one damn thing after another - part 1
Soul Eater fic!
This fic is more or less completely due to curiosity about what's going on in Soul's head. Oh, Soul. So young to be so bitter. ^_^
Many thanks to
zephy_magnum for the beta! For learning the entire plot of Soul Eater in order to do the beta. :D *hides*
Spoilers through 61. I do not own Soul Eater.
One Damn Thing After Another
Death the Kid has been sucked into a book, and we’re having a party. I’d say I don’t get it, but hey, it’s Liz and Patty. They have all their own rules. The rest of us shouldn’t even try to understand.
At first, they didn’t seem that worried about Kid, and that seemed odd to me. Then one day they started asking Maka about books. By the end of the week they were locked down in research-land, and basically impossible to live with. They’ve been like that ever since.
If I were a guessing man, I’d say this “party” is in reaction to the big showdown that happened when Shinigami-sama tried to tell Liz and Patty they weren’t allowed to go after Kid.
Yeah right, Shinigami-sama.
When you ask Liz how she came to be a weapon, she says she got high and tried to mug a shinigami, and if Kid’s around, she elbows him and laughs. If anything, Patty’s even less impressed by authority. The odds that the two of them were going to take well to being ordered not to save their technician…well, there were no odds, and Shinigami-sama should have known that.
The showdown went on when he gave in to them on that point, then brought up this crazy Children’s Crusade idea of his. I guess we’re all members. Sweet. He suggested we should all go after Medusa and see if she knew anything about where Noah was.
Liz and Patty didn’t like that. Black Star didn’t like it, Maka didn’t like it, I sure as hell didn’t like it.
Item number 352 on the list of, like, 10,000 things I’m never going to tell Maka (or, obviously, anyone else) is this: the reason I hate Medusa so much is that I get where she’s coming from, and it freaks me out.
I mean, I’ve spent a fair bit of time wanting to blow up the whole world and watch it go batshit and laugh while it does. I’m thinking the only other person who feels that way is Medusa. And maybe Dr. Stein.
There’s something sexy about insanity. I told Maka before, but it’s not the kind of thing she’s built to understand. The one time she really lost it, she thought it was embarrassing. So she’s got good, pure, Chrona-related reasons for hating Medusa.
It’s lucky we’re not too similar. The only reason I haven’t gone all Medusa myself is that I have people to protect. They keep me grounded, yeah? But sometimes it just feels like they’re holding me back. Which is scary as fuck.
Medusa’s a constant reminder of how bad I could get if I let myself. It’s uncomfortable.
So I don’t like that the witch is still alive, and I really don’t like that she’s randomly possessed her sister; that’s sick. There may not even be a level of dislike to cover the fact that Shinigami-sama wants us to chat with her.
I’m starting to wonder about Shinigami-sama. Just a little, you know. You have to trust people or you lose it, I get that. All the same, he starts to pull something weird with Maka, and we are gone.
We’d only have to wait it out until Kid takes over. I do trust Kid. We could hang out with my family in the meantime; Maka’s never even met them. I could make it sound like meeting my family was the only reason we ran away from Shibusen. Although if we’d have to wait on Kid another eight hundred years or something, that plan would have to get scrapped.
It’s kind of a moot point at the moment, anyway.
Kid’s not being around has messed with the dynamic way more than I thought it would. He’s a recent addition, right? But we don’t work without him anymore. Just like that, bam. Walks in the first day and Black Star and I try to kick his ass, not even a year later, we’re tearing apart the wide world looking to save him. I guess you call that charisma.
Liz hasn’t looked up from her latest book on freaky books since we came in. She’s shouting stuff out to Patty, who’s on the mirror with Shinigami-sama bitching him out for not getting Kid back fast enough. I don’t think Patty’s noticed, but she’s also organizing the side table next to her so it’s symmetrical. This is basically all they’ve been doing for the past three days, and clearly a party isn’t going to stop them.
Hell, this isn’t a party. It’s a war council.
“Forget Medusa! Leave it to me! I’ll take that Noah bastard down,” Black Star announces, typical Black Star. All confidence, no forethought.
“You gotta find him first, Black Star,” I tell him. Not because I think that’ll slow him down for a second, but just because someone has to. ‘Grown up,’ my ass.
The thing with Black Star is, he throws himself headfirst into brick walls every day, like that’s gonna bring them down. And since he really believes he can take down brick walls with just his head-hey, sometimes he can. That keeps him convinced it’s possible, so it’s a whole vicious cycle.
People’ve been saying this stuff about how Black Star’s getting dark and scary, but that’s not how it is. He’s just found a bigger wall to chuck himself at. It’s cute, I guess. Tsubaki thinks so, anyway, and she’s the one who counts.
“So what?” he says. “Shinigami-sama’ll find him, and then I’ll take him down! We don’t need a freaking witch to help.”
Tsubaki gives him a significant look.
“Except Kim,” he says hastily. Tsubaki has him surprisingly well trained. “She rocks! Not as much as I do, obviously, but she rocks!”
Kim rolls her eyes. “Kid’ll still be stuck in a book, Black Star,” she sighs.
“Maka’ll get him out of the book. What else is a bookworm for?”
“Hey!” Maka says. And here I thought she wasn’t paying attention. It’s funny how she takes the bookworm stuff so hard. You’d think she’d be proud of it; her and Ox and their supergeniusness.
“That’s a good point,” Liz cuts in before Maka can go on. And I thought she wasn’t paying attention either. This is the annoying thing about girls. Right when you think you’re safe, turns out they’re hanging on your every word. (And then when you think they’re listening, turns out they’ve been ignoring you for the last ten minutes.)
“Here, Maka,” Liz says, passing over one of her books. “I got this one from Medusa’s place. It’s about Eibon.”
“You got this book from Medusa’s house?” Maka asks, wide-eyed. “How? It’s half blown up. And they’re guarding it around the clock!”
“I WILL FUCK YOU UP, BUDDY!” Patty snarls from the mirror, making all of us including Shinigami-sama jump. Shinigami-sama is apparently going to let the book theft pass without comment.
“…I see,” Maka says. She opens the book without saying anything else. She doesn’t know it, but sometimes she’s the coolest, and she doesn’t even try.
Me, I have to try. When you’re as shaky on sanity as I am, you’d better be cool to make up for it, or you can just lay down and die of worthless.
Speaking of which, it’s probably time to make myself useful. I wander over to Patty and listen to the neverending mirror conversation, even though I could recite it myself by now. It’s like this:
Patty: Where’s Kid?
Shinigami: Sid’s team is looking for him right now. As soon as we find him, I’ll tell you.
Patty: Then what?
Shinigami: Then we’ll send in the Shibu-Kids Squad!
Patty: Why can’t the Kid Squad help look?
Shinigami: Sid, unlike the rest of you, has a lot of experience finding people. It wouldn’t make sense to scatter teams everywhere when we might need them together at any moment. You and Liz are doing everything you can, Patty. My son is very lucky to have you.
Patty: The hell he is. We let him get sucked into a book.
Shinigami: You couldn’t have stopped it.
Patty: Couldn’t you have?
Shinigami: No. You know I can’t leave Shibusen.
Patty: I feel like you should be doing more. Why aren’t you worried?
Shinigami: I’m very worried. But I’m doing all I can.
Patty: Why haven’t you found him yet?
Shinigami: Sid’s team is looking for him right now…
And round and round it goes. Every time it starts to annoy me, I have to remind myself that I’d be at least this weird if it were Maka.
Be willing to die for your technician, that’s what they teach you. But Kid threw Liz and Patty away to keep them safe. It must be killing them. I know it would me.
“Where’s Sid-sensei now, Shinigami-sama?” I ask.
Shinigami-sama and Patty both stare at me. I broke the loop, and they don’t know how to act about it. It’s kind of funny.
“He hasn’t reported in today,” Shinigami-sama says finally. “Yesterday he was in China. Today he was planning to follow some rumors about Noah to the West.”
“So when he reports in, you’re sending in the Children’s Crusade.”
It’s hard for a skull mask to look disapproving, but Shinigami-sama’s had a lot of practice at it, what with, you know, Maka’s dad. “Shibu-Kids Squad, Soul,” he says.
“Okay.” Whatever. “So on that team, it’s gonna be Liz and Patty for sure. And Black Star and Tsubaki, because you can’t stop them.”
“You got that right,” Black Star says. “I will not be denied my stage!”
Shinigami-sama tips his head in a rueful sort of way.
“Me and Soul,” Maka puts in. “You’ll need someone with good soul perception. Kim and Jackie, for injuries. And then for adults, Sid-sensei; he’s a good fighter, and he’ll already be there. And Nygus-sensei.”
A little pause, while everybody shuffles through the options.
“That’s it, then,” I say. “Unless you want that far-seeing lady or the monkey in on it, or you’ve got a Noah expert hiding up your sleeve.”
“It’s a shame we don’t have Marie and Dr. Stein,” Tsubaki says quietly.
Shinigami-sama doesn’t say anything. There’s been one loud silence about Marie and Dr. Stein ever since they disappeared. I try not to be suspicious, since that wakes up my little demon guy, but it can be pretty hard.
It’s funny that Tsubaki was the one to bring it up. She can be so diplomatic when she wants. And then there are those other times.
Sid-sensei breaks into the Dr. Stein-quiet. He says, “I found him.”
* * *
There were really only two noteworthy things about that rescue mission.
One: We got him back, and he’s as okay as he ever is.
Two: Nobody made me play the piano.
Other than that, it was the same old story as ever, right down to the learning nothing useful and letting the bad guy get away.
Jerusalem. Liz and Patty insisted that was good, because Kid likes the desert. I didn’t see where it made any difference; Kid was locked in a book and not really in a position to enjoy it. Didn’t say that. Getting shot by Patty is not the way I picture myself dying.
Speaking of dying in stupid ways, Black Star just about got killed hurling himself headlong at Noah. Sure, he survived it. This time. But I gotta say, I’m not sure what he’s aiming for. In life, I mean. I want to get strong too, but I don’t want to kill myself while I’m at it. That would kind of defeat the purpose. It’s like, what, he wants to reach his peak at seventeen or something? Black Star, man, you reach your peak at seventeen, and you got nowhere to go but down. And probably you’re gonna have a long time to get there.
But whatever. He can’t be told.
Me and Maka, we don’t usually go for the glory, though sometimes we get tossed in that direction. Like with Arachne. Which isn’t to say we don’t do our share of really dumb things under our own steam, because we do. Note this sexy scar of mine.
Damn, that’s the problem with scars. You get ‘em, and then people want to hear the amazing story. But the story is almost always gonna start, “Well, this one time I was incredibly stupid…”
Our job for this mission was to sneak the book away, and Black Star’s job was to be a distraction. Say one thing for Black Star, say he’s really good at being distracting. Our job was a cakewalk. Hell, I was mostly decorative. Only time I came in handy was when Noah got away. He got away in the direction of Maka, and I had to block some weird knife thing he threw at her. He didn’t seem to be putting much heart behind it, though, because once I blocked it, he didn’t try anything else. Just left. Nobody saw that coming, so we failed epically at stopping him.
Black Star was pissed, obviously. Oh for the glory of yesteryear, oh that every opponent could be as worthy as Mifune. Me, I was happy it went so smooth. Not that I’ll share that thought with Black Star.
(On a sidenote, I got this to say about Mifune: I don’t ever want Black Star fighting anybody like that again. Why? Because Shibusen will end up overrun with defenseless orphans, that’s why. And if Angela kicks me in the shin one more time, I’m gonna kick her ass, I don’t care what Maka says about cruelty to children.)
Shinigami-sama gave Sid-sensei instructions on prying stuff out of the book. They pulled Kid out right there in the middle of the desert. He seemed basically okay, or at least he did until Black Star attacked him out of random enthusiasm, Liz and Patty jumped in to beat up Black Star, and chaos ensued.
While that was going on, Sid-sensei pulled out a kid who looked like he was part snake, a rock that looked an awful lot like the world’s biggest diamond, and I swear to God a unicorn. At that point, he said, “I think we’d better finish emptying this book at Shibusen.”
I’m all about letting the crazy be somebody else’s problem. We got Kid back, and that was all I was signed up for. Magic books, that’s above and beyond.
* * *
Liz and Patty instantly went back to normal the day we got Kid back. Liz is boy-crazy again, and more worried about painting her nails than studying. Patty giggles all the time, and is just as friendly as she can be with everybody.
Kid’ll never know what they were like without him. He’ll never know how destroyed they were when he was gone. Even if we told him, he wouldn’t understand it.
I don’t know if Maka’s learning anything from this, or if she thinks this is something that’s only true of Kid and his weapons. Maybe she thinks her weapon’s a different story. Me, I think all us weapons are pretty much the same.
Anyway, Liz and Patty are back to normal, but that’s more than you can say for Kid. I guess he was in that book for weeks with nothing to distract him from symmetry. If he was passing strange before, then he’s downright bizarre now.
Liz and Patty don’t care. They will in a couple of days, though. And a week or two after that, it’ll be driving them batshit. Should be fun to watch.
Sometimes I wonder why Kid hasn’t lost it completely. Maybe insanity doesn’t work on shinigami, because it seems like if it did, Kid should have gone down about ten seconds after Stein.
Then again, maybe it does work on shinigami, and Kid’s still standing because of Liz and Patty. God knows I’d be twitching and grinning and playing the end of the world if it weren’t for Maka.
But it’s good to have Kid back. I’m letting him worry about keeping his dad in line, so all I have to worry about is Maka. And myself, which is turning out to be more of a worry than it usually is.
I’ve been randomly tired ever since we got back. I don’t get tired for no reason. Even when I’m sick, I just crash completely for a day, then I’m back on my feet and fine. But I’m not sick this time. And the more I sleep, the more tired I get. I don’t like it, and Maka’s going nuts over it.
“You’re sick,” she says. “Stop denying it.”
“I’m not sick,” I tell her for at least the fiftieth time. “I feel fine. I’m fine! Maybe I haven’t been sleeping enough or something.”
“Ever since we came back from Jerusalem, you’ve been sleeping an hour longer than you usually do every night,” she says in the voice of extreme fierceness. “And you’re still exhausted every day.”
…She times how long I sleep? How long has that been going on?
“Maybe I just got worn out in Jerusalem.” Leaving aside the subject of people who time how long other people are sleeping.
“Maybe you’re in denial,” she snaps.
“Maka, I’m fine!”
She crosses her arms. It means she’s tired of arguing for now, but she’s not happy. “I’ll cook dinner tonight,” she says. “So you have to rest.”
Great, she thinks I’m dying. “I can cook dinner.”
“Oh, I know. You can cook dinner, you can dance the tango, you can take care of the Kishin all by yourself. You and Black Star, you two can do anything. But I want to cook dinner, and I want you to rest. Do it for me.”
I am not like Black Star.
…Okay, I’m a little like Black Star. But it’s a matter of degree.
“If that’s what you want,” I sigh. I don’t tell her she’s just like Ox, because that would be a rubber-glue kind of argument. But it’s a near thing.
* * *
The tired problem keeps getting worse. That bites for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that no sooner do I figure out how to hide it than it gets harder to hide.
Maka’s wise to me anyway. One more off-schedule nap, and she’ll haul me to the infirmary whether I like it or not.
It’s not that I’m so opposed to going to the infirmary, it’s just…I don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’d get there and Nygus-sensei would be like, “What’s wrong with you?” and I’d have to say, “Nothing, actually.” And then Maka would hit me with a book just on general principles.
Better to avoid the whole thing, right?
I’ve taken to walking around the school during lunch while I eat. That’s a tactic. It keeps me from falling asleep into my food, which would upset Maka. Besides, it would be completely uncool.
Walking used to be a good tactic. It’s starting to fall apart now, though, because I don’t have enough energy to walk all lunch. Is that sad or is it sad? I have to take breaks. Like an old man. I should just get a cane and some birdseed and call it a life.
I walk past Harvar sitting in…they call it a park, but it’s not a park. Parks have growing things in them. A dead park, that’s what it is, but it looks like a good place to take an old man break before afternoon classes and training. (Yeah, I can hardly walk around the grounds. You can just imagine what fun training has been.) The dead park looks good partly because Havar won’t ask me what’s wrong with me (he doesn’t care), and partly because I just can’t stand up anymore.
Maka’s got to be right, after all. I don’t feel it much, but I’m definitely sick. The great would-be Death Scythe, felled by a cold. Lame.
“How’s Ox?” I ask, because conversation keeps me awake, and Ox is the only subject Harvar’s willing to talk about for any length of time.
“Besotted,” he says.
“Wasn’t he always?”
“Now that he’s got a prayer of reciprocation, it’s reached new and more obnoxious heights.” He says this without changing expression or looking my way. What he’s looking at is a dead tree across from us, slightly to the left. If you followed his line of sight far enough, you’d eventually hit Ox. Harvar’s always done that, ever since he and Ox teamed up. Maybe before.
It’s creepy. And what’s creepier is that it doesn’t seem to bother Ox at all.
“Sorry about that,” I say. No point in commenting on the tree-staring. Commenting on anything Harvar does is a no-go.
“I’ve been prepared to cope with it,” he says, and gives me a five-second glance. “But I don’t think you are.”
What’s that supposed to mean? “Maka’s not besotted.”
“Not yet.”
“Actually, that’s not true. Maka’s besotted with books.”
“So is Ox, but he’s also besotted with Kim. And women multitask better than men do.”
“It hasn’t come up.”
“It will. Maka’s growing up. Hadn’t you noticed?”
“Look.” This conversation is surreal. “Why are you even interested in my love life?”
Harvar has the evilest smile I’ve ever seen, and considering I’ve seen Medusa’s, that’s saying something. “I didn’t know we were discussing your love life,” he says.
Ouch. “Fine. Why are we discussing love lives at all?”
“You asked.”
“Not exactly.”
“He who strikes first strikes last, Soul Eater.”
“The hell he does. Kim didn’t strike first. Kim didn’t strike at all.”
“No, Kim definitely struck. It just wasn’t entirely deliberate.” He stands up and puts his hands in his pockets. “I was the one who didn’t strike at all.” And off he goes, taking his freaky love-and-war metaphors with him.
…And whoa. Does Ox know about this?
No, probably not. That would be the ‘not striking at all’ thing, wouldn’t it? So why would Harvar tell me? Was that, like, ‘learn from my mistakes, young one’? What the hell, Harvar?
Fuck, I’m too tired for this.
* * *
The next thing I know, Maka’s shaking me awake and looking terrified and angry, because she hardly ever does one without the other.
“What happened?” I mumble.
“What happened?” Gah, I hate it when she’s shrieky. “You fell asleep in the middle of the day, Soul! And, yes, you do take naps at weird times and completely rudely in the middle of class, but-you never miss training!”
I missed training?
“What time is it?” I ask. I see why she has the horrified face. I probably have the horrified face, too, now.
“It’s 4 o’clock, Soul.” Oh shit, she looks like she’s gonna cry. “I had no idea where you were. Harvar finally told me you might be here-but he left you here hours ago!”
“Harvar is so weird, Maka,” I tell her. I don’t know why I feel like I have to tell her right now when she’s worried about my missing training, but it seems really important that I should. Only now she looks more worried than ever.
“I missed training,” I go on. You know, Harvar, training, it all makes sense. “Shit, I’m really sick, huh?”
She’s got her hand on my forehead now, and I lean into it a bit without thinking. No idea why a hand on the forehead should be so comforting. It’s not like it’s actually gonna help anything.
“You don’t feel like you have much of a fever,” she says. “You don’t look sick. But, Soul, you’re acting really weird.”
“It’s not an act.” I am really weird.
“Weird even for you.”
Oh.
“I’m taking you to the infirmary.”
“You said I don’t have a fever, so it can’t be that bad.” Manly man, yeah. This comes of spending too much time with Black Star. Further to which, I try to stand up, and wow, that’s a mistake.
“Soul!”
Oh, hell, I just swooned into Maka’s arms because I caught a cold. How utterly uncool.
Luckily I’m not conscious long enough to worry about it much.
* * *
I’m not sure where I am, but it feels like I’ve been here for a while. A long time, maybe.
What am I doing? Am I waiting for someone? Wes?
…No. Wes hasn’t picked me up from school in…years? Because I’m not Soul Evans anymore.
That’s right. Soul Eater, that’s who I am.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” says the little demon guy. “But I don’t mind telling you I’m really fucking sick of it.”
Oh yeah, the little demon guy. He’s been here for a while, too. Maybe the whole time.
“Yes. The whole time. Trust me, the whole boring, insufferable time.”
No, wait. Not the whole time. Not back when I was at home. With Wes…
“Look, kid, I have never hated anyone as much as I hate your brother and I’ve never even met the guy. Think about someone else. I don’t care who right now, really. Honestly. Anyone.”
Huh. Guess I’ve been thinking about Wes a lot. Figures, if I’m sitting here doing nothing. I guess he’s my favorite person. Him and Maka.
Oh yeah. Maka.
“I lied. Anyone except her.”
Apparently I’ve been thinking about Maka a lot, too. But I’ll go with it, because things are getting clearer the longer I think about her. I know this room, for one thing. This is the room in my soul where the little demon guy tries to turn me into a megalomaniac.
“It’s backfired. I see the error of my ways now.”
Don’t know what I’m doing here randomly sitting on the floor by the piano, though. And if I have to be here for no reason for who knows how long, do I really have to be stuck with the little demon guy?
“Thanks so much. Because, you know, this is really my idea of a good time. Stuck here watching you go crazy the boring way. If you’d just taken my help back then, you’d still be insane, but at least I wouldn’t be bored.”
We all got troubles. Look at me, I got a demon in my head telling me I’m crazy. And boring.
“Look, Soul, I don’t think it’s too late.” He leans forward. I’d say he looks shady and wild-eyed, but hey, he always looks like that. “If you’ll let me help you, I think we can still pull you out of this.”
Bullshit. He just wants to see the fireworks. And Maka would yell at me if I did that.
“You don’t need her,” he says in what he probably thinks is a tempting whisper. It’s weird how sometimes he completely gets me, and other times he couldn’t be more off if he tried. I need Maka like I need air.
“She’s a burden, she’s holding you back,” he says. “You’ve thought it yourself before now.”
I can’t be held responsible for all the crazy shit I think. And what does a guy have to do to get a half hour of time alone in his own head, huh? Is that so much to ask?
“Don’t blame me,” he says. I never know how to act when he gets sulky. “If there was any earthly way for me to get away from you and your boring crazy, believe me, I would have long before now.”
So harsh, demon guy.
“Oh, look. Company. I hate to say it, but I’m actually glad to see her.”
Her?
Oh, it’s Maka. That’s good.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s good’!? I thought you wanted privacy in your head!”
Yeah, well, she’s welcome.
“Meaning after all I’ve done for you, I’m still not welcome? You ungrateful little brat.”
Man, the life of an uninvited guest sure is tough.
“And boring! Boring little brat!”
“Is he still here?” Maka’s staring at the demon guy and looking kinda disgusted.
Weird. Every other time she was in my head, she didn’t really comment on the demon guy. Well, every other time, we were in the middle of a battle, so she was distracted.
Wait.
“What are you doing in my head, Maka? We’re not fighting, are we?”
Now she looks like I hit her with a brick. What? What the hell’s going on?
“You don’t even know if we’re fighting, Soul,” she says, gently like she’s talking to someone sick or brain damaged. “Don’t you think that’s a bad sign?”
Well, when you put it like that, there are plenty of bad signs to go around. What are we doing? Apart from sitting in my head chilling with the demon guy, of course. I can’t remember.
Oh, that can’t be good.
“You’ve got a fever,” she says, coming to settle next to me. She’s wearing her scary black blood dress. She looks great in it. Too bad it means I’m, you know, losing it. And that I can’t think of a way to con her into wearing something like it in real life.
Nah. Then I really would have to beat the boys back with a stick, like Havar said. Maybe I like it best that she doesn’t wear that dress much.
Fevered, yeah. I get that. That’s probably why my focus is for shit.
“If I’m fevered, what’re you doing in my head?” There. I didn’t say a thing about her dress. I’m proud of myself. “Isn’t it more normal to, like, feed people soup when they have fevers?”
“You’ve had a fever for a month, Soul,” she says.
A month. A month?
“So I’m sick and brain damaged,” I say. I’m trying not to be panicky. Panicky is not cool. And if I’m brain damaged, then I’m gonna need all the cool I can get.
“You are not brain damaged,” she huffs, crossing her arms.
“I’ve had a fever for a month, Maka!”
“Low fever.”
“So what? You have it long enough, you get brain damage, right?”
“Not necessarily.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Soul!”
Uh oh. She’s getting that look she gets right before she decks me with a book.
“Look, when you haven’t got that much brain to begin with, you wanna hold on to the little you’ve got!”
“Don’t try to act like you’re stupid!”
“It’s relative, isn’t it?”
“What in the hell,” hisses the demon, “are you two doing? I thought the girl would force you into sense, but I see I’m doomed to disappointment!”
Maka blinks at me. I blink at Maka. What the hell are we doing? We’re supposed to be talking about why she’s in my head. “Back to the point,” I say, pretending it’s her fault we’re babbling. “Why are you in my head, Maka?”
She looks irritated and confused. I guess I’m glad I’m not the only one around here who can’t focus. “To pull you out,” she says.
“You’re in my head to pull me out of my head? Cuz, no offense, but that doesn’t seem like a great idea.”
“To pull you out of the book, Soul!”
Book? The magic, cursed book that was totally not my problem anymore?
“I’m in the book? Since when?”
“You’re only sort of in the book. We think it’s trying to eat your soul.”
Oh, well, if that’s all it is.
“Noah threw something at you. Do you remember that?”
Now she mentions it. “I thought that was a knife or something.”
“Shinigami-sama thinks it was…like a hook.”
“That’s great, Maka.” I’m glad she came to tell me all this in the last moments before my soul gets eaten. Soul Eater’s soul gets eaten. Poetic, right? “Are you here to see me off?”
“No, idiot,” she snaps. “I said I was here to pull you out! How addled are you?”
Considering part of my brain is still stuck on her dress, I’d say pretty addled.
“Does this mean you have a plan?” I ask. It’s sort of hit or miss with her.
“Of course I have a plan!” she snaps. “You think I threw myself into your soul with no plan? Who am I, Black Star?”
“Don’t pick on Black Star.” It’s so easy, it’s not sporting. “What’s the plan?”
“Shinigami-sama and Sid-sensei are working on pulling you out. It’s your soul that’s trapped; it’s different from pulling out physical things. They’re still trying to figure out exactly how to do it. But they were afraid that if they let you go much longer, there wouldn’t be enough of your soul left to pull out. That’s why I’m here.”
I wait for it. But no. That’s all she’s gonna give me.
“Back up, why are you here? Because it still sounds like it’s for the final farewell.”
“I’m here to keep your soul from scattering,” she says impatiently, like any idiot should have been able to figure that out. What is it with smart people always being crap at explaining things?
“Is that what it’s doing?” the demon guy says. He sounds weirdly happy about it. “I take it back, brat. You’re not getting boring, you’re just falling apart. That’s a relief!”
“Thanks,” I tell him. “It’s good to know you’re concerned for my well-being.”
“I thought I’d infected a real dud,” he goes on, oblivious. “But I was right about you! I mean, if you completely dissolve, I’ll have to infect someone else, and that’ll be annoying. But at least I won’t have been wrong.”
Maka’s laughing. My partner and her weird sense of humor.
“Maka, I know you think you’re helping, but you’re not, really.”
“Nah, she is,” the demon says, squinting at me sidelong. “Now I know what to look for, I can see it, too. You’re fraying like a rotten shroud.”
Graphic imagery, that’s. Good.
“But it’s slowing down, now she’s here. You’d better take my help before you slip again, though, brat. This is no time to be too good for demons.”
“Yeah. Didn’t you just finish telling me how I’d go insane if I let you help?”
“Oh, that you remember!”
“Soul?” Maka asks in my least favorite voice. The one that means she’s scared and not even trying to hide it. “What…what’s going on?”
I look around. What’s going on is, the room is shifting. Maybe writhing is more the word. The walls are sliding and the floor is cracking, and everything but the piano looks like it’s going straight to hell.
“I guess I will have to find another host,” the demon guys sighs, like it’s a real hardship.
“You’re losing it even though I’m here?” Maka’s recovered: she just sounds pissed off, now. She’s ridiculously tough, my partner. “Is this because your soul was so strange to begin with?”
“It’s always been a little surreal around here,” I admit. “But usually we both know what’s going on anyway. This time neither of us knows what’s going on.”
“Isn’t harmony wonderful?” the demon asks sourly.
“Do you know why it’s happening?” If he’s so determined to sit there and bitch, he can just make himself useful.
He squints sideways at me, the walls, Maka. Gives a disgusted snort.
“You’re taking her down with you,” he says. “That’s what’s going on.”
“I’m what!?”
“I think the walls are warping because they’re reflecting her soul too. Could be.” Turn. Squint. “Gotta be. You’re not coming apart as fast as you were, but now you’re taking her down with you.”
Be willing to die for the technician, that’s what they teach you. Tear your technician’s soul to shreds is nowhere in the handbook. I suck at most of life, I get that. I gave up piano because I knew it was going nowhere, but this, I thought I could be good at this. I thought, hell, I was built for this. I thought I could, at the very least, not destroy Maka. That seems like a pretty achievable thing, right? Don’t rip your partner to pieces? Any idiot could do that, right? But not me, shit, I’m special.
“It’s speeding up,” I hear from someplace far away. Distorted, warped, underwater. Out. Of. Tune.
“Soul!”
Maka’s voice, that’s. I’m making her scream now. That’s perfect, fucking perfect. I swore I’d never hurt her. Why did she come to get me, why couldn’t she just let me die? Can’t she see this is the worst thing she could do to me, oh God what if she goes first, I’ll-
Ow.
“Soul, this is no time to get hysterical!”
She slapped me. That’s new. Slapping, she’s not really the slapping kind. Maybe she couldn’t find a book? But in that case, she usually goes for punching.
I’m confused.
Wait. Where are we?
“Oh, bugger, not this again,” the demon guy sighs.
Oh, yeah. The demon guy. Has he been here all along?
“Kid, don’t you dare do this to me again. I swear, I swear if you think one thought about your brother, I will kill you myself, even if I do have to find another host afterward.”
“What’s going on?” Maka asks. See? Maka’s confused too, demon guy. I’m not the only one.
What’s Maka doing here anyway? This looks like the room in my soul. Yeah, there’s the piano. What…?
“He’s forgotten where he is. Again. You have no idea. He does this over and over and over-”
“Don’t you get hysterical, either,” Maka snaps impatiently, folding her arms. “I didn’t even know demons could get hysterical.”
“Look, lady, I’ve been driven to it. And the other bad news is, I’m pretty sure his cycle’s getting shorter. You get me? Soon he’ll be doing this every few minutes. That’s apart from the problem with the walls cracking and the floor shifting and everything else going to shit, of course.”
“So what do we do?” Maka asks.
I see what the demon guy means. Whatever the hell’s going on, this room looks like it’s coming to bits. But Maka’s on the case, right? I’m just the weapon; I’ll do what she tells me.
“That’s a blessed relief,” the demon guy snarls in my direction. “Seeing as she’s asking me what to do. Which boils down to all of us being screwed, is what!”
Whatever, demon guy. Have a little faith in my partner.
“This all happened because he got upset,” Maka cuts in. “You said it was slowing down. When did that happen?”
“When he was talking to you,” the demon guy muttered. “When you were laughing at his pain, mostly. Kid’s sick, you know?”
Maka smiles at me. It’s that fond smile. That fond smile that’s like a kick in the chest sometimes, but it’s a good kick in the chest. Or I’m a masochist. Something like that.
“I know,” she says.
“Hey, Maka.” If she’s gonna look at me like that, I feel like I can ask her questions. It’s only fair. “What slowed down?”
She tips her head and considers me. At a time like this, she is actually thinking about not telling me. Unbelievable. “Maka, I can take it, seriously. What slowed down?”
“Your soul is coming apart,” she says. And when she decides a guy can take it, she pulls no punches, huh? “It doesn’t come apart as quickly when you’re calm.”
“When you’re thinking about the girl,” the demon guy corrects with a sneer.
“Same thing, probably,” I tell him, then turn back to Maka in time to catch…was that actually a blush?
…Okay. Weird.
Anyway.
“So I should be calm, and I should be thinking about you,” I say, just to make sure I’ve got this straight. She nods.
Right. That means I should probably stop fixating on how good she looks in that dress, because it’s not a calming thought.
Calming. I can do calming. What makes me calm?
Piano makes me calm. Sometimes, when it isn’t making me crazy. I could play something calming, but…Maka. I could play something in G?
No. I know.
“I’m gonna teach you to play piano,” I tell Maka. “That ought to keep me calm and thinking about you. At least, calm until it hits me how bad you are.”
She doesn’t bite back. Not good. Maka always bites back. I thought it was a reflex. Does that mean she’s getting influenced by this? If she’s in my soul, and my soul’s coming apart, then-
“Soul,” she says, interrupting that really not-calming train of thought. “I don’t even know how to read music.”
“Won’t have to. I’ll just teach you a couple things by rote.”
She still looks dubious.
“What, you got something better to do?”
She shakes her head, comes over to the piano and sits. I sit next to her, close, try hard to think pure piano thoughts not related to how she’s soft and warm and wearing that dress. Focus, dammit. She molests you all the time when you’re a scythe, the hell is your problem now?
…Right, that was the wrong mental path to head down.
“G,” I tell her, and play it. “That’s you.”
She plays it back at me.
We go through scales first, obviously. And since we’re doing this for fun, and not because we’re gonna make a great pianist of her, I don’t torture her with them for hours. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” may not be the most exciting piece of music ever, but it’s definitely more exciting than scales.
I’m teaching her to play the piano that lives in my soul. I wonder if she’s stopped to think about what that means. God, I hope not.
But the demon’s sitting on the piano making fun of us, Maka’s laughing and screwing up epically, and I’m…
Having a lot of fun, actually.
We’re partway through a really misguided attempt at “Chopsticks” when the world turns upside down, and something yanks me backwards.
Part 2