Black Star gazed up at the ceiling, his aching arm laid across his forehead. Fresh ink was carefully wrapped to mirror where the soul mark had extended far past his back and down the backs of his arms. Delicate feathers filled in the gaps of his previous patchy sleeve. The other marks he ignored came back with vengeance. It felt different this time, less nagging. Before it was vague messages from someone he'd never met. Someone, who around the time they were twelve, gave up on ever finding him. Now that she had seen him, the evidence was clear as the feathers on his skin. She wanted him to come back to her.

Soft blond splayed out over a pillowcase, aglow with the light of the only soul his wretched eyes could see. The image of her beneath him burned into his mind. The bruises she left still ached. Even if she didn't look exactly like his childish approximation of what an ideal match would be, she was warm and strong. She wanted him.

She also was the number one target of a furious witch. Refunding Arachne's money wouldn't make her any less determined to kill the DWMA student. As it was, his old man was pissed he'd returned empty handed and tethered to a liability to the Star Clan. It would be in both of their best interest to let the whole soulmate thing go. He'd done the bare minimum that was expected of a soulmate. He laid eyes on her, he heard her voice. She knew the kind of person he was, a trained killer that stole souls Lord Death wanted to keep safe. She still wanted him.

He rolled over and tried to clear his mind. No good would come from him rewriting their first meeting into something more romantic or gratifying. No point in making plans to seek her out again. She was the DWMA's top student. The sort that would hunt down any member of his family for stepping into the grey area Lord Death chose to ignore. The same had almost happened to him if she hadn't been so soft-hearted. He still wanted her.

Completely covered from bulb to the thinnest tip of flame, a winding black mark was emblazoned on Maka's soul. A shadow of her younger self was wildly happy. All the wishing on stars and hope and daydreaming hadn't been for nothing. She had a soulmate out there. When she stretched her spiritual wings, the ink ran across each ethereal feather, eager to catch up and mark every pristine surface with brush strokes. A living shadow that coiled around her heart and soul.

While she'd been dreaming of a white knight to sweep her off her feet, her soulmate had been training to be a deadly assassin. There was no telling how many innocent lives had been taken by his hands. Even after finding out who she was, Soul had to bribe him into leaving her alive. His was the only soul she couldn't see. Somewhere out there he was lurking where she couldn't find him again.

Curled up in bed, she looked at her bare arms. His first words to her had been can you turn that thing off, not exactly the most flattering thing to have printed for the world to see. It still would have been nice to have some proof he was out there other the vague possessive coil around her soul. He'd mistaken her soul for a light, blinding and radiant. Perhaps to someone who could only see one soul, that would be what it seemed like.

He'd been strong, like she thought he'd be and talented with weapons. The sort of person who didn't shy from the battlefield, or the rigorous schedule of collecting souls. From what she had heard, he was one of the best, a direct descendant of a master in collecting souls of the innocent. Each of her wishes granted by the curl of a monkey's paw. She traced the rip in her bedsheets from where she knocked his knife out of his hands.

She may have been the first person outside of the Star Clan to see his face. His stupid, scared up, sarcastic face. Too damn proud to admit he lost to her fair and square. If he ever showed his face to her again, she'd make sure he knew which of them was the strongest. It wasn't luck and it wasn't childish to want to prove herself. He should be grateful she let him go.

She shouldn't have let him go.

But she did, too afraid of what Lord Death would do with a heretic to order that had been found a way into his city. She spent far too long waiting for proof she had a soulmate. Not some rogue killer in the night too busy to give her the time of day. When she asked for a prince, it wasn't for a prince of corpses. After all the sleepless nights, crying to an absent love god, Black Star owed it to her to be someone worthy of all that heartbreak.

There's something some what poetic about his soulmate killing the person who hired him to kill her. Well, kill was putting it lightly, the entire foundation of her empire had fallen apart. Hundreds of years worth of hiding from Lord Death laid to waste in a pile of rubble. According to his step father, it was quite the spectacle.

Which meant anyone who knew that Arachne had hired the Star Clan to get rid of Maka Albarn had lost faith in how powerful the family was. White Star was working over time trying to twist the narrative to say that Arachne had double crossed them. Which in a way, she had. They just hadn't known at the time she was targeting one of their own.

That said, his family was hesitant to make any move to accept a DWMA student as new addition. It was a fluke to them. After all, Black Star said for years he didn't want to bother with soulmates. Having her be from an oppositional power was likely natures way of giving him what he always wanted.

In his off hours, Black Star would slip into his aunt's studio when no one was around. He'd practice the same strokes with the tattoo gun on scrap patches of fake skin. His hand was heavy, and he didn't want to leave scars behind like he'd done on himself. Her soul looked like it had been brushed over with a caligraphy pen and he wanted her star to match the same delicate brush strokes. If his father wouldn't approve of the match, he'd do it himself.

There was no way to smuggle a whole person into the compound, so he went with the next best thing. He wrapped up what he need in a satchel. Each step he took was followed by the clink of metal on glass. His aunt Elaine sighed when he walked by on his way out. He avoided all her questions, but he knew he'd been caught. She just wasn't doing anything to stop him.

She never could see him coming, and it always aggravated her. It was bad enough when she'd bump into him on the field, unable to determine if it was actually a coincience or if he'd been following her. To her knowledge no one else took a hit out on her, but she could never be sure.

A knock at her window was harder to chalk up to mere coincidence.

Maybe to him, hovering outside of someone's window was polite. The last time he'd been to her room, he'd just let himself in. A small, petty part of her wanted to leave him out in the cold.

"What do you want?" Maka asked.

"It's been two years." From the second story, the wind pushed against him toward the open window. "I told you, that's when we're supposed to go looking." He pointedly left out the ceremony of it all. She'd already knew the kind of person he was and that they were soulmates. "It's time to get yours." He tapped the star on his shoulder.

"So many." She marveled at the feathers a moment, then winced. She wasn't fond of needles. As much as she longed for a soulmate, she only ever imagined the markers magically appearing on her skin, rather than put there deliberately. It felt almost like cheating.

"Yeah," he laughed, "you're the one that kept adding to it." She had to have noticed how the mark on her soul had grown since they first met. He couldn't make sense of it. They'd barely talked, and yet he couldn't look away. "I look forward to returning the favor."

She let him in, this time of her own volition. The things in his bag clattered as he threw them on the bed. Of all times for him to show up, it had to be now. She shook her head. The rest of the house was asleep, and she felt a little better now that she was less alone.

"What does it mean?"

"The star? It's so you don't accidently get killed." He unzipped the satchel, everything he brought clumsily packed. Just the tips of inked wings peaked from under his tanktop along his shoulder blade. "The wings are you." The inky stripes bled up her soul another inch. "If you want my mark, it's gonna be close to full body at this point." He gestured to the bag. Growing up, everyone knew what to do if they accepted the mark. It was a bit of a struggle to try and explain it to someone else. "I don't know about the other ones, you're the one who put them on me." She still wasn't sitting down. "I thought you wanted this? The soulmate mark thingy."

"I don't think a star is enough to protect me." She said, taking a seat at her desk. The light was still on, she'd been writing just before he came in. There might not be another opportunity for her to make a choice like this.

"Sure it is, you just can't wear long sleeves." He laid out the stuff on the bed, turning her desk into his sterile area. If his rush job got infected on top of going behind his dad's back, he'd never hear the end of it. "Not everyone sees souls like you. This'll tell anyone with half a brain cell not to mess with you."

"That's not what I meant." She let him clean her arm. Echos of childish fantasies inked on his skin for all eternity. For so long she had dreamed of the day she'd have a soulmark like the ones that covered his arm. Her fingertips grazed over a set of faded numbers on his wrist. "The date's wrong."

"Quit moving." He pushed her hand away. As much as he wanted to be the cool guy that freehanded stuff, he was better off making clean lines with a stencil. Her arm was so thin around, it was messing with the proportions. "What do you mean it's the wrong date?"

"It's supposed to be my birthday." It hadn't been the date they met, so that had to be what it was supposed to be. "You got the year right, but the month and day are switched."

"Oh." That had been one of the ones he refused to tell his parents about. It had faded long before he changed his mind about having a soulmate around. "That would have been helpful. I'm not good with dates. You're supposed to get them inked when they first appear, but I was nine when a lot of them started popping up. So, I just sort of-" His mind had only been on how to avoid discomfort and all his free time getting speant in the studio. "I can get a coverup." It would be difficult, but it was the thought that counted.

"When's your birthday?" She asked.

"Today." When he got an idea in his head, he didn't wait. "It's the soonest I could see you. Dad's big on tradition." Technically he had seen her in passing, but outsiders had to be an adult in order to join the family. "Well, sort of. Dad only ever pulls out the Old Ways when it makes him look right. It's really annoying." His mom had been seventeen when she joined, so that was going to be his argument if his father gave him any grief about jumping the gun by a few months.

"Oh, happy birthday." She tensed as the needle gun came closer. "Does it hurt?"

"It depends." He said. "Everyone is a little different. I can do a little line so you know what to expect. The feathers here hurt the most. Kinda like getting fucked up by a cat." He gestured to the ones on the inside of his bicep.

She nodded, then closed her eyes. The vibrations bothered her more than the needle. When he pulled away, she opened her eyes again. It was the tiniest line he could make. Filling everything in was going to take time. Again, she nodded and let him set to work on outlining the rest.

"Let me know if you're going to pass out." He said, noting a little too late, there was nothing for her to drink nearby. At least they had the bed. He should have brought gloves with him as well, but hindsight couldn't help him now. "What about the duck?"

"Hmm?"

"You tried to put a duck on my hand."

"You sure it wasn't a rabbit?" Rabbits were her favorite animal as a kid. She had a small collection of plushies and would be up late reading what different cultures thought of them. "Mama used to say there was a rabbit on the moon instead of a man. I thought it would be a cute mark to have."

"Used to?" He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"She left a while ago." She had hoped to hear back by now. As far as she knew, her mother was one of the few of the DWMA's finest that wouldn't be on the coming mission. It was both comforting and eerie to get nothing but radio silence back. "I'm sure she's okay."

"I don't remember my mom." He wiped off the excess ink that was lifting to the surface so he could keep a clear view of what he was doing. "She was too soft to be an assassin. Dad doesn't like to talk about it." He had a few theories as to why she died, likely a hit that turned sour. "My step-dad's cool though. You got to Arachne before he could. It was pretty funny. You might have bumped into him. Blonde, carries a lot of swords."

"Oh yeah, he tried giving me candy." She omitted the part where she accused said man of being overly familiar. "That explains why he recognized me."

"Haha, yeah. He still treats me like a little kid too." As annoying as it was to constantly be underestimated, it was a little nice to have someone try to build a normal childhood for him. "He didn't want me coming with him on that mission, said it was too dangerous."

"Did you get any other words?" Maka asked. "I know you have first words, but sometimes the last ones show up instead."

"Nah. Mostly images, colors, the splotches on my hand are from where I touched you." The sharp cut off marking where her tank top covered her lined up with his fingers. "My eyes were all ashy for a week, that one's the hardest to color." He paused, the thought of a needle going toward his eyes made her tense. "Don't move," he smiled, "but glad we're on the same page with that one. I was not going to let them tattoo my eyes."

"Is that even possible?"

"Yeah." He grimaced. "Not the color part of it, but I've seen a few people with the whites done." He paused again to wipe her shoulder. It was starting to take shape. It wasn't as sharply lined like the practice pads had been, but it was close enough. He'd tried to leave room for touch ups if she needed it. Now he just had to fill the shapes in. "Why was it so important to find me right away?"

"I wanted to go to school together." There was no way in hell that would happen now. Sure, the DWMA had bigger enemies to deal with, but she'd seen what happened when an outsider was let in. It wouldn't be fair to either of them. "Not just that, but like see movies together or hang out after school." She'd spent so many lonely years acting as a mediator for her parent's marriage. Failing to do so had shaken her confidence, she needed to hold onto the idea someone wouldn't leave her behind after saying the wrong thing. "It's the only part of my life that truly felt like mine, I wanted to get there as fast as I could."

The sheet of paper on her desk was blank. If something happened, it didn't matter what she wrote, her mother would do whatever she wanted with her things. That was usually the way of it.

"I actually wrote letters for a little bit." It seemed so silly now. She'd been convinced that she needed to share every second of her life with her soulmate, so she tried to document as much as possible down to what she ate for dinner. "You can have it, if you want. I made it for you. It's mostly stuff from when I was a kid though." This way, at least the book would fall into the right hands instead of the trash. She regretted throwing out the other trinkets she'd made over the years.

"Do you need a break?" He was on the last point of the star. "You're crying."

"I'm fine." She needed to see this through. "I just have an important mission coming up. The kishin has been hiding on the moon this whole time, and I have to-"

"Don't go." It was harder for him to keep the lines steady and saturated. He was almost done. "I'm serious. If it makes you this upset, don't go."

"The mission's not what's making me upset." She said. "It's having to prepare for the 'what ifs' that's getting to me. It'll make me feel better if you take the letters. We leave in the morning."

The tattoo gun was set down on the desk. A final wipe across the skin showed the thick, reddened strokes of a star. Covering it carefully, he held her arm so she wouldn't get up from her chair. There shouldn't be any 'what ifs'. Lord Death had over a dozen death scythes. Any one of them could go to the moon in her stead. It wasn't fair.

"Maka, please," he pulled her close, "don't go."

His heart thundered against her back. There had been too many close calls the last few years. Too long, she spent waiting for a day like this to come, but this wasn't the sort of things she wanted to be taken away from. She wanted a family that remained whole, no matter how bad things got. She wanted the people she loved to be safe. She wanted the lips against her neck to be less convincing.

"Where else am I supposed to go?" She said. "I was the only one able to find them. They need me there."

"But they think you'll die." It was the first time he held her, the first kiss he could give her. He didn't want it to be the last. "If you're ready to throw your life away, don't do it for them." They'd already asked too much of her. "I know where Lord Death can't see. If you want to leave, I can take you home. Why settle for letters when you finally have the real thing?"

She was quiet for a long while.

In the morning, both of them were gone.