Here's the intro to the new story. I promise next chapter will be longer. Hope you all enjoy. =)

Disclaimer (which applies to all chapters): I do not own Soul Eater or any associated rights, companies, etc. I also did not make any profit whatsoever from this fanfiction. (Darn, right?)

The essay should have been easy. For once, Soul had finished his first, a fact that he taunted her with. Not that he wouldn't have helped her in an instant, had she asked, but she didn't.

"The prompt," Professor Stein had told the class yesterday, "is to describe your role in your particular partnership, be it weapon or meister. Five hundred words, on my desk Friday." Essentially: what was her role as a technician?

It disturbed Maka when she did not have an answer.

"Oi, Maka, what happened to your knee?" Black Star asked, leaning over his desk to peer at his friend's gauze-encased leg. Of course, Black Star had to ask this question on high volume just as the bell rang so that the entire class heard and listened in.

"Nothing!" Black Star raised one eyebrow, and Maka blushed before looking away. "I just, uh…" When Black Star leaned closer, one hand cupped around his ear to hear better, Maka continued in her smallest voice, "fell down the stairs."

When Black Star guffawed and called her a klutz, at the top of his lungs no less, Maka whacked him over the head with the heavy tome she had borrowed from the library that morning. "Maka Chop," she added as an afterthought.

As Tsubaki tried to hold together the two halves of her partner's skull, Maka glanced over at Soul. Her weapon and partner sat hunched with his head nestled in his curled arms. From under his unkempt bangs, his crimson eyes stared up at her as if they could see straight through her.

At least, she was certain, he had seen through her lie.

Sure enough, when Dr. Stein dismissed class that afternoon, Soul followed Maka to the restroom. After she hid in the toilet for as long as her pride would allow her, Maka found him waiting for her, leaning against the wall with arms crossed.

"So what really happened?" he asked, not bothering to move from his "Cool Guy" pose. He watched her squirm for a moment before adding, "Are you hurt anywhere else? You've been holding your elbow most of the afternoon, and you wince when you turn too fast."

"I'm fine." Maka looked away, removing her hand from the elbow she had, in fact, been holding. Her arms hung by her sides for a minute while she tried to figure out where to place her hands where it wouldn't hurt.

She never did figure out where to put them because suddenly she was pinned against the wall. Soul gripped her shoulder with one hand and used the other to lift her shirt's hem a few inches. "Soul!" she squeaked, but her protest was cut short when she saw her partner's pained grimace.

The bruise did look pretty ugly—plum purple and the size of a grapefruit. "It doesn't hurt much," she said, voice softened to comfort him.

But he wasn't about to be comforted.

Moving nothing but his eyes, Soul glared up at her. She could have choked on the anger exuding from her weapon. "Maka. Who. Fucking. Did. This?!" Maka stubbornly clamped her lips shut. "Dammit, Maka, it's my job as a weapon to protect you! How can I do that if you don't tell me when you get hurt?"

"I told you. I fell down the stairs."

"And who pushed you?"

Maka did not know how to respond to that. Fortunately, Dr. Stein chose that moment to clear his throat right beside the arguing pair. "Is this the time or place to be undressing, young meister?"

Maka turned radicchio red. Ignoring the impropriety of striking a teacher, Maka slammed a book against Dr. Stein's head and almost dislodged the giant screw before she stomped away.

Behind her, Maka heard Soul sigh loudly. Secretly, Maka appreciated Soul's concern, but how could she burden him anymore than she already did? No. She would handle this problem herself.