The silence is oppressive as her friends all look at her, and Tsubaki feels like she deserves more than simple stares, like she's betrayed them all somehow.
"You're the source," Maka speaks the words she expects to hear, and Tsubaki nods her understanding. "I thought-after Kid, I thought it was the blood, but the blood was just attaching itself to the real problem. It's why it felt familiar but not at the same time."
"The thorns. We saw those in your soul, on your flowers," Kid adds. "They must have spread from your soul. The question is, what are they?"
"She told you before they were part of all that Nakatsukasa stuff," Black*Star puffs up, bristling. "You contained it, right? So what's the damn problem?"
"The problem," Kid says. "Is that the darkness is increasing again."
"I don't know how long what we did can contain it, honestly." Maka shakes her head. "We're going to have to figure something else out and soon."
"So figure it the fuck out." Black*Star sounds increasingly angry, and while Tsubaki understands and even appreciates his anger, it cannot help her now.
"Black*Star, it's okay," Tsubaki says, meeting his eyes.
"We're all on the same side here, if you've somehow forgotten," Liz says, hand on one hip. "So calm the fuck down."
He looks about to snap again, green eyes narrowed, so Tsubaki quickly adds, "Yes, we are all on the same side, and they're trying to help."
"So help." Black*Star crosses his arms then plops down on the piano bench.
"We need to get back to her soul first, try to figure out what we're dealing with." Maka looks worried, and Tsubaki feels bad, for worrying her friends and for being the source of so much trouble, the reason for dredging up so much hurt within them all.
Having a task helps keep her mind off of her guilt, however, and they try "Tubthumping" again, but it doesn't work.
"Maybe it's because we were getting in for the first time, then. Jumping between souls could be different. Maybe." This comes from Liz, but Maka agrees that's probably the case, so they discuss it as a group before Black*Star finally suggests "Ordinary World" from Duran Duran and Tsubaki agrees that it feels right. Once again, there are those who don't know the song, so they break up to learn. Soul looks decidedly uncomfortable as he and Maka go over the lyrics, eyes darting around occasionally at so many people within such a private space, and guilt gnaws at Tsubaki. It's her fault they linger here, her fault and her taint.
She startles as Black*Star puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezing, comforting. "It's not, you know." Tsubaki blinks at him as he sits next to her, trying to figure out what he's responding to, but he continues. "All of this, it's not your fault. I know you, and I know you're feeling all guilty and shit, but you didn't do anything wrong, and everyone has your back, okay? So just-don't."
"I-thanks," she says, because she doesn't know what else she can say. "I'll try." Not that it's that easy. Not that she can make guilt disappear when her heritage runs so thick with it, so thick with blood and sin, so thick with carnage. He, above anyone else, knows this, but Black*Star has always refused to carry guilt for what he did not and would not choose. For her, it is not this easy.
Soon enough, they're ready to make this last journey together, and they join hands and sing and are once again whisked away in a flash that blinds them all.
When Tsubaki opens eyes shut against the shift, something like shock courses through her, courses through them all. Her soul is nearly unrecognizable, the bright flowers half blackened, the fluffy white clouds now dull and gray, the blue sky watery and muted. The clouds remind her painfully of her brother's soul and she knows, knows this is his madness, his darkness that spreads like a cancer. Only, it isn't just her it corrupts now, isn't just her it harms, and she cannot, she will not let this continue. She has to let him go.
Maka and Kid are already scanning, Maka with Soul at her back, Kid alone. They're wasting their time-Tsubaki already knows what the problem is, and though she's not entirely sure what to do to end this, she knows in her heart that she has to be the one to do it, that what has remained of her brother stays only by her will and her grace. Even the thought of ending that, of ending him so fully cuts and cuts deep. She'd been the one to take his life, to take his soul, and now she must be the one to obliterate what little remains. It hurts. It hurts, but it must end. Now.
"I know what's wrong," she says, voice raised for all to hear. Standing tall, she keeps her tone steady, firm. She is Nakatsukasa and she will not waver, will not lose resolve, will not show weakness, not here and now, not within her own soul.
Every pair of eyes moves to her.
"Baki?" Black*Star questions from just beside her.
She keeps her back straight, her voice steady.
"It's my brother."
Looks are exchanged among the group, but only Black*Star speaks. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure." The words are painful to speak, ringing in her ears like a death knell.
"Do you know how to-to take care of it?" Maka asks, her tone soft and cautious and Tsubaki suddenly hates this all more, hates how her friends feel the need to tiptoe around her.
She is Nakatsukasa and she needs no one's pity.
But she is also Tsubaki and takes the tiniest measure of comfort in her friends' care, in their concern, in their clear wish to help her in any way, in every way.
"I-" She's about to admit that's not true when it hits her that she knows, suddenly and surely, she knows. "Do," Tsubaki finishes. "But," she adds. "I think I have to do it alone. I don't think you-that anyone can come."
"You have to go there," Black*Star says. "Don't you."
"Yes," she admits.
"I can come. You know I can."
"We're all here for you," Kid adds, though he doesn't know, cannot know, the whole truth of what she must do.
"Not for this." How can anyone help her with such a thing? For this, she needs no witness, wants no witness.
"What are you going to do?" Liz asks from beside Kid. She looks worried, and again, Tsubaki feels guilt and anger all at once.
"Meditate." It's only a half truth. It's enough.
"That's it?" Patti sounds incredulous.
"Mostly." Tsubaki doesn't have the heart to explain further, so she sits, the thorns pricking into her skin painfully as she does so. She relishes the pain, revels in it, her penance for what she now must do. Closing her eyes, she focuses on her inner soul, that part of herself that is dark and ancient. Sound fades, light fades, and when she opens her eyes again, she is standing on glassy black, gray all around her.
Raising her eyes, she blinks surprise, punctuated by a loud shout of, "Whoa!" that comes from Patti.
Tsubaki isn't alone. Somehow, someway, they've all come with her into this inner space, to this part of herself that she would not have them see.
"Shit," Black*Star breathes. "I thought you were gonna do it alone."
"I was," Tsubaki responds with a tired sigh. "This wasn't supposed to happen-but I think the resonance must have made it impossible for everyone else not to come." It's the only explanation that makes sense, and she realizes she'd been a fool to think she could do this alone when they were all connected in the moment.
"Guess you're stuck with us, huh?" Liz says to nervous laughter from several of their friends. "So, what now?"
With another sigh, Tsubaki stretches her feet out in front of her, still seated. "We wait," she says, and taking a hint, the others sit, wondering just what it is they'll face. She would tell them if she could, but she really isn't certain herself.
Time passes. Games of roshambo start around her. Eventually, Maka and Soul play twenty questions, and Black*Star starts working on headstands. Somehow, her ancestral soul has become something akin to school lunch period, and it's jarring and comforting in equal measure.
All at once, everyone pauses as they all sense the same thing-power. A disembodied voice echoes through them all, forceful and impatient.
"Why have you come to this place?"
Standing, Tsubaki calls out to the endless gray sky, "I seek Nakatsukasa Masamune."
"Granted," the voice vibrates, and then there is silence, pure and true, as a figure emerges on the distant horizon.
Tsubaki knows who it is long before it's obvious, long before he's near, and as he draws close, as he steps up to stand before her, she says the word with calm finality.
"Brother."
"Hello my scentless flower."
"Why are you doing this?" She is Nakatsukasa and this is her domain; she will remain calm, cool.
"Why does anyone do anything?" he counters with a small shrug. "But really, Sister, you welcomed me in, did you not expect me to make myself at home?"
"I allowed you to remain in my soul, what was left of you. I did not invite you to corrupt my friends."
"Your resonance suggests otherwise." A cruel smile graces his features.
The emotions she feels at facing him again tangle and writhe. Guilt. Fear. Confusion. Muted, distant relief. Even the remnants of affection. But she is Nakatsukasa, and she must not feel, not here and not now. Somewhere nearby, she feels the deeper resonance of deathscythe and meister bolstering her and knows what she must do.
"You are welcome no longer." She straightens. "If all that remains is your darkness, your cruelty, your madness, then I banish it, Brother. I banish you!"
"And you call me cruel," he sighs before fading into nothing before her eyes.
An instant later, they are all back within the heart of her soul, red flowers all around, sky as blue as ever, clouds a fluffy white once more. The flowers still have thorns, but the darkness is gone, the thorns as green as the stems they rest on.
Grief crashes into her in waves at the realization and she collapses to her knees. He's gone. He's gone. Her brother is really, truly, gone.
Here, where she does not have to be Nakatsukasa, where she can be Tsubaki, here among her friends who had silently borne witness to her pain, she finally allows herself to cry.
She feels strong arms around her as Black*Star whispers, "I'm sorry," then the presence of other arms, other words of comfort. It cannot soothe, not yet, but it means something, to know she's not alone, to know that even if she has no brother, even if she has finally forced him to move on, she will always have her friends. She will always have a family.
It is in this cocoon her friends create around her that she feels it, faint but there, a whisper in her mind. Look. Look.
She stands and her friends let her, give her space, though their eyes question. Driven by she knows not what, instinct or other, Tsubaki walks a short way and bends to pluck a flower, the green thorns sharp in her vision as she raises the stem to look closer. They're different now, the thorns-the darkness is gone, cleansed through her own will and her friend's purity, but still-still-she feels it, feels him.
"He's-here," she says, voice hushed, awe overwhelming.
"Wha?" Black*Star says, echoed by Liz's "Who?"
"My brother," she declares with conviction. "Somehow, he's still-here. Or at least, that small part of him left that wasn't taken by madness, that small part that was still good."
"You're sure?" Maka says.
"Yes. I don't know how, but yes." The relief she feels washes through her. The pain is there too, at having had to face him again, destroy him again, but this eases, it soothes. Part of him lives on even still.
"I suspect," Kid's voice is hushed and careful. "That Maka's wavelength helped salvage what remained untainted."
"Thank you," Tsubaki says. "Thank you all." She looks to each of her friends in turn and hopes they know how much she truly means it, how much each and every one of them mean to her.
When they emerge from their resonance shortly after, exhaustion sits on the group heavily. It's dark, their excursion lasting, as Stein quickly informs them, half the day. He seems pleased by this or maybe by the results as he tells them all to get some rest and drags a knocked out Spirit away—Maka had chopped him when he tackled her as she awoke, though the action was noticeably half hearted.
They had been lying in a circle in the clearing, their bodies choosing that position somewhere along the way, and after Tsubaki stands and stretches muscles stiff and sore with disuse, she brushes forest debris from her backside.
Peering up at the moon as her friends begin to disperse, its bloody grin leering down, she silently wonders why now? They've used group resonance with Soul for a long time, so why had her brother chosen now to latch onto the blood and infect her friends?
The moon offers no answers though later, when they've all slept and are debriefed, Stein will suggest her brother's remnants had likely been swayed by Asura's madness. It's as good an explanation as any.
For now, as Tsubaki completes her stretching, Kid, Liz, and Patti have already left the clearing, headed home, and Soul and Maka talk quietly as they pass to do the same.
"You really think it'll work?" the shadow weapon hears Soul say.
"I think it's worth trying. If resonance helped us find the madness, I don't see why we can't use it to find Crona."
"Alright," Soul says tiredly. "But tomorrow, okay?"
If Maka responds, Tsubaki doesn't hear it as they fade out of earshot and Black*Star's approaching footsteps work to mask all other sound.
"Ready to go home?"
"Yes," she offers simply, and as they leave the clearing, she knows that what they've all faced together today is neither their last trial nor their most difficult. With the threat of Asura looming, there will be worse to come and soon.
Deep down, Tsubaki is just glad that when they do face him, when they face the world gone mad, at least they'll all face it together.