The Innocence Inside

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A/n: Here's something I wrote yesterday that I've secretly wanted to write for quite a while. You might see more where this came from. I like characters interacting with themselves, quite literally. As I usually do, this is female Crona. Questions? Check it on my profile.

Key: Crona and Chrona are two different beings sort of.

Disclaimer: The owner of Soul Eater is Atsushi Ōkubo. Clandestine belongs to me, Sakumie Tenshi. I gain nothing material by writing this and do it solely for fun.

Beta reader: N/A

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It was hard to explain... This certainly wasn't the best way to handle the situation with just freezing up, but Crona couldn't piece together how exactly she'd been divided into two people, one being the calmer and less timid side of her persona, the other being deprived and frankly psychotic. She struggled to breath. What was happening? The "disturbed" side of her was...kissing her. She'd heard of self-love, but this was ridiculous. And why so forward? Of course, she would be a bit bolder without the strain of anxiety weighing her down, but it wasn't her doing the initiating.

The darker side of herself, Chrona, sighed heavily, a pained sound, and leaned against the brighter person. "Can it just be us again?" Chrona whispered, not facing her other self.

"Us? What do you mean?"

"...when you asked me questions? When I wasn't so bad... I've always been bad but...I was better when I talked to you."

"But you were only talking to yourself..." Was this some sort of mind-trick? Had she gone so far into madness she'd built her defense mechanism into a vision of reality?

Chrona's ragged breath hit Crona's black-clad shoulder in another tired display, before the dark one replied, "I don't care. I don't care about sane or insane. What does it matter?" Her grip tightened around the waist of the lighter one. "What does any of it matter in loneliness? I want this to stop, I want it to end, I want something...like it was...just a little simpler. I wish I'd never...met them." The calm Crona resisted the urge to sigh. She knew what was going on through her other self's mind exactly and how she regretted learning how different life could be only to not be able to keep that life. "Let's go back... Just us, alone. Not even Ragnarok bothering us..."

"You've already fallen so far... It's been so long I'm surprised I even still exist. I kept waiting...for you to find me again, but you kept burying me deeper, under so much hate and pain... I feel sick. I can't just return, not like this. You have to change." Though she hadn't returned the hug to her, Crona made the attempt now, only to be pushed away.

"Change?" Chrona began, eyes widening. "You want to tell me about change? That's what I'm doing! That's why I have to do this!"

She wasn't going to understand, her calmer self realized. Of course she wasn't. She was too far gone for a simple statement to break through. Crona gently grabbed her frantic self and placed a kiss at the corner of her mouth, instantly stilling her. It was the strangest concept, yet she felt that if anyone should do it, she had to be the first to love herself. No one else would be able to if she couldn't. Who would have guessed it to become so literal...?

Crona didn't mind being pushed to the floor or threatened. She didn't mind seeing her own jet-black eyes staring with so much empty hatred into her pale blues. She didn't even mind it when the screaming became crying and the crying became sniffles, then timid looks. It must have lasted quite a while, and still, Crona didn't mind. Not even when her lips met those of her darker self in the oddest show of acceptance. Chrona's hands grabbed her calmer self's arms tightly, to the point of bruising, but there wasn't a sound of complaint. The soft kisses became unusually desperate. And still, she didn't mind. It was time to stop running. It was time to accept things by any method she could suffice.

I regret nothing.

Reviews are appreciated for the starving creative mind.