The Essay - chapter 1 - Maka Centric - Table 1 - Theme#1 Rain
Title: The Essay
Author: unseen_daydream
Rating: T
Pairing: Maka Centric
Theme #: 1
Theme Title: Rain
Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater, if I did, There would be more Kidd/Maka!
Summary: ‘My partner and I have collected 199 kinshin eggs and 1 witch’s soul. With my perception I have seen hundreds of others. Out of all of those, 42 souls stand out above the rest.’
Notes: First serious post for Live journal in like...years, so I'm a tad bit nervous.
The First Soul
‘Perhaps it is a cliché, but one of the most vivid souls in my memory is the first soul my partner and I ever collected. But what stands out is not so much the soul itself, but rather the way the rain felt like icy needles, the way fear and excitement seeped through every vein in my body, and, of course, the way my own vomit tasted afterwards.’
It has been a month since Soul Eater and Maka Albarn first became partners. Despite their obvious to the point of being comical clash in personality, they worked quite well together. Of course there was trouble in the beginning, Soul hadn’t trusted Maka to know what she was doing and Maka trying too hard to make Soul do things her way. The pair is still feeling one another out, learning things about each other and gaining one another’s trust in turn.
The true problem lies deeper than this though, all partners clash and have trouble in the beginning, but all are able to at feel one another’s souls, all are able to at least partially resonate in some way. Maka Albarn and Soul Eater cannot seem to resonate at all.
Oh their souls are compatible, of course, other wise the partnership would never have been approved of, but no matter what they do or how they try, they can’t seem to feel their partner’s soul. Maka can wield Soul, there is no backlash when the two practice together, but in order to become even a one-star meister, two partners must be able to resonate.
The entire situation has the teacher’s baffled, how can two souls that are compatible, that can work together without their souls rejecting, not resonate even at the slightest? After a small debate amongst the teachers, despite protestations from a certain Death Scythe, a trial by fire has been decided as the best option. It will test the pair to their fullest compatibility and decide once and for all whether or not these two could work together. Of course, the mission would be an easy one, one even non one-star pairs can handle, and, also of course, the true stakes, their partnership, wouldn’t be revealed.
The pair is, of course, excited and eager to prove themselves.
It is raining.
“Where is the dam thing?” Soul Eater demands moodily as he walks alongside his meister, white hair drooping slightly under the rain.
“The information provided says the pre-kinshin is seen most often in this area, we just need to look harder,” Maka Albarn replies, determination lacing each word, however she does puller her long trench coat closer to her, trying to shield herself from the rain.
There are bigger things she needs to protect herself from.
From the shadows, a pre-kinshin lurks. He is not overtly powerful; he has only consumed seven human souls. In fact, he looks mostly human except for the oversized protruding jaws filled with two separate rows of razor hook-shaped teeth jutting out from behind thin lips. He may have been handsome, once, but when one human consumes another’s soul it changes them. It is a form of cannibalism of the darkest and most warped sort. To a normal human, the physical changes could be considered ‘invisible’; they cannot see the effects the consumption of a soul has on a pre-kinshin. To them, they appear like any other human, it is the meisters and their weapons alone that can see the full effects of their sin.
The kinshin moves, his name is Edward.
Warned only by loud steps and heavy breathing, the pair barely manage to dodge the jaws as they snap and gnaw at the air they once occupied. The jumped to opposite sides, separated by Edward, as adrenaline pumped through their veins in synchrony. A figure on a nearby rooftop shifts.
“Soul!” Maka yells, panic and excitement seeping into her ton and her arm outstretched toward him.
“I know!” he called back, dodging past another bit and towards the blond girl.
They underestimated their opponent though, or perhaps they overestimated themselves, for the jaws snap at the place the pair would have met had they taken even one more step. The kinshin is determined to keep the pair separated. Saliva drips from Edward’s protruding jaws, he crouches down an animal, predatorily. He growls out from the back of his throat, “Don’t even try it!”
Mr. Sid once said, ‘On average, a pre-kinshin begins showing signs of his crime after the fifth soul, they transform completely after the twentieth, lose any trace of previous personality by the forty third soul and any spare trace of a conscience, of right and wrong, is lost after the first soul’
Statistics don’t exactly matter when you’re fighting for your life though.
No matter how they jump and dodge, feint or run the pair cannot seem to meet each other. Edward is always there, snapping at them the moment they get to close. It is an almost comical game of cat and mouse; only this mouse is a foaming at the mouth, overgrown rat who bites back.
“Dam it…!” Maka growls to herself, “Come on, Soul! Get over here!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a frickin’ kinshin in the way!” Soul yells back angrily as he jumps away from another of Edward’s bites.
A flash of insight on Maka’s part and a short prayer to Shinigami later, and suddenly Maka is running towards Soul eater, her dark trench coat thrown in the opposite direction. The distraction works for about three seconds, but it was enough time for Maka and Soul to regroup.
Soul, in scythe form, being clenched tightly in Maka’s trembling fist, remarks, “Heh, now that was almost cool!”
Maka doesn’t reply as she makes a sort of dodge roll to escape Edward’s jaws, biting into the stone pavement and breaking it apart with great force, pieces of rock and shrapnel whizzing past her, making small cuts on Maka’s face. She scrambles back into a standing postion only to jump back again as Edward clamps his jaws down yet again. He growls wordlessly at her, frustration becoming evident.
“Dam it!” She curses, being forced into the defensive. She can feel fear dripping through her, but she pushes it back, not with courage or determination, but with the will to live.
Her back hits the wall of one of the buildings, surprising her for a second, Edward takes advantage and makes to bite through her, Maka, however, is smaller than he is so she ducks beneath the oncoming jaw and lunges away. Edward’s jaws break through the wall, sending more rock and dust into the air.
“Dam it, how strong is this thing!?” Soul yells.
But again Maka is forced to not answer as she jumps back again and again to avoid the snapping of jaws and teeth. Apparently, Edward has two strengths, his bite and his speed.
“Don’t just dodge, block!” Soul yells again, frustration becoming clear.
“Shut up, Soul!” Maka yells back as she dodges once again. This time, however, there is a misstep as she lands straight into a puddle and slips, landing on her backside. Seeing the opportunity, Edward rushes forward, jaws opened wide and saliva flying behind him, ready to devour the young meister and weapon before him.
Every nerve in her body screams ‘I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die!’ her breathing quickens and her vision tunnels as she stares in horror at the beast charging her. Her fear overtakes her too the point that she can’t even hear Soul screaming, fear coating his voice, “Move you idiot!” over the sound of her own pounding heartbeat. A figure on a roof tenses, ready to intervene any moment.
When a person experience fear, true unadulterated fear, the body will do anything in its power to either get away from or remove the source of fear. It’s like the fight or flight response is on steroids or crack, pumped to full capacity and working without conscious thought or decision.
If Soul were a sword or a blade or a knife or some other sort of straight blade, Edward’s head would have been completely severed. As it is, the awkward angle of the strike and the curve of Soul’s blade only allows for a half cut. Very bloody. Very Messy.
Maka stares into the face of the kinshin, of Edward, slowly coming back to her senses. His hair and eyes are chocolate brown, and seemed to stare into her own sea foam green eyes with a rather human intensity. The cloud of rage and hunger has been erased so close to death, leaving nothing but the soul. It feels to her as if she can tell exactly what he is thinking, the same as she was mere moments before:
‘I don’t want to die’
There is a sort of half gurglingly choked breath as blood and spittle spray across Maka’s face. His hook-like double-rowed teeth are tinted pink and his pale skin seems to blanch and clam. Perhaps, if Edward were more kinshin-like, such a stroke wouldn’t kill him, as it is though, Edward is still mostly human, thusly, Maka is there to watch his chocolate eyes dilate rapidly, as his awareness begins to fade. She there to hear his last haggard breathes, and she’s there to feel his mostly human body slump against her, dead.
Soul can feel the life slip away from Edward as well. He feels the other man’s flesh, muscles and veins break around his blade. He feels the blood gush and stain him with liquid warmth. Did you know, that when a person is in the process of dying, his or her pulse will speed up rapidly, like a bird’s, pumping adrenaline and endorphins in a last ditch effort to keep the body alive? Soul didn’t. But he could feel it as it happened, the bumpbumpbumpbump of a heart not willing to die and he could feel it slow slow slow until the little organ that couldn’t finally gives in to the inevitable.
After a moment, the body of Edward dissipates into nothingness, leaving nothing but the soul behind, it’s mostly blue, with red wisps and edges and swirls.
Soul Eater transforms back to human mode, his shoulder bent forward in a slump, the blood not marring him but for phantom warmth. A figure on a nearby roof relaxes slightly before disappearing to make a report. A moment of silence and then the shock sets in.
“I killed him.” A gentle declaration, shaking with both awe and disgust.
“We killed him.” A gentle correction.
“He’s dead.” A statement of fact.
“He would have killed us.” Another statement of fact.
“I killed him.” The soul of the matter, the part that counts.
The rain feels like needles and there is dust in the air with stray rocks and shrapnel and destruction to show for what has happened here. There is no body, no family to inform. Someone is waiting for Edward to come home but he never will. He’s a kinshin or a pre-kinshin or a mostly-human or whatever you want to call him but he was still alive and there are people who are wondering where he is right now. They’ll wonder for a long time too, because they’ve probably no idea what he’s done. And eyes like chocolate, burning with such an intense desire to live, don’t even exist anymore. Maka wonder’s if she took someone’s daddy away.
The rain feels like needles and there is the taste of bile in her mouth as her partner holds back her hair mumbling something about how cool it is to be a gentleman even if puking is decidedly not-cool. She thinks she may laugh. She thinks she may cry.
Her partner’s soul brushes lightly against her own.
‘It taught me a lesson, that all kinshin, no matter how horrible or ugly, were once human, with human thoughts and feelings and fears. It showed me just how much stronger I would need to become as a person, and how much stronger we, as partners, would need to become as a team.’