A/N: This is the most nervewracking chapter I've ever posted. It's either gonna make the story or kill it - let me know which! Replies to the lovelies who left previous commenters are at the end of the chapter!
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'Shocking' is like a bolt from the blue. It is something external that ruptures your world.
-Naomi Klein
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"I feel so much better." Maka sighed an hour later. Her reflection in the vanity mirror gave Kid a contented smile as she leaned her head back against him.
"Headache gone?" he asked, continuing to comb out her damp hair. She'd alarmed him by downing two Aleve, a magnesium capsule and a potassium supplement for her aches and pains after they'd showered.
Maka nodded and took a sip of the water he'd brought her.
"Yep. I'm starving, though. Not that you don't look amazing in that bathrobe, but let's get you dressed and go make dinner."
She shivered as the teeth of the tortoiseshell comb tingled across her scalp, "Well, after you get done doing some more of that."
"Anything else you'd like me to do more of?" he teased, carefully working out a snarl.
Maka giggled, "I can think of a couple things."
He bent and hugged her from behind, noticing that the shoulders beneath the thin t-shirt she'd put on felt fragile. She'd lost weight recently; pounds that her already-slim frame couldn't afford to be without. He worried once again that she was giving up too much of herself, or that blending her soul with his was too much for a human to handle.
"I'm okay," Maka assured him, kissing the black silk covering Kid's forearm, "I promise."
"I hope so," he said, "I can't help worrying a little though. I don't want anything to happen to you. I love you so mu-"
He broke off as the mirror sprang to life, and his father's puppet appeared on the shimmering surface. Kid and Maka jerked backward with shocked gasps. Lord Death had always been respectful of their privacy, and such an intrusion had never happened before.
"Both of you. Death Room. Now!" the silly voice was not in evidence when the command was given.
"Of course, Father," Kid said, "Just let me get dressed and-"
The bone mask melted into a terrifying scowl and leaned against the mirror, which bowed out to accommodate the pressure of the angry creature straining against it. Maka cringed, half expecting shards of glass to explode at her.
"NOW!" the puppet snarled menacingly, "GO!"
"Yes sir!" Kid exclaimed and the shimmery light disappeared, leaving their frightened faces reflecting back at them.
Maka leapt up and headed to the full-length mirror in the closet, but Kid grabbed her hand.
"Let's go to Dad's office. Whatever's happening is important enough that I want to see him in person."
They dashed toward the stairs, while Maka alternately wondered what on earth the emergency was and thanked her lucky stars that Kid's father hadn't popped in on them fifteen minutes earlier when they'd been going at each other like maniacs in the shower. Steam wasn't much protection from prying eyes.
Despite the size of The Gallows, they reached Lord's Death's office wing in record time. Kid's scalp crinkled in fear when he heard his father' shouts echoing down the hallway. The man rarely raised his voice, let alone yelled and it made Kid want to scoop Maka up and run back upstairs to the safety of his room. Something terrible must have occurred. World-devasting terrible.
"Stay here!" he told Maka, raising his own voice to be heard over that of a woman screaming in on the other side of the door.
"I can't stop her!" she cried, "Not this time. She knows! She knows! She's breaking the door down!"
Maka's pupils contracted to shocked pinpoints when she heard the plea for help. She shoved Kid out of her way and burst into Lord Death's office.
"Come through, come through!" he was shouting, looking at something on the other side of the eight-foot mirror near his desk. Whatever he saw through the purple shimmer of the portal was bad enough to make his face a mask of terror.
A woman fell through the frame and past Death's rigid body. She landed hard, but rolled through it, putting herself out of range of the pale, bloody arm that reached through after her.
"Mama!" Maka cried.
The woman on the floor lifted a battered face toward the open door and the horrified girl standing just inside of it.
"Aw, shit!" Kami Albarn muttered.
Behind her, another woman burst through the mirror, shrieking like a banshee. No words, just primal, gut-wrenching screaming that intensified when Lord Death caught her and dragged her to the carpet. He struggled to gain control of her, barely able to hold her in place without hurting her. In spite of the long hair that obscured most of her face, her wild eyes caught on Kid. She immediately gave up her pursuit of Kami and lunged for him, bloody fingers scrabbling in the air.
Behind her, in a strangled, shattered voice she'd never forget, Maka heard Kid say one word.
"Maman!"
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Replies!
fashiongirl23: I'm glad you're in the fandom and really grateful that you like the story so far!
FurorNocturna: Yep. Things blew up.