Soul Eater: Family
Soul Eater and respective characters (c) Atsushi Okubo

All rights reserved.

Light Note: Special thanks to DebbieKun3 for the final prompt. You didn't know it, but it really was the perfect prompt for the final story.

This will be the final chapter of Family! I want to thank every single one of you who reviewed, favorited, and watched this story. It was really just a cute idea in the back of my head and somehow turned into this! Every review I got brightened my day and made me smile. I'm sorry it took so long to get to this point, but for those that stuck with me, this is for you. In all actuality, it really is for you. I love you all!

. . . . . .

Blackstar didn't want to boast about his ability to read people. Okay, to be honest he did. This is Blackstar for God's sake, of course he wants to brag about anything he's amazing at. Still, the point was that he could read people, so let's skip past the theatrics and get down to the meat of the situation which was...

"What are you hiding?" the ninja asked the petite scythe meister, narrowing his eyes as she flinched and glanced away before turning back to answer with a forced nothing. He felt bad for the girl; Maka didn't have a lying face.

Everyone else had been a little harder to figure out. Tsubaki would disappear without a word to him and managed to elude him when he attempted to follow. Liz and Patty would just shoot at him and call him names before escaping and Soul flat out ignored him and trying to get anything out of Kid was like trying to beat a statue in a staring contest. Not even messing up the symmetry of the things around him made him break on this.

He had to had it to them. Whatever it was they were trying so hard to keep secret, they were doing quite well. However, they'd forgotten their one and biggest weak link; Maka Albarn.

The girl was far to open, far too honest with all her emotions. Heart on her sleeve, Blackstar never had much difficulty deciphering her thoughts. This wasn't a hard task to accomplish for him. All he had to do was get her alone and give a little pressure.

"Come on Maka," the blue haired boy stressed, leaning forward so he could push his face into her personal space, "There's something you're not telling me. It's written all over your face!"

As if it really was, Maka defensively put a hand over her face while she feigned annoyance. The reality was that he had her looking for an escape route from the conversation and he wasn't going to give it to her, "Blackstar, I am not hiding anything. I wish you would stop bothering me about it already. There's nothing to tell."

Yeah right, he thought and pursed his lips as they turned a corner. He hadn't been paying attention to their surroundings, but at the change in course he lifted his eyes to survey the area quickly and noted they were heading towards the gymnasium. What was Maka doing in this part of the school?

Shrugging it off, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand, "Then why do you look so guilty?"

"I don't look guilty. You're face is just making me physically ill," Maka retorted coldly and he feigned a pained look.

"Right to the heart! How can you speak that way to the man who will be greater than God?!" he countered loudly as he trailed behind her for a moment to lose himself in his antics. Maka continued walking without a backwards glance and he paused a moment to watch her shoulders tense before he jogged to catch up.

Maka shifted her gaze to the side when he fell into step behind her, "We'll talk once you've actually beaten Kid in a fight." Blackstar blinked at the stab. Ouch, she was out for blood today. With a smirk, he saw the game she was playing at. She was using her anger to cover up her discomfort at his questions.

Ah, this girl wasn't so bad at lying after all, but he'd already seen right through her ploys.

The blond stopped and turned on her heel to give him a heated stare, "Do you really have to follow me? I've been trying to lose you all day and you just don't give up!"

"What can I say? Curiosity makes people do crazy things," Blackstar smirked. That's right, get under her skin and pretty soon she'd be dying to tell him just to get him to go away.

Blowing out a sigh that moved her bangs slightly, Maka shook her head and made a U-turn, starting back up the hallway and away from the gym, "If that's the case, then I'm going to study. If you don't plan on leaving me alone, I can at least do something productive."

He consented to silence as he followed her through the school down to the library, where he was forced to using staring obnoxiously at her as his tactic of annoyance. She was resilient, he'd give her that, but Blackstar was far more stubborn than she, and he wasn't giving up without a fight.

At one point he saw Kid passing by with Liz, heads bent and talking in hushed tones. He didn't care enough to get up and pester them. That would only serve to give Maka a chance to escape from his sight and then he'd have to waste time to track her down again. Her ability as Soul Perception had led to her avoidance so far, but he'd manage to trick her by waiting outside the classroom. He knew she wouldn't skip class just to get away from him.

Thus she was now stuck with him until she spilled the beans. Though by the distracted look on her face as she poured over her book, he didn't think that'd be any time soon. He sighed in frustration. The one bad thing about this situation was that his attention span was reaching it's end. Sooner or later he was going to get bored without getting a hint from anyone.

At a quarter to seven, she finally lifted her head, grimacing obviously when he was still sitting across from her. He was bored beyond any means that he'd ever faced before, but still pushed to his feet and followed after her like a tired puppy that spent too much energy playing at the park and just wanted to be carried home.

"Will you tell me now?" Blackstar tried, though he already knew she was getting used to it. His moment had passed and now it was just wearing both of them thin, "I think after all I've gone through I should get to know. You can't keep secrets from the great Blackstar, it's not cool."

Maka laughed at that, and he perked up a bit at the sound, "I think Soul is rubbing off on you if you care about whether or not it's cool."

"Soul and I are bros. You wouldn't understand the bond of bros," the ninja meister said as he crossed his arms and followed her out of the school and down the streets. Her shoulders were still tense though, and she kept glancing behind her to make sure he was still there.

Well now... There was his curiosity again, rearing its head around for a second round of 'what the hell are they planning.'

She was heading home, he could tell by the steady pace she kept. If she was rushing to get there, it didn't show. He crossed his arms and stayed behind her as they remained silent for the last few meters until Maka and Soul's apartment came into view.

Soul was leaning on the railing of the balcony at their approach and gave Blackstar a lazy wave, calling down to them at the same time, "Tsubaki is here, want to stay for dinner?"

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," Maka agreed, almost a little too quickly. Narrowing his eyes again at the pair, he shrugged, "We can play board games too."

As they headed up the stairs, Blackstar began to feel anxious. What was so important that Maka and the others had felt the need to hide it from him? He really wanted to know; he could feel the taste of curiosity coating his throat and attempted to swallow past it as his eyes trained themselves on Maka's fidgeting form.

"Say, Blackstar," the girl began as she pulled them to a stop in front of her door, "Do you remember what today is?"

He gave her a quizzical look as his reply, and she turned around to smile at him, showing off Maka's true strength; that unabashed kindness that made her a greater person that he could ever hope to be. Without a word more, Maka turned the handle and opened the door.

Loud pops and streamers attacked his face, and Blackstar smacked them out of the way to see who the perpetrators were; Soul and Spirit standing just inside the doorway with those bottle poppers, grinning like idiots. Tsubaki wasn't far behind them, next to Marie and Stein. Kid, Liz and Patty were nearby as well, the trio huddled together like always. Kim, Jacqueline, Ox, Harvard and even Kilik were all present, mingling around Maka's living room with smiles on their faces.

The ninja turned to glance at his friend, "What's all this about?"

Instead of answering she pushed him through the doorway, letting him see the final piece of the scene. Above the entrance to the kitchen there was large banner. The words were made of multi colored marker, each letter looking as if different individuals all wrote it together; oddly shaped and mismatched together to form something whole.

And that's when it hit him. The clutter that was lodged in his brain dislocated and it was all too clear. He felt the rumble of laughter course its way through his chest at the irony of the situation; this had to have been Maka's idea, no doubt about it.

Fifteen years ago today, his entire clan was wiped out.

Blond hair flashed past his vision, and he reached out instinctively to wrap an arm around Maka's neck, his free hand mussing up her hair despite her weak protests and attempts to escape, "I can't believe you!"

She freed herself with a deftly placed elbow to his ribs, but he could see that she was grinning and knew he wasn't really in any trouble. Soul was suddenly by his side and the two embraced in one of their manly hugs. Sid ruffled his hair from behind him. He was suddenly engulfed in a sea of faces; an ocean of love.

Fifteen years ago today, he was given a new family.

"Happy birthday Blackstar," everyone chorused loudly, voicing the words on the banner.

And he couldn't have been happier.

Owari.