30A/N: The swearing content in this borders on 'M'. Sorry.
Catalysts
(SoMa Week 2014)
Day Five
Wounds
"Are you still alive?"
" . . . No. You?"
Maka groaned painfully, rolling onto her side – well, at least, onto what remained intact of it – as she tried to scope out her partner's body. Upon first inspection she couldn't see him, but when she managed to flip all the way over with a hiss of blinding pain; his legs were just visible out of the corner of her eye. She contemplated trying to make her way over to him, but as soon as her limbs began to scream in pain she merely gave up, slumping back down with a sigh of irritation and agony.
Her primary thought was that everything hurt. Not one bone or sinew from the crown her head to the phalanges of her toes was anything other than throbbing and aching. Her left arm down to her hip was rapidly becoming drenched in blood and she could feel the cuts on her side, nicks following the patterns of the claws of the creature who had managed to slice at them once before its head had made its way to the ground without the rest of its body. She shuddered remembering the blow – sharp, sharp claws sinking into her flesh and making her cry out as her nerves temporarily went numb, making her drop her scythe and lose her footing.
A terrible error, but not usually a fatal one.
Well, that was, unless one was midway through an aerial battle on said scythe.
Maka coughed yet again, cringing when she felt hot wetness in her throat and mouth. That couldn't be good. She felt like every single part of her had taken a heavy beating, had been punched by Black*Star one too many times. How could she screw up this badly? Although she'd already sliced the head clean off the beast before being hit, and therefore had believed it to be seconds from dead, she hadn't accounted for it having one final move up its sleeve. Its claws had lengthened and sharpened somewhat, hard and dark as obsidian, and had actually dislodged from their sockets to collide with her side just as she was beginning her descent to the ground.
Really, she should have expected something like this from a mission worthy of a three-star meister and Death Scythe. But that hadn't stopped her from ending up sprawled on the ground with cuts to the majority of her body from rolling down the decline and four puncture wounds on her shoulder, side, waist and the very top of her thigh. She was also pretty sure a rib had been cracked upon her impact, although it hadn't been so bad considering the majority of her landing was blocked by –
That idiot.
She flopped onto the ground weakly, whining slightly when she felt the red dampness spreading, but stayed in such a position as to be able to see Soul a little better. He had ended up a tree away from her, and by the way he was half-curled up, his fall down the decline had been stopped by his chest hitting it with enough force to do more than crack a rib. His right pant-leg was covered in dirt and the left one seemed to have been soaked with blood around the lower shin. She winced.
If she'd thought she'd hit the ground hard, what must it have been like for him? Because when her hand had dropped away from his shaft in midair, he had consequentially fallen to the ground too. He would have been far better off if he hadn't transformed, but he had, to try and absorb most of the force of her fall by landing first. Anyone else would be dead on impact.
Black Blood had its advantages like that. His wavelength was still slightly bent as he reigned back in the mad power he'd had to unleash to keep him alive through that one – she could feel it in the back of her mind. Her brain was still hazy but her Perception seemed to be working well enough to pick out the differences in his usually-steady and melodic soul.
She'd be giving him a right proper yelling right now if her lungs didn't feel like lumps of concrete in her bruised and tattered chest.
Still, she tried. She was Maka Albarn, after all – if Soul 'Eater' Evans did something stupid, even if she was a hundred miles away and on her last dying breath, she'd use it to insult him for being such an uncool moron. "You – complete idiot," she managed to gasp out.
"Shut up," was all he could reply with before he coughed. It sounded wet and worrying, but Maka knew he would be all right. With the liquid madness in his veins, it would take a lot more than a hard fall to kill him. They'd managed to harness his powers without either of them falling into insanity ten months ago on the moon; he should be able to heal himself up a little bit before anything too bad befell them. Besides, she was in so much pain that everything seemed rather calm, with no cause for alarm. There was nothing to do but lie here for a little while until one of them somehow got the strength up to move, right?
Before she could say anything, Soul gave a low growl that sent the hairs on her arms to attention like soldiers at the end of a sergeant's call. She tried to roll her head around to see his face, but she could sense the scowl on his face good enough. His legs moved slightly as he tried to readjust himself, and then she heard the soft thump of him giving up and flopping onto the forest floor again. He hissed in pain, further cuing her curiosity, because he was usually so hesitant to give any signs of being hurt badly.
Then again, they both seemed to be too far into the zone of too injured to give a flying fuck to care.
"Fuck me," he groaned as he tried to move again. "I can't believe this."
"What?"
"I've broken my Death-damn fucking arm."
Her increasing heart rate slowed back down as she expelled a breath – he'd almost had her really worried for a second. "Which one?"
"Right."
"Crap, that's your writing arm."
"Nah," he muttered. "Ambidextrous. But it's the one I usually use as a scythe blade and I can't play the piano with a fucked up arm."
She moaned sympathetically. "If it makes you feel better, my arm looks like spaghetti. Maybe we'll get matching scars."
"That's a bit cute," he replied drily, before somehow managing to pitch himself up. He disappeared from her line of sight momentarily as he dragged himself into a sitting position. She tilted her head, and there he was trying to stand up.
His hair was matted with a combination of dirt, blood and leaves. His cheek was cut, presumably from a falling branch, and his shirt was completely torn from the shoulder to his other side. While he held the collarbone of his right shoulder with his left hand, his right arm dangled uselessly from its socket like some sort of marionette with cut strings. She knew he'd absolutely kill himself without the use of all of his limbs, and a burning sense of guilt took hold in her stomach. Without his piano, he'd go stir crazy in the hospital.
By the looks of things, they'd both be in there for a while.
Her hopes rose as he managed to take about two steps forward, but then he swayed and with a brief exclamation of 'Shit!' he came crashing back down to the ground again. This time, he landed about a metre away from her. She took one look at the disgruntled expression on his face and a shit-eating grin spread across her own. She ignored the dribble of blood that ran from the corner of her mouth to her chin.
"That was graceful as Hell."
"Be quiet, at least I could stand – oh, fuck, fucking Hell!"
Her amusement died away as he rolled onto his side to face her, freeing his arm from underneath his body. It looked so weird, splaying out the other way, and he scowled again tightly as he used his left hand to drop the stupid thing in front of his chest.
"Are you okay?" she asked. It came out almost in a whisper.
His face cleared slightly at the worry peeking through her tone, and he managed to half-smile. "Just peachy. How about y – holy crap, what happened to your ribs?"
"Where did you think those stupid claws hit me, idiot?"
He cringed. "Does it hurt badly?"
She debated lying to try and ease the sudden concern on his face, but it wouldn't be worth it in the long run. " . . . Yeah. Like a bitch."
Soul's face darkened at the prospect of her being hurt so badly. She knew this would be in the forefront of his mind for the next week at least, and sighed. He always overreacted when she got the slightest injury in battle, let alone the fact that it was her job to be in danger and by protecting her he usually came out looking ten times worse. To try and lighten the mood – as much as possible considering both of them were thinking something along the lines of 'Shinigami, just cut all my arms and legs off so it hurts less' – she glanced around at the forest around them.
"This place is kind of pretty, don't you think?" she asked.
"Sure, lovely," he grunted. "Great view. I'll bring you on a picnic next time we visit."
She grinned tiredly. "I'll hold you to that – but only if you make the sandwiches."
"Of course I will; everyone knows I'm the God of Sandwich Making. Screw the God of Death and Warrior God shit they've got going back home. That's an achievement."
She would have punched his arm if hers wasn't moments from falling off and if his had any sort of nerve sense in it at the moment, but she settled for half-heartedly throwing a clump of leaves at him. He snorted and flicked a stick at her. They stayed like that for a few minutes, entertaining themselves and taking their minds off the pain, before a new question came to the forefront of her mind.
"Hey, Soul? How are we going to get home? Neither of us can fly in this condition."
"Black*Star and Tsubaki should be done their part of the mission by now, yeah? I doubt it could take that idiot long to track down a spell book for Mabaa-sama, even if we've taken down the main guards," Soul reasoned, but he looked less than confident in his friend's abilities. When it came to combat, Black*Star was unbeatable. When it came to not getting sidetracked on a mission, Black*Star was unbelievable. "When we don't meet up at the relay point he'll come look for us."
"He doesn't have Soul Perception like me, stupid," she reminded him.
He grinned wolfishly. "Yeah, but he'll be able to sense us. With the amount of mud you've got all through your hair, you probably stink."
She threw a slightly larger rock at his legs, smiling when he griped and tried to kick it away. "You aren't exactly looking too hot yourself."
"Please," he snorted. "This is me we're talking about. I always look cool."
She hummed, unconvinced. Given the circumstances, it would likely be hours before anyone came to help them if they couldn't get up themselves. She didn't want to bait him and piss him off when they'd be each other's only source of company for a while.
Then again, spending time with her partner was almost always easy, no matter what state they were in.
"So what do you think we should do as preparation for Sid's upcoming evaluation exam?"
He moaned heavily, his shoulders slumping, and shook his head. "Seriously, Maka? You're, like, ten minutes from unconscious due to blood loss and you want to talk about exams? I should have known. Only you, bookworm."
"Hey!" she bristled. "It's in three weeks so we're going to need to start prepping soon. Apparently he's looking for strong connections between partners in wavelength, resonance, and abilities to interact when separated."
"Aren't we already top shit at all that stuff?"
"Yes, but we need to be perfect; this will be the first exam of this kind I've taken since becoming a three-star and I have to be able to prove I deserved the rank."
"Who do you think is dumb enough that they're gonna' try and take it off you? You earned that title and if anyone comes after it, I'll kick their ass so you can keep your perfect record."
"That isn't the point," she said, hiding her pleasure at the statement behind a scowl and stiffening when she pulled the skin too tight over her cracked lips, making more blood run. "We need to make sure our distance resonance is stable and strong."
He seemed to weigh up his reply for a while. "All right – wanna' practice now, then?"
"While we're both about to faint?"
He did some sort of weird movement with the one un-pinned shoulder than she guessed was meant to be a shrug. "Nothing else to do for a while, is there? Unless you reckon you can move enough to support both of us, 'coz I can't even transform without crying a little bit right now."
"Okay," she conceded with a faint smile. "How about I think of something and you've got to use our resonance link to figure out what it is? We'll take it in turns."
"So, basically, a kickass partners-version of I Spy?"
" . . . Yeah, pretty much."
"'Kay, go for it."
She nodded and expanded her soul wavelength, letting it reach out across the small space and pool in the opening within his soul she sensed inside her chest. Simultaneously, he filled the gap within her own, and she felt his presence surround her in basic Resonance.
They were so far ahead of the class with this now that it seemed hilarious to think they were one of the last partnerships to manage it within their group. Just last week, Maka had managed to control Soul's piano through the link with her in the top tower of the school's left wing and him mid-way into the forestry area. That was until Black*Star found Soul and decided it would be funny to tackle him while he was zoned out and concentrating.
The scythe-mark he'd left would probably scar when it finally healed.
As soon as their Resonance was established, she closed her eyes and tried to think of something for him to guess. Given her fatigue and desire to steer the subject away from pain, she decided to settle on an image of Professor Stein's wheeled chair.
It took him about half a minute to figure out what it was with only one clue – class room – and she thought that was pretty good considering their current state and weakness.
"Okay, your go," she said, and he nodded, closing his own eyes.
She took a few seconds to savour his appearance, with his walls down and his expressions vulnerable as he focussed on her essence and ignoring his own wounds. He looked – so much younger. So less haughty and aloof. So much more . . . alive. It was funny how having such a close brush with death lit up his features to her like nothing else did. Here, he was too tired to care . . .
"Right. Guess."
She closed her own eyes, willing herself to connect to his soul deeper than she already was. As she delved into his wavelength, she instantly felt the pressure of his tiredness and the pain he was in. She could sense the effort it was taking to keep their souls linked and the amusement at playing such a nerdy game at such a time. There was also some sort of odd sentiment, a sense of affection she didn't know the name of, but she knew where it led. Her face appeared seconds later behind her eyelids and she was surprised he would pick such an odd thing for his topic.
"Soul," she said with a pause, "is it . . . my nose?"
"Yep."
"Why the Hell did you pick that, of all things?"
The Resonance link throbbed a little with their combined weariness, both sensing that the connection could break any moment now, but he still grinned lopsidedly, giving another demented shrug. "You have a cute nose."
"I do?" she said, not bothering to hide her blush this time. He'd feel it through the link anyway.
"Yeah," he nodded, and his smile looked less solid and more tired. The connection drifted down into lower resonance before Maka took pity on his sleepy appearance and cut it, letting them both just lie there again without extra strain. They could still feel each other's souls to an extent – they always could, especially this close. "Good practice."
"We should be fine for this test." Her own eyes felt heavier now that she'd merged Soul's feelings with her own, and despite logic telling her that falling asleep with this much blood on her was a bad plan, she couldn't care enough to fight it. "No problems at all."
He snorted softly, his eyes closed now. "Of course we won't have any problems. We're a lethal team, aren't we?"
She gave a calm smile, letting her own lids fall as she breathed in deeply around the pain. "Yeah. We are."
It took Black*Star another hour and a half to get there, and between his complaints at having to carry Soul's unconscious form and his constant checking that Tsubaki was all right holding Maka up, he couldn't help but wonder a little at his best friends. Despite their wounds and the pain they had to have been in, they'd both passed out with smiles on their faces.
Although how anyone could manage that without his Godly presence there, he wasn't entirely sure. Still, as long as his disciples were okay, he was content.
Even if he was going to get the Hell knocked out of him when Soul awoke, after he accidentally dropped the scythe down a hill and into a shallow river bed.
Twice.
Sorry I was late uploading this (depending on your timezone, but I think I was late everywhere?). There was literally no more than ten and a half hours total from the time I left work last night to the time I started this morning, so I had no time to properly upload or do much more than sleep a little.
