up yet." There was no way, after being forced to wait for a rescue, that they'd be happy to see her. They probably thought she'd forgotten about them, or didn't care they were gone. If Maka was in that position, she'd hate her too. If she hadn't been so scared of losing Chrona, she might have been able to prevent the worst possible outcome from happening. "I'm going to fix this."

She just didn't know how.

"It's not going to work." Chrona said, but there was an uncanny tone to their voice. "You can't save everyone. It's kind of you to try." The shadows around them bloomed into dark intangible flowers. "But you can't change what happened." The world around them pealed back away and reset, with Chrona behind her being lectured by a frog again. "I made my choice Maka." Chrona feared Medusa more than they trusted Maka.

"There's still time." Maka said. Lord Death was counting on them for bigger and bigger mission, but she could do both. She just needed to prove herself to the people in power. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was better than just giving up.

The school hallway was full of ghostly versions of Soul's classmates, just a little out of focus as they walked around in predetermined patterns. At the end of the hall, Maka stood with her back to him. He hoped some how she found her way in. At his feet were the letters that hand been shoved into his locker.

"Of course she'll come," the imp scolded him as it dusted off one letter decorated in crayon, "she always will." He pointed the letter at Soul like a teacher during a lecture. "You're too pathetic to leave alone." An underclassman was brought to her by Sid. They had met him earlier in the year when demonstrating for the NOT class. A quite kid who'd been passed over by multiple meisters, even though some weapons had found up to three to work with. As a scythe meister, they'd be a perfect fit. She was flattered by the proposal, but glanced over and saw Soul. With a bow, she declined the offer. "There are stronger meisters you could work with. It doesn't have to be her."

The world paused, and everything went back to as it was at the start. Ghosts moved about their lockers, Maka was given the opportunity to start working on her next star, and she turned it down because she saw him. He didn't have time to look happy for her, he was still reeling from the junk that had been shoved into her locker.

"It's must be nice to know someone will crush their own dreams to make you happy." The imp opened the letter and skimmed it. "But what do you get out of it?" He glared up at Soul, who was routed to the spot watching the scene play over again. "You're not even enjoying it." The folded letter was waved around, but Soul refused to even look at it. "If you don't do something, it'll keep happening. She'll keep choosing your comfort over her success."

Was it guilt that had made her say no? She hadn't even talked to him about it, she just immediately brushed off the idea. Clearly the thought of being more than partners with someone had crossed her mind, but she never brought it up. If they stayed partners for too long, people would begin to speculate. He didn't want things to change. They were fine the way things were, but how many times had she denied herself the chance to grow just to linger behind?

A weapon must always obey their meister. It was an old rule carried over from the days when humans trembled in fear at the very thought of a new, unknown form of magic. At that time, meisters were more an ornamental thing that represented the leash that connected them to Lord Death, a visual reminder to anyone who saw that they were capable of following the rules.

Growing up, Tsubaki had heard her grandfather complain about the system to anyone who would listen, since it was his great grand mother who had been one of the DWMA's flagship weapons. He was both relieved and disgusted by the amount of hoops his grandchildren had to jump through just to be considered safe to be around other people. She hated his angry ranting growing up, now she understood why he'd been so frustrated.

The only weapon she knew that had gone against their meister's orders was Vajra. She'd been told that Vajra, seeing what his meister was becoming, refused to be used to hurt innocent people. In turn, Asura used his powers as a god to force his weapon to transform and consumed him, never to escape. Most teachers at the DWMA said Vajra was consumed by Asura out of fear and that genuinely surprised her.

Both versions of the story were true, but the DWMA made it seemed Asura had a reason to be afraid, rather than in opposition with a partner that didn't want to fall into madness. There was a subtle, ever present pressure that unless you were a death scythe, you were an extension of your meister. People pitied Tsubaki for being bound to someone they thought was wasting her potential.

Tsubaki preferred supporting people from the shadows. Most days, she was more frustrated that Black Star balked easy tasks they needed to do in favor of being challenged. He didn't want to prove himself as a top meister in the slow, thankless way schooling expected him to. She had no doubt once he got past the red tape, everyone would recognize them as the amazing team they were. He'd helped her through the personal execution of her brother at his own expense, and she'd spend a life time repaying him for it.

However, time and again, he would treat her concerns as suggestions. To be fair, he treated everyone's concerns as suggestions, but everyone was not expected to act as his weapon. When they were told to rest, she'd done everything in her power to physically remove him from the big, important battle their friends were going on. If it was out of sight, for the most part, it was out of mind.

She didn't want him to destroy himself using her. It was something they had fought about for weeks and she'd come very close to leaving him just so the uncanny sword form was literally out of reach. It wasn't that she thought he couldn't learn to control it, but she had suspected for a while he was putting them in dangerous positions on purpose.

That became all the more clear when going to rescue their friends from Arahnae turned into Black Star going head to head with Mifune once more. They didn't have to find him. They specifically had let him go in the past because they knew he was trying to protect a child from an unjust system that had failed her from both sides. It was clear to Tsubaki that Angela was being used as black mail to force the samurai to fight for Arachne. Given their past, they could have easily found a solution that involved rescuing the young witch and their friends together.

Black Star told her to transform, and she did her due diligence as a partner; watched as her meister shredded his own flesh on another's blade, and for what? There was nothing to gain from winning that fight other than mere pride, he could barely stand by the end of it. None of her friends understood what it felt like to be the tool used to cut down an innocent life.

Reliving the fight, each cut she passively caused made her skin crawl. She tried to transform back into her human form, but found herself stuck. The memory wouldn't be able to play out without a sword in Black Star's hand, and the book wouldn't stop until both warriors were bleeding on the ground.

"Stop." Had combat really taken this long? In the moment, she felt whisked away by adrenaline and the knowledge if she stepped out of the fight, Black Star would have charged ahead unarmed. "Stop it!" This was going too far, no one here wanted to fight, and yet because of some dumb honor code only they understood, neither was willing to lay down their arms. "Let me go!"

She couldn't move, transformations cycled around her, but they were out of her control. There was still sensation throughout every sharpened edge and bit of chain. Memory told her where to channel her energy to move of her own accord, but it did not listen. Without a mouth, she had no way of telling if her words had come out as sound, or if she was trapped in her own head.

"Tsubaki!" She heard Black Star's voice, but it wasn't coming from the one holding her. Black Star, the real Black Star, ran across the torn up battle field just as Mifune crumpled to the ground. He swiftly kicked the false image of himself in the head, causing it to tumble loosely like a rag doll. It was no match for the real thing. Even free from the scene, Tsubaki found herself unable to stand on her own two feet, or even partially transform to show a shred of humanity. "Tsubaki?" He picked her up with a tenderness she wasn't used to. Unable to see souls, he reached out blindly with his own wavelength to see if she was okay. A mirror image of himself limp as a corpse stared back at him weak and vacant. "We're almost out of here, it's going to be okay."

She didn't know what to say. It was no secret between them the fight with Mifune had crossed a line she never wanted to go near again. Telling Angela a fraction of what happened was something she put off for weeks just for Black Star to sweep in and answer with a frankness that boardered on brutal. She had asked the same question that had plagued Tsubaki for weeks after the fight.

Why did Mifune have to die?

His answer was nothing if not honest. He was in their way and refused to admit defeat. Instead of helping Maka or being there to prevent Kid's abduction, they had guaranteed those who survived the invasion of Arachnophobia were able to make it out safely. He made it a point to include Angela in the ones who were evacuated from the battle grounds.

It didn't make either of them feel better about it.