"Masochism is a valuable job skill."

-Chuck Palahniuck

"Those doors, they open inwards."

Too fast, that sword was moving too fast. It was all she could do to dodge; all she could manage to keep one foot backing up behind the other. Too slow on one jerk of the head, and she didn't realize her cheek was bleeding until her hair got stuck in the red liquid sliding down the side of her face.

"Maka! Guard already!" But I can't do that…Because somehow, somewhere, her brain told her that Soul getting hurt was much much much worse than anything that could happen to her. And I can't attack either! No time to think about the problem, no time for anything. The sword swung out erratically, striking down at her legs instead of her head and she stumbled. Didn't matter if there was an actual wound or not, her knees went weak at the sensation of near separation from the rest of her and it was all she could do to keep from tripping over her own boots and tumbling head over heels. Shit.

Thisisscarymakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop!

Relentless, the sword made a dive for her head. One stab, straight through, and it'd be a shish-kabob of Maka brain pinned to the church door. There was no slowing of time, no life before her eyes, just pure instinct and years upon years of self defense classes kicking in when she snapped Soul in front of her, using him to knock the black blade to the side and force it to miss her head by some tiny margin too close for comfort. Metal on metal (or did it still count as blood?) screeched like some unholy cacophony, almost but not drowning out her weapon's cry (scream? Yell? There were so many words for that horrible sound) of pain. Sparks flew into the air, tears brimmed and made to roll down her face, but she wouldn't –couldn't– shut her eyes to wipe them away.

I'msorrysorrysorrysosorrySoulsosorrysorrysorrySoulpleasejustbeokayyouhavetobepleasepleaseplease-!

She was missing a pigtail, some part of her noted offhandedly. Her ear was numb.

Wrenching Soul away from the clash of blades the moment she had the chance, Maka ducked under the black sword as it made another pass at liberating her head from her shoulders. She needed to end this before that blade stopped letting her dodge. The momentum was with her as her palms hit the ground, so she struck out for a roundhouse at the other meister's kneecaps with her own leg, hoping for something like a miracle so that he/she/it would just go down.

Mistake number one.

No luck. It was like kicking iron. Maybe something snapped or cracked in her leg, maybe it was just her imagination, either way, the backlash brought her tumbling to the ground, teeth clicking together as her jaw slammed into the marble floor. Fingers slipped as they scrambled for purchase and Soul fell from her grasp, clattering to the floor and stopping just out of reach of her outstretched hand.

Mistake number two.

She was rolling even before the world stopped spinning, again dodging the stab of the black sword by a hair's breadth on some instinct she'd never appreciated before tonight. No time to grab Soul, she just had to get away. But hitting the thick wood of the church's door came far too soon for her liking. Maka scrambled to pull herself up so that she'd have leverage for knocking down said door. Escape. Get out, MOVE.

Three strikes, you're out.

Heaving her arms backwards, elbows and back banging against the entryway...

No give.

"Those doors, they open inwards."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Maka turned her head back to her pink-haired attacker, (to try and block? To dodge? To run? To see the attack coming for some strange masochistic reason?) just in time to catch the chesire cat grin that had cracked his/her/its face in two, Maka's own pupils shrinking and mouth opening (to scream? Plead for her attacker to stop? Cry out?).

I'msorrysosorrysorrybutIdon'twanttodietooyoungsomuchlefttodopleasepleasepleaseIdon'twanttodie-

Down came the blade.

Shoulder to hip, right between the breasts and slicing right under and probably through a few ribs, deeper than she'd ever been mangled and kind of how she'd imagined being gutted like pig would feel like. So damn deep her soul felt like it'd been violated, ripped to shreds by the force of the blow. Any second now the blade was going to eat her, devour her, lick its lips and go 'yum, now wasn't that a tasty little morsel' and it'd be over and done and gone and forgotten and she'd never say goodbye and…

…This wasn't so bad. Everything was all numb-ish and weird, but that was it. Hanging upright for a few moments, Maka got a chance to get a real good look at the stained glass at the other end of the church. Pretty stuff. Pinks and yellows and blues and greens and...red? Lots of red. Real pretty. A smile lit up her face.

She didn't know when her knees buckled, but all of a sudden it was the ground coming up to meet her face. Nice thing for the ground to do, breaking her fall like that; Very considerate of it. Thump. Plop. Plop? Oh. There was a puddle. She landed in that puddle.

"MAKA!"

Her eyes had closed at some point before, although now she cracked them open to hang at half-mast, just wide enough to catch the fact that the gunk creeping up to clog her airways was red. It was hard not to breathe in the stuff, pooling out around her like it was. She'd drown in the glop if she didn't move her mouth. But it hurt to move.

Fingers were reaching for her. Grabbing her shoulder, pulling her out of the pool of stuff so she wouldn't drown and woah, she was tired. She sagged like a boneless sack into the arms of whoever had her. They were shaking her, bastards. Was it too much to ask for some shut eye?

"Oi! Maka!"

Nap time.

That was actually pretty fun to write :D And here I normally hate fight scenes. Go figure.

Anyway, don't worry, I don't plan on rewriting the whole series. So this isn't gonna turn into just a string of episode transcripts XD I plan to use this as a way to get out all my weird theories about the SE universe without resorting to a bunch of 300 word drabbles :P I would like to declare now that there won't be any "official" pairings, this isn't a romance story, but I'll probably be hinting stuff left and right when the mood suits :P

So thanks for reading, I don't own, etc.