Ouroboros

a/n: I find Soul Eater canon slippery, and had a lot of problems with this. Hopefully someone enjoys it anyway. Rated for language, sex, disturbing topics, and more disturbing topics. I'm not sure if I really hit for as disturbing as I was aiming, but I tried. I think it gets better halfway through, although you can be the judge of that.

Lie encircled in the sunlight

Shine like diamonds on a dark night

Ain't no mercy in my smiling

Only fangs and sweet beguiling

'Snake Song', Emmylou Harris

Medusa parts her lips and caresses her teeth with her tongue – the preternatural sharpness of her cuspids, the dull hardness of her incisors– until she tastes the waxy red on her lips.

He can't hear the warning rattle, the flash of copper, the viper's hiss.

"Do you want me to buy you a drink?" His words come strained. He's not looking her in the face. He's not looking at her cleavage, either. He's looking at her leg, the long strip of flesh between dress hem and knee.

She shifts suggestively, and his eyes snap up to the wall behind her. She has her doubts about him. He's not an attractive man, certainly – he sits slumped over, too tall for his own shrinking self-eesteem, and sallow – but that's not important. She notices again that despite his age he has acne; this, combined with his uncertainty, gives him the air of one much younger than his mortal body suggests. Judging by external factors, he would have a number of years on her unerringly young guise. He's made quite the catch tonight.

She smiles, a flash of red, like a cut, but he still won't look her in the face, which might be for the better.

"I would love that."

They talk, they drink. Medusa fears that he'll drink too much, in the name of liquid courage, and then not be able to sustain an erection, which would make this all a waste of her time. So she lays her hands on him, strokes his thigh under the table, whispers dirty little nothings, titters at his stuttering jokes, anything to convince him totally of her adoration. She takes care to keep drinking, to slur her speech appropriately, though, being what she is, it has little effect. He thinks she's piss-drunk, drunk enough to fuck him and forget. Good.

She doesn't keep track of the time it takes for his pupils to dilate with lust, but she knows that he's easier than most. It doesn't take long. "Come with me," she whispers, because she knows that if she doesn't say it, he may never get the nerve up (though he's already gotten up a good erection, a fact of which she is pleased).

"I'm from out of town," she says. Not technically a lie. "We can go to the motel."

He looks relieved, and nods. He would do anything at this point. Medusa nearly smirks at how easy this is, but smirking is not something an innocent would do, and to let him think anything else of her would be a folly.

When she closes the door to the hotel room, they're left in what minimal moonlight that the new moon streams through the windows. She feels sure that even he, with his dull mortal senses, can detect the lingering smell of cheap cleaning supplies that pervade the room. He stands there for a moment as if unsure of how to proceed. She rolls her eyes and moves to start taking off his pants. Oh. He wants her dress off first?

She obliges before shoving him onto the bed.

She can see his trepidation reflected in his large, rather feeble-looking eyes, the slight flash of fear that he is working with a woman more experienced than him.

"Don't worry," she says, bringing her mouth to his ear and managing a purr, "I'll take care of it. You don't need to do a thing."

He kisses her neck, then. She grits her teeth. Her hand works down from his chest to between his legs, where the erection has come along nicely. What are they waiting for?

She slides the band of his underwear down.

"W-wait," he says, gasping against his arousal. "Don't we need a … a condom?"

Medusa almost laughs. Of course she would pick the only man who would care. Of course.

"Do you think I'm dirty?" she asks, in the littlest and most convincingly innocent voice she can muster. She takes her hand from him, as though unsure.

"No – no!" he says, suddenly embarrassed.

"Then don't worry about it," she says, touching his cock lightly. Just shut the fuck up and let's get this over with.

Thankfully, he accepts this answer and sinks back into the bed at her touch, sighing.

"I- I'm not sure – oh – I'm not sure I can – can last…"

Medusa promptly takes her hand from him again.

"Can I touch your – your – while I - "

Medusa rolls her eyes again. Now he's looking at her cleavage.

"No," she says, slipping off her underwear. She has him where she wants him – why waste any more time undoing the clasps of her bra?

He closes his eyes again, moans as she straddles him. She feels him inside, vaguely. It' s over in a matter of minutes, after some awkward, pained groaning and dog-like gasping that made her think he might have constipation. He goes completely limp, and so they lie there, Medusa staring at the ceiling. A few minutes later, after she's fairly certain that he's asleep, she wipes the cum off her inner thighs with the sheet and gets up. She slips on her underwear – then her dress – then her heels.

She glances at him before she leaves, imagines cutting off his inadequate genitals and smearing the blood on his horrified, spotted face.

She smiles and finally slips out the door.

It must be the afterglow.

A nurse measures her height and weight before giving her a thin smock that crackles when she puts it on. "Mrs. Schlange," she says, glancing down at her clipboard. "Vera –"

"I prefer Ms. Schlange, if you please." The over-familiar nurse grates on her already.

"And is Mr. Schlange….?"

"He couldn't make it," she replies. She wants to suffocate this insufferable woman. "He's an accountant. Can't take off work for a little errand like this. I'm not even sure I'm pregnant."

The nurse looks at her dubiously. "Have you taken a pregnancy test?"

She has a fleeting wish to be a mortal woman, with their pregnancy tests and missed menstrual cycles.

"It's an… unusual case."

The nurse looks at her like she's stupid. Medusa wants to scratch her face. Instead she looks up innocently. "Did I do something wrong?"

The nurse turns to her clipboard again. "Well, Dr. Morris can help you determine whether or not you are pregnant. Have you missed your period?

Most witches have no monthly flow of blood, no shedding the lining, no preparing for a child. Witches should not have children, they say. They are perverse souls, corrupt, and barren for it.

But there are ways.

"No, not yet. That's why I came."

But it must be so, she thinks. She studied long and hard, and found which routes she must take – the ones of the lunar calendar and blood sacrifice.

She does not tell the nurse any of this, though. Today, Medusa's putting on another skin, that of a young mother-to-be. Even if they find something curious about the way her barren body might conceive a child, she will feign surprise and learn what she can. Then again, she didn't notice anything different. She may have failed. The thought of failure grates her as much as the thought of repeating last week's incident does.

She scowls. The nurse takes offence, and leaves stiffly to find the doctor.

The doctor enters and sticks her nose up Medusa's twat and offers her a pregnancy test and a curtain to pee behind, then, after some poking, tells her that everything is looking perfectly ordinary except that, as expected, she's pregnant. Surprise!

As she and the nurse share a polite laugh, she thinks about the fictional job she gave to the child's fictional father. Accountant. She wonders what its father really did for a living – she shudders to think it something so inane - although it hardly matters.

This child is hers.

If she lays low in the bushes, they can't see her.

The crisp wind blows through, making the golden grass crackle. Medusa can smell winter in the wind. It carries with it the shouts of angry townspeople, and – there, Medusa can see their torches light up in the night, multiplying as they pass fire to one another, like the ancients. The new moon makes it difficult to see much else, but she can tell that they carry pitchforks, as well.

She's so young: this has happened to witches before, but this is her first hunt. A mouse scurries somewhere near her. Medusa absently feels her forked tongue flick out at its rustling.

It makes her giddy. She lets the handful of dirt from the hole slip through her fingers – cathartic; she feels like she might laugh. So they figured her out. Perhaps little Sarah, the toothless girl of ten and four years, had told her father that she'd heard Medusa performed induced miscarriages; or perhaps the villagers noticed that only two babes have survived out of the womb in the last five years. It doesn't matter.

She could transfigure easily – maybe eat that mouse scurrying about - but she prefers to stay and watch the fun. They even brought sharp pointy things for her to skewer them with, and, best of all, she can smell the heavy, fragrant scent of their madness.

But Medusa must first refocus her attention on her work. With her already-dirty hand, Medusa reaches down to yank the small bundle from its hole in the ground. The white of the shroud has long since gone dark with dirt and decay, but she doesn't care. For her, it means something else. Bones for grinding. Flesh for keeping. Perhaps, if the maggots haven't gotten here before her, she'll even have the little eyeballs, white and sloppy in death. Little Sarah's baby's remains, hidden here in unconsecrated land.

This is her last poach, and then she'll go. Somewhere else, at any rate.

If she lays low in the bushes, they won't be able to see her until it's too late.

She can only sleep on her back, and the baby weighs heavy on her willowy frame. She can't transfigure, because she has no idea how that would affect the human fetus within her. She can feel it kicking, the damn thing. But she feels a kind of affection for it, too. Her creation. She dares to hope for a girl, a daughter. She feels smug in her knowledge that it is. Although the ultrasound showed the baby in such a position that the sex remained undetermined, she felt sure of it. Not with a flimsy mother's intuition, but with that of a witch.

A goddess. A witch goddess, rich with black blood. Medusa's own creation. She has forged her own crown.

The snakes inside her writhe in anticipation.

During her pregnancy, Medusa dreams.

In one, she slaughters a rabbit and lets its blood, black in the dark, run down her arms. This comes as no surprise. The rabbit's eyes remain open, unnaturally huge, and it screams out a human baby's cry.

In another, she fucks a giant bird. A human-sized cuckoo.

In the last, her brain melts and leaks out of her orifices.

They say a witch's dreams in this state are prophetic.

When she feels the contractions, she feels only serenity. Now is the time.

At the hospital, they ask her if she wants them to call her husband. She tells them that she'll worry about that after she has the baby.

First she must endure the labor pains.

The sheets saturate with blood and her mind hazes from the drugs. This only makes her more attentive; they must be strong, if she can feel them at all. Unfortunately, as she grits her teeth, she notes that they don't completely null the pains. The whole affair reminds her of her daughter's conception – a messy, unpleasant chore.

The baby comes out and they cut her cord – no matter; she will be connected to Medusa forever, by fate, by way of whom she owes her life.

"Congratulations! It's a boy."

Medusa stares at them with murderous horror. She must look crazed at that moment, hair matted to her head, hospital gown askew, sweat coating her face.

They hold out the baby to her. Slowly, she holds out her arms to accept.

"It's a great one," says the dealer. He looks suspiciously at the beautiful, black-clad woman before him. Mrs. Schlange, she said her name was. Looked foreign. Perhaps German, with a name like that, although he feels tentative in that label.

"May I hold it?" She holds out her gloved hands in supplication.

"I'm not so sure about that, ma'am – you said you were buying this for your husband? What good'll it do you to take a closer look? Weapons are things for men; take my word on it when I say that this is a valuable one."

"May I hold it, Mr. Gulbrandsen?" she asks, even more sweetly. Something in the sweetness weighs it heavy. Sighing, he hands it to her.

"Careful not to cut yourse-"

A curtailed cry tears from his throat, then a spray of blood; then he crumples to the ground, twitching and gurgling. A last wheeze and he stops moving. The only motion comes from the blood spreading from his throat wound to the rest of his collar.

Medusa wipes the sword with the inside of her dress hem, on her petticoats. Blood, says the sword, blood. The taste! So long since!

She feels its red, corrupted soul. She closes her eyes to concentrate. He appears to be no longer human. She marvels that this mortal dealer could keep the sword so long without malice befalling him – until now.

What is your name?

He screams and writhes and bellows, speaking of hell and the end of all. Her soul, wispy as it is, sinks like lead, falling into blackness, merely in carrying the thing.

You are Ragnarok, she corrects him, recalling from her research. It has been so long that he has forgotten himself, only remembers his corruption. He once stood mighty, but how the mighty fall. He was cast into the black-ice northern waters. Scavenged by a doughy mortal.

She caresses him. A beautiful sword, gone black as ashes, given spirit by her sister. Her eyes narrow at the thought of Arachne. This is neither the time nor the place.

Stepping delicately over the body of the dead antique dealer, she wraps the sword in brown paper and strings it up. She carries it out of the room with her, into the streets of Norway. She keeps him in her pocket for a bloody day near the end of the world.

Observing it, she thinks that it looks nothing like a man. It's a fat, red baby with a tuft of pinkish hair. It looks absurd. Like a piece of rare pork.

At home, she finds that it cries incessantly. The first thing she does is put it down so she can sleep, but it wakes her up with its crying. She feeds it and occasionally cleans up its shit, like one would clean an animal cage. Otherwise she pointedly ignores it. It will not see the satisfaction of her ire.

She must endure. Just for now, she reminds herself. It won't last long. She's lasted eight-hundred years. She can last longer.

In the meantime, she perfects the Black Blood and introduces it, slowly but surely, into the baby's little body. Start soon, so it can fill the baby-body now and replicate to fill a larger body later. She's pleased to find that it replicates even more quickly than she expected, making her work effortless.

The Black Blood also has an unexpected but pleasant side effect: the baby stops crying.

When she returns at last to the Black Sabbath, all the lesser witches give her deferential nods and polite greetings. The officials greet her warily.

"And what took you so long, Medusa? You know that the Sabbaths are mandatory. More than that, Lady Mabaa might wonder why you seemed to fall off the face of the planet for a year." It is Kito, the fox, yellow eyes sharp as ever, little snout too quick to bark. The witch trailing her, a toad girl new to the job, looks on, eyes darting from her mentor to Medusa and back.

"I see that at the very least your apprentice has the good sense to remember her manners around me, Kito. What happened to polite greetings within our ranks?"

Kito examines her sharply. "Things might have changed while you were gone, Medusa. We can continue without you, you know."

Medusa examines the other girl coolly. "Of course you can," she says. "Now, may I please attend the Sabbath?"

Kito moves aside to let her in, but Medusa feels her eyes on her.

She hears his toddler cries, the equivalent of hands grasping for holds in the walls of a dark pit. She sighs and goes to see him. He's interrupted her notes: Symptoms include paranoia. Afraid of his own shadow. Perhaps just weak-willed.

His eyes are huge and bagged. They recall the man from that night years ago, though the image has already gone dim in the dark and disuse of its corner in her mind. He is so human, ages so rapidly, feels so easily,that it disgusts her. How can she place her hopes in a frail subject such as this?

She examines him as her eyes adjust to the dark. Her face breaks into a smile.

"It worked?"

"It hurts," he whispers. The new, black mass on his back laughs and pinches at his face, pulling at his child-cheeks until they're red and sore.

"Enough of that," she says. She means his whining.

Kito's eyes don't leave Medusa's memory. They were not suspicious, but not solely triumphant, either. They held apprehension. Knowledge. The next time, when Medusa notices Kito's staring, she draws her aside after the Sabbath. Medusa wants to know what Kito does.

In the full light from the moon, the old church looks eerily cheerful, even with most of the witches cleared out. Although most of the ancient church is in ruins, the stained glass windows that remain spill in moon-blood and moon-tears. When Medusa pulls Kito aside, some saint dressed in red fall upon the younger witch.

Kito frowns slightly. Now, alone with Medusa, she doesn't feel so sure of her bark. "You wanted something?"

Medusa examines Kito. She wants to smile, but she restrains herself so as not to give away her hand. "You seem to know something about me," she explains evenly. "I wanted to know what that is."

Kito's nostrils flare, and her lips immediately purse. Medusa wants to drag the answer off Kito's tongue, but this is one situation will she will gain more with persuasion.

"I know we've had our rough spots, but you know that we're sisters. We daughters of Lilith must look out for one another. I only want to know if I've… done something wrong." What might come off as a humble pause is really the pause of a tactician: it takes her a moment to figure out how to phrase it. She eventually decides to play off Kito's sense of righteousness (well, as a witch's goes), rather than personal opinion ('offended you') or superiority ('done something I need to worry about').

Kito's words come slowly. "It's…. your child."

Now it's Medusa's turn to be taken aback, although she tries not to show it. "Yes?"

Kito's eyes narrow. "You don't have to be short with me."

"Why have you not done anything about it, then? If you knew and though that it was a problem? Why keep it to yourself?"

"I would have done something about it, a while ago. But where is your child?"

Medusa quirks an eyebrow. "Is that what's puzzling you?"

"Yes. That and why you had a child in the first place. Actually, no, that isn't such a big question. You wanted a successor, didn't you?" The derision in her tone conveys what she expects Medusa would teach any heiress of hers.

"How did you know?"

"I don't trust you, Medusa," Kito says honestly, becoming bolder with what she believes to be Medusa's being caught off balance. "I wondered why you weren't coming to the Black Sabbath. I tried to find you-"

"That's impossible. I use Soul Protect the same as any other here."

"Of course you do." Kito smiles, triumphant. "But I can sniff out trouble."

Medusa racks her brain to remember Kito's unique power. It finally comes to her: Kito, the fox. A nose for what might save her own skin. Back when Medusa was young, foxes were pests. Roadkill. Vermin. Not even worth eating.

"I smell like trouble to you?"

"You stink of it." Kito wrinkles her nose. "Even being this close to you is difficult."

"Very well. You don't trust me. But you ought to know…"

"Know what?"

"She died."

Kito's eyebrows knit.

"Certainly this is no surprise to you?"

"No," Kito admits, "I just…"

"Pity me," Medusa says flatly. "I understand it."

Kito's eyes flicker between doubt, hate, and the aforementioned pity. "It's unfortunate," she concedes, "After all you certainly went through to bear her. But it's not uncommon." The old adage, taught to Shibusen students: where infants die and mothers cry, the witch's lair is surely nigh. Not even a witch's own child could be held exempt.

"Why does it matter to you why I had conceived? My daughter is dead. You have nothing unusual to worry about from me."

Kito looks at Medusa more softly. The red of the filtered moonlight colors her face. A fitting color, Medusa thinks. "I… I understand."

"Have you said anything to Lady Mabaa or the others in the Council?" Medusa tries to put a tinge of worry into her voice.

Kito shakes her head. "No."

Medusa represses a smile. That would be too much a give-away. It would alert Kito that she was gleeful at getting out of his hitch scot-free, not the humble gratitude that she aims for.

"Thank you."

When she looks up, she sees in the cracked, stained glass a red-clad woman holding her eyes on a tray. She pauses to think. She lets the filtered moonlight fall bloody on her face before pulling her hood up and making a brisk exit.

Finally.

He's crying, but then the madness takes over and he smiles through his tears. Stab, stab, stab. Medusa looks at her work. The animal stops squirming, and Chrona examines his gory hand, bulging eyes flickering around it like an insect's. He puts it in his mouth, sucking on it like a much smaller child would, suddenly whimpering. She thinks to stop him, or perhaps to strike him, but decides to let him do as he likes. He's done well today. Killed as she instructed. The Black Blood has the desired effect – unstable, but that was to be expected; more importantly, strong.

A beautiful success, albeit repulsive. Madness sweeps across his features, visible and violent. Perhaps she's only jealous.

When she kills Kito, she removes her eyeballs from their sockets, a bloody work that leaves haphazard drips around the room. She leaves the eyes on the nightstand next to the fox-witch's bed. It is a message to the Congregation: I am watching you watching me. Of course, they don't know for sure that she sent it, or why Kito was the victim. Only that they should be afraid. Kito's corpse looked frightening, after all, with its raw red sockets. Or maybe they were brown, by the time the Congregation officials got there. At any rate, Medusa knows that it was no stained-glass window.

Today, she takes him out of his room. He nearly wouldn't come, stubborn pig. He held on to the leg of his bed until she yanked him away and smacked him in the head. Said he didn't want to come out. Probably thought she was going to put him in the dungeon again; stupid child. He even pissed his pants. The room stinks of it now.

"Your hair is getting long," she says. "Like a girl's." She clicks the scissors in her hand.

He looks at her. He sees only the sharp glint of the scissors.

"D-d-don't want t-to."

"I'm cutting your hair."

He squirms as she cuts, but she tightens her grip and he stills. He looks at the fallen strands of hair lying around him. She points one black-nailed finger at the mirror when she's done.

"Look at yourself."

His eyes well up with tears, although he fears her to much to make a sound. Ragnarok emerges quietly but snickers when he sees Chrona's reflection in the mirror.

"You look like a bird!"

"Well? What is it? What's wrong now?" She looks up from here nails, where she's trying to scratch out some red-brown grit. She feels like a perpetual nanny, taking care of a bad-tempered child that doesn't belong to her. She sees none of herself or the things she wants in this child.

"I look scary! I look ugly!" His eyes have widened even bigger, and he starts to cry. She realizes that this is the first time he's seen himself with Ragnarok protruding from his back. She thinks to reassure him, but – what's the point, really?

"My hair –" he says, "-my hair looks wrong." He clutches at it as though trying to scratch a ghost limb, as though she has amputated something. Perhaps she should have left it long. She already puts him in dresses, almost as a joke. With no television, books, or forays to the outside – how is he to know the difference? A child's self-construal is formed mostly by external factors, and she is the only one he has.

"My cutting is impeccable," she says drily. "You're stupid to think otherwise. Go to your room."

It becomes apparent that Chrona is a failed subject, though perhaps a useful tool. She keeps taking her notes, but they lack zeal. She has already decided that her back-up plan is in order, and to this end she prepares a new false identity, one eligible for a teaching position as Shibusen.

As time goes on, she spends her nights supervising Chrona and his weapon as they gorge themselves on souls, trying despite fate to make them red and bloody, glorious as the Kishin.

During the day, she endures the ham-handed advances of the Death Scythe and bandages the endless, insipid scrapes of children. Death Scythe's idiocy, she finds bemusing: it makes her wonder why she didn't attempt an attack on Death sooner. It can't be that difficult, with this oaf as his last line of protection.

"You'll have to forgive him," his friend smiles, "Someone cut out some integral parts of his cerebrum as a small child."

"It was probably you!"

Medusa smiles back, but she notes that this is the first time she has met this man and that his smile does not invite her. Neither does his manner or appearance – unruly silver hair, some contraption in his head, skin and clothes a patchwork of brutal stitches.

Medusa, despite herself, mentally traces the curve of his neck as he leans over some papers.

This is why she has not attacked Shibusen sooner: Dr. Stein, mad genius. Perhaps the only thing besides Death himself of which is she is wary.

As strongly as he does not invite her, she wants to force her way in.

After she sees him fight, Medusa dreams of sex. It's because his blood has to be one of the most beautiful things she's ever seen. Her blood – his handiwork - later tops it. He says she doesn't know love, that neither does he. She disagrees. If he gave into insanity, he would understand. She admits that she can only love so much: she hasn't let it overcome her. Sense still rules her. And it tells her that this - as she calls it, love - is a bad idea.

As much as she envies her sister's release, the poetry and fluidity of the whole affair, Medusa prefers her new body. Solid. Grounded. Functional. Knowable. Much better than the limited, fleshy body she bore before this one. She hated having to look up at everyone constantly.

And she hated pretending to play nice with Death. Death who will someday claim her, cut her head off, merely for the fact that she was born with a black destiny. The only way to triumph over him is to overwhelm him with that which he cannot overcome: the condition of the mind.

Medusa has spent eight hundred years preoccupied with her freedom. She will not allow fear to distract her from the greatest freedom yet.

She will kill Death by her sister's former hand.

The sway of darkness, her sister Insanity, whispers things to her, but she can only heed her so far. She must embrace Insanity to defeat Death, but Medusa must never lose herself, or she loses her power.

Eruka tugs at the collar of her dress. Her ruddy face contorts into a grimace.

"Lady Medusa?"

Medusa admires the newly-painted black toenails and the feet they're attached to. They are not hers. They are Arachne's, longer but better curved than hers. "Yes?"

"I – I didn't – I was just down in the dungeon and I thought I should tell you…"

Free interrupts her with a snort. "Just cough it out."

"Cough what out, exactly?" Eruka's hedging won't earn her any points, surely.

Eruka flushes even redder.

"Why does it have to be so hot in here?" she mumbles, trying to catch Free's eye. He shrugs, noncommittal. It has to be bad news then. Medusa sinks back into her pillows, although her muscles stiffen.

"Because it's my palace and I'll choose it where I like it. A snake likes it warm. Now?"

No room for argument, with that voice. "Chrona's crying."

Medusa frowns. "I don't care. How does that have anything to do with your assignment?"

Eruka's eyes shift nervously to the wall. They shift all over, one place to another like a fly. Medusa hates it. Isn't the girl supposed to eat flies?

"He's been completely unresponsive since… since Shibusen, Lady Medusa. Since you brought him back and…"

"Re-brainwashed him," Free mutters, with an obvious tinge of distaste.

"Did you say something, Free?"

"Nope."

"… And now, all of a sudden, he's crying." Eruka pauses, then tentatively adds, "It's because he knows the others are here. The Death fragment we took from Noah, and… that so-called witch and her partner. And that boy. Oz or whatever." Eruka obviously disapproves of the white-witch, a traitor to their kind, though Medusa covets her unique abilities. Medusa, Eruka remembers, is a traitor as well.

Medusa's tone goes dark. "They've been here for months. Why now?" She suspects the answer.

"… The Death Scythe – er, hammer. He knows that she's here. He can sense her wavelength."

"And that you've been torturing her, correct?"

"I haven't-" Eruka bites her lip, then pulls her hat down to cover her eyes. "I'm sorry, Lady Medusa. I can't do it."

"What's that?"

"She can't do it," says Free, a bit hotly.

"I expect that," Medusa says coldly. "But why can't you do it, Free? Not feeling soft toward the fairer sex, are you?" She smiles, a reminder that she, frigid and deadly, is of that same sex.

Free examines her shortly, and from the criticism in his eyes, she knows he holds her in stark contrast to Marie – warm-smiled, warm-skinned Marie. His eyes slip over to Eruka, who still hides her face behind her hat.

"Frankly, I don't want to," he says. "You seem to want it bad enough. Why don't you go do it?"

His voice holds the slightest taunt. Medusa face darkens into a scowl, a sight frightening enough to make Free look away. "Why? Because that woman will only be broken when she sees that I, evil little I, am not the only one in the world who would want to do her sweet little self harm."

The venom in her voice gives her spite away. Eruka peeks out from underneath her hat to exchange a loaded glance with Free.

"Stop it," Medusa orders, her voice raising a tad higher than usual. "Do as I say."

Eruka retreats back behind her hat. "But… she keeps on saying… you can't hear her."

"What does she say?" Medusa's hiss at this point could shatter souls.

"She – she doesn't complain at all. Not even when I eat in front of her, or taunt her about stuff. No outward signs of all the starvation or anything. The only time she gets upset is when Free or I mention the children. She asks us – she keeps asking us not to hurt the children. To do what we want with her, but to let the children go."

Medusa breaks out into laughter, which stuns Eruka at first, until she peeks out from behind her hat and realizes that Medusa's eyes – Arachne's eyes, really, though yellow now – have gone wide and unblinking. The laugh rings shallow. Eruka fears her superior more than she has ever feared anything before. She feels a roiling in her stomach, and for a terrible second she thinks that Medusa will release the snakes as punishment.

Medusa's laughter gradually fades. The ring of it, like the aftertaste of something bad, echoes in the big room. Eruka watches as Medusa suddenly rises, gracefully, to her feet.

"You were right, Free. I would prefer to do this myself."

Eruka glances up at Free, who only looks down at his shoes. Eruka can tell that he's gritting his teeth. She wants to say something to him, but can't think of what to say.

In a few minutes, they can both hear a faint, female scream.

Medusa prefers tortures more immediate than starvation.

She meets him in the dream.

Do you want a pure, blushing bride? One who will make love to you under sheets? One to provide you rosy-cheeked babes? One raised on mother's milk and soft hands? Don't lie to me, Stein.

He smiles at her. He appears to her now as a child-version of himself, with badly cut hair. Something about it seems strangely familiar.

I would never lie to you, Medusa; I don't love you.

He spits blood - black blood. It lands near Medusa's feet, its intended target. She steps toward him as though she didn't notice it at all.

"How nice to see you again, Soul."

He makes a face. She keeps her smile plastered on, but really, she's torn toward laughing at this captor. He who shows neither fear nor submission, even as he's bloodied and chained to a dungeon wall. As though hearing her thoughts, he weakly shakes his wrist, testing the shackle.

Medusa takes a seat, floating in mid-air as a witch might. "Oh, don't think that you'll be able to wiggle out of this one. Those are charmed to resist any tricks you might pull, weapon."

"What the hell do you want from me, Medusa? I'm not gonna play games with you."

"No games." She raises her hands to show him her empty palms, as though this clears her. "No games, Soul. Only a few questions."

He's silent for a moment. She can hear the shackles clink slightly as he shifts. "So what do you want from me?" He probably expects to be the subject of more experiments. Too bad she's temporarily given up on the potential of the Black Blood. It wasn't her fault both her subjects were failures, though for very different reasons.

"I only want to ask about things at Shibusen."

This puts him on guard. "Like?"

"You know. School... your friends... all the normal things a boy your age might be interested in."

"Bet Chrona doesn't get much time to be interested in those things."

"Mmm, well, I pulled him out of school. I found certain teachers there to be a corrupting influence on him. A mother has to look out for her son."

"Like Marie? Heard you got her." His voice contains a great deal of venom. He's trying to bait her into giving him information.

"And they say your meister is the clever one. From whom did you hear this?"

"You're not getting anything from me, witch."

According to Free, who returned with massive wounds, there was only one person present when he and Eruka took Marie.

"From Dr. Stein?"

"Oh, yeah. Heard about that. You're some kind of stalker, aren't you? Must be pretty touched in the head to go for him."

Medusa slips to her feet. From inside her shirt, Medusa procures a small vial containing a yellowish liquid. She waves it in front of Soul's nose. He follows it with slow, tired eyes, too wary of her motives not to.

"Do you know what this is?"

"Piss?"

"You have a smart tongue. If you're not careful, I'll cut it out." She uncaps the vial and puts it under Soul's nose. "It's a narcotic. A drug, if you will. It slows the senses. Loosens up tight little tongues like yours."

He comically holds his breath. "Oh, no, the smell alone isn't going to hurt you. Much. Though it doesn't smell pleasant, does it? It's for injection. You can tell me now, or you can wait till this is going through your veins. It does have some unpleasant side-effects, though. Headaches. Vomitting." She leans in so close that her nose is almost touching his. "A looser grip on reality."

She hears him shaking. The rattling chains give him away.

She draws back, smug. "A couple doses of this was all I needed to get the Death Hammer talking."

Soul says nothing, but she can sense his contempt. Feeds on it, in fact.

"She told me all about how you and Maka have found some new ways to use Maka's unique abilities. How's that coming along?"

He remains tight-lipped.

"You know what I'm going to do with her if I find her, don't you? If you don't help me now?"

Soul looks at her with unadulterated murder in his eyes. "Go to hell."

Medusa leans forward from her mid-air perch. She places her elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand. Thoughtful. "Gut her, perhaps. String her up outside Shibusen. I wonder what her father will think of that? Or maybe I could rip through her face. Make a nice little smile. Or take out her eyes... Paralyze her completely. That one would be easy. I could do it with poison.

"That's bullshit. You can't get that close to Shibusen."

"I don't need to go anywhere. She'll come to me. Probably in secret, too, without backup or anyone else's knowing. All to save you..."

There's a long silence, drawn out and painful, because he knows that she's right.

"Oh, you can't tell me even one little thing about Shibusen?"

"I can tell you that your precious Stein's not a part of it anymore," he spits out. "So you can stop harassing us."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He went off his rocker. Maka's dad couldn't do anything about it. Kept saying he was going to find a way to reverse the Black Blood, use it against you, get Marie back. But it all sounded... wrong."

"And he left?"

"Yeah. In the middle of the night. No one knows for sure what he's after, since all that stuff's impossible."

Medusa leans back in her seat, smiling to herself. She has some idea of where he might go to study the Black Blood. "It sounds too good to be true," she says, more to herself than to Soul.

"Only you'd think so."

She draws something else out from her shirt. Soul's eyes widen, although she can tell he's trying his damndest to stay calm. She readies the needle, putting in the yellowish liquid and squirting a little to get the right dose. "Can't kill you off too soon," she says, when she catches him watching.

"What're you doing?"

"Only making sure you're honest."

She's having the dream again, where her brain is melted and leaking fatty out of her ears.

This time, Stein is heavy on top of her and she is screaming in pleasure and he is laughing between moans.

When she sees him at last through the snow, she pulls down her hood and wonders what he must see of her. She wears her sister's body now, but her eyes fgleam yellow and mark her like the whitened eyes of a possessed child might. Much to her disappointment, he appears sane.

He smiles. His teeth flash white as a rabid-dog's mouth.

That's more like it.

"Medusa," he says, "Funny I should see you here."

No sooner is she smiling than does a shock from his fist blow her back into the snow. She lands in a pile, making a messy, dead snow angel. She laughs, her breath condensing into a cloud, her body stinging with cold. Stiffly, she rises. The cold seeps into her bones, making her blood slow. Damned cold. The snake, out of her element. She'll have to count on the sight of him to keep her heart rate up.

"I didn't think you would come."

"You knew I would." The magnificent bastard. Although the drug revealed Soul hadn't lied, and had no intention of tricking her, she expected that he may have planned this nonetheless. "You seem to be expecting me."

"Will you tell me what you've done with Marie?" His voice has a tinge of desperation, more than a tinge of brutality.

Medusa feels her face contorting. She doesn't like the power that that name has on him, or that his scorn has on her.

"No," she says, kicking out. The heavy boots to which her feet are confined knock him in the jaw, and for a moment she sees the beauty of his neck, stretched out as if on the torture rack, as he responds to the blow. "Although the question may be what I haven't done to her."

He calmly lowers his head. A bit of blood – she gave him a split lip, too. He licks it off slowly, and she takes care to watch his tongue. Her eyes go to his. Somehow, he's managing to keep his madness in check. "What about your abomination, then? And Soul Eater Evans?"

"My – Chrona? And Evans?" The laughter in her voice betrays her dubiousness at his asking. "Did your pupil tell you to ask me about them? Or was it her father? I wonder which she would prefer out of the two, hmm? My ugly little son or her pretty little boy – Well, the girl can't expect any more of me than she could before - maybe a cut across the chest for her own, this time - "

This time, when he rushes at her, he's blown back.

"I'm disappointed. I thought you the kind not to accept a trick twice."

A vector arrow, hidden under the snow. He stands easily, not even startled.

"You enjoy the sound of your own voice too much."

"As do you," she replies. He smiles again and readies his scythe. Not Death Scythe. A mortal weapon. He meets her alone, outside of Shibusen's jurisdiction.

So close to the edge, outside of their jurisdiction, and he knows the tantalizing power this has over her. Perhaps she was unwise, after all. But - too late to pray regrets.

They begin. A blow to the left; easily dodged, the sharp edge of a blade, but she steps away in time – onto the ice. She cautiously lets her heels touch the ground. No breaking. Good. She looks at him again. Sharp face, stitches. Rabid-dog smile. Brain tick-tocking, incessant.

"You told me I couldn't understand love, that we were exactly the same. You're wrong. You understand it the way I understand it. Lust for power. Lust for the only thing that's true."

His whisper is the same one that he uses when he fucks her in her dreams. "And what's true, Medusa?"

Her name.

"Knowledge. Truth. Power outside of stifling order. Outside of Death."

He examines her. "You may be right."

"Do you want to lie to her, Stein? Lie to them all about what you really want? About the madness inside of you?"

For a split-second, he closes his eyes.

A kick to the head, but he grabs her boot in time. He yanks her forward; she stumbles. She regains her footing just in time – cumbersome boots – but then, when she jerks her legs away, she finds that she's stuck.

… the kind not accept a trick twice…

He releases the sutures just as he blows her back. Her body cracks through two feet of ice before the force plunges her into the water.

For a moment, it feels fine. The momentum slows as the water resists the push; stupidly, she opens her mouth in surprise, and gasps. Water fills her along with shock. She's not closing her eyes, but it's so dark that it feels like it. She closes them now. Peace. Peace.

Until she realizes she never wanted peace. She wants to survive, needs to survive, needs to breathe. And it's cold. Medusa flails, but the cold makes her body slow and she feels her life eking away.

The best way to kill a snake?

In sub-zero water.

This dream bleeds so black that she thinks it marks the end. If only.

The sunshine burns her skin. The short legs trouble her even more this time around – she moves so slowly.

She's impatient.

As she finally enters within earshot, she can hear the beat of the ball that the group plays with, as well as their shouts.

"Give it here!"

"Maka!" Soul throws the ball to his meister. Medusa frowns at how utterly right he is, so soon. How little effect her work had on him, though the Black Blood still pulses within him.

"I don't know what to do with – Patty! What did you just-?"

"Score! We're winning~!"

"Good job, Patty."

"Yeah, good job, Maka!"

"Hey! Shut up, Soul!"

"Don't worry, Maka! We'll win next time. This is just a fluke because you're so bad. You can't really lose when you have Black~Star on your side!"

Her Black-Blooded one snorts. Although his voice is low, Medusa hears him make some kind of comment on how the blue-haired meister is still the smallest in their age group. This only infuriates him.

"Chrona's the tallest!" the girl points cheerfully toward Medusa's child. "I think our team should have another player to compensate for how tall he is," she teases.

At last, Medusa examines her creation. Her flesh and blood. Her son. He looks taller and ganglier than he even used to be, though perhaps a bit better-fed. It looks to her that some acne is even blooming on his sallow skin, under his dark-shadowed eyes. Medusa shivers with distaste. She puts thoughts of that night, long ago, out of her mind. Sex brings to mind Stein, and she puts thoughts Of Dr. Stein out of her mind, too. He certainly must be somewhere around here. But she must not think of him any longer. It will only prove futile.

Her son, infuriating little chit that he is, looks concerned. "Should we find someone else to play? I don't want it be unfair for you, Maka. Especially when everyone on your team is so little."

The Black-Blooded weapon mutters something too low for even Medusa's sharp hearing to catch. The girl elbows her partner in his ribs – hard – and smiles up at Chrona.

"No, Chrona, it's a good thing! You're a valuable player for your team. And you're a valuable opponent for us. We'll only have to work harder to beat you."

Chrona smiles a shy smile, reassured by her words. Medusa feels her stomach churn with hate.

"All right, everyone," says the small Death. Medusa stares hard at him, but if he senses unknown eyes on him, he doesn't show it. He maintains his cool to a fault. "Meet here at this time next week. This time exactly."

There was a chorus of goodbyes, little comments and asides as the couples and individuals wandered in different directions.

Chrona, whose eyes have been doing their insect-like spasms, finally catches Medusa's eyes.

She smiles.

At last. Someone who still fears her.

"Chrona, do you want to come with me and Soul to the library? We're going to study for Ms. Mjolnir's exam on Monday. Although I think we should be worrying more about Dr. Stein's..."

The mention of Marie sends a chill of hate through her. The mention of him makes a part of Medusa's child-body itch.

"N-no th-thank you," he says, eyes still locked with hers. The girl looks over in Medusa's direction, but Medusa turns to hide her smirk.

"What're you looking at?"

"N-nothing. I-I'll see you Monday."

"Are you sure?" The girl sounds concerned.

"Maka, just leave him alone. Chrona, you know you can come with us any time, right?"

"Y-yes."

"Okay," the girl says, reluctantly. She'll grow up to be a saint, Medusa thinks bitterly, like her teacher. To think that she and her partner, with the aid of the Black Blood, once had such potential. What a tragic waste.

The sound of the pair's footsteps against the pavement disappears, replaced by quiet and birdsong. Chrona looks over at her.

Medusa comes closer.

"My son," she says. "It's been a long time." Not for her. A couple years – what is that?

Chrona can only stare at her in horror. She sighs.

"Do you have no words for your mother?"

"I th-thought you were d-dead."

Medusa is glad for her child-voice. It makes her sound vulnerable (which she is, now), even innocent (which she is never). "Of course not. Did you want me to be?"

He continues to stare. No answer.

"Are you happy here, Chrona?"

No answer.

"Well."

"…I-I… a-am…"

"Aaaaah," she says pensively, with an open child-mouth. "But you know it's all a lie, don't you?"

"I-I…."

"You know they're only pretending. They fear what you are when you're with me, because you're so powerful. They hate you and your power. But they want you on their side. They use their friendship as a bargaining chip. Not like your mother. Not like me, who cares for you thick and thin. Who is honest."

Chrona continues to stare at her. Only now something in his eyes is dissipating, and his mouth forms a tentative, crooked line. Almost a frown.

"…N-not you…."

"Excuse me?"

"N-not you. You w-were never honest."

Medusa wants to hit him, but it would shatter her illusion of innocence, and all hope she has of succeeding. "Me?"

He only stares at her before turning away. Medusa, suddenly angry, runs after him, and tugs hard on his shirt.

"Listen well," she hisses, as well as she can in the child-voice. "This body is like a prison. I can't stay in here for long with what I have left. I need your help."

"Dr. Stein told us," he says softly, "When he got back."

Medusa can't help herself. "What did he say?"

"That he lured you North. That you were easy on him. That he was sure he'd killed you."

She examines him sharply. "Do you want me dead?"

He gives her one last wide-eyed stare before quickly striding away. Medusa runs to catch up, but then he's running, with legs that are infinitely longer and faster than her child-legs, and Medusa's left howling.

No one comes.