"... Son, please, do not look at me like that. I am your mother, you need not be afraid of me."

"But, you... you... those people who came here, and you used the skulls, and now they..."

"They shall be cleaned up quickly, my son, you will not need to see their remains for very long."

"...Why did you kill them, mother? Were they bad people?"

"...I do not know. They might have been good or bad, but I had no intention of knowing. No matter who they were, all they sought when they came to this place was this power that lies within me. Just like all the rest who have come here before, and those who will continue to come. They are but selfish creatures who seek power. They want to take away this power, this place... and, if they were to succeed, they would take me away from you, my son."

"But... but this place is our home! I don't want to lose the Cathedral! And I don't want to lose you to them! I... I..."

"... There there, it's alright, my son, you may cry all you need to. They are gone now, as will be all of the others who come, attempting the same thing as their predecessors... You must promise me something, my son. One day, you know that this power of mine will be passed down to you. No matter what happens, you must make certain that you keep it out of the hands of others who will use it for unrighteous purposes. Use it only to defend yourself, and to smite the evil that walks this earth. Can you promise me that, my son?"

"... I promise."

–

"Maka! What did you do to her you creepy-ass nun?!" Double didn't even glance at the albino boy as she held the girl by the back of her coat.

"I only did what was necessary. This girl has a destiny to fulfill, just as her father once did."

"Double! You... you sick twisted monster!" Spirit suddenly snapped, rage evident in his voice. "We had a deal! I became what you wanted me to, you were supposed to leave my daughter out of this! The Skull Heart is mine to carry, she has nothing to do with this!"

"On the contrary, my child, she has everything to do with this." Double stepped towards him, still carrying Maka. The children were frozen with shock at the scene before them, it seemed as though they were unable to make themselves move. "It is for her just as it was for you when you were a child, scrambling over the bones in these very catacombs. The power of the Skull Heart amplifies with each generation it is passed down through. You felt a strong pull for it when your mother bore it, and now your daughter feels the same."

At last, she stopped as she stood before Spirit, and dropped Maka at his feet. The blonde gasped as she hit the hard stones, whimpering and clutching at her chest.

"She will not be able to survive unless she wields the power that you contain in your chest. Are you really such a heartless father that you will stand there and watch your own offspring suffer? Or will you give in to the true wishes of the Goddesses, and pass the Skull Heart on to the one who truly needs it?"

"You... MONSTER!" A roar like a wild beast escaped Spirit as he lunged at Double, his face filled with rage and malice. However, before he could make it to her, he let out a strangled cry, as his feet fell from under him, and he landed on his front, clutching at his chest as pained grunts escaped him. "Wh- guhh... what is this? What are you doing, monster?!" He gasped, barely able to overcome the pain long enough to bite out his words.

"I am doing nothing, my child," the nun answered quietly. "This is all by the will of our Goddesses and their creations. The cycle will come to pass into completion, there is nothing you can do to change this. Now, it would be best for you if you were to take this the easy route and-"

"Oh my God, you guys are talking too damn much!" Double turned her head as Black Star lunged at her, holding Tsubaki in sword mode. "Shut the hell up already and get away from Maka!" He yelled as he lunged, ready to dig his blade into her, but a swift rush of movement found him slammed against a wall and locked against it with bones like the rest teachers.

"You trespass upon Venus's domain, you would dare oppose the church? Such insolence," she almost drawled. "You interfere in matters you could never hope to understand, child. Stay down, and allow events to take their course."

"Like hell we will!" Black Star shouted back insolently.

"...I believe that a culling of the flock is in order," she murmured. "We have no need for those who cannot follow our great shepherdesses." Double raised a hand, and soon each one of the students was locked to the ground with bones, not a single one of them could escape. Even Crona's attempts to break them with droplets of his black blood held to no avail, they were just as solid, if not moreso, than his solidified blood.

"I-I don't understand!" Crona stuttered, looking at Double. "Maka said that you were a good person, she knew you since she was little! Why are you doing this?!" The nun gazed at Crona silently, eerily, then slowly began pacing over.

"Dear child," she murmured, her footsteps barely making a sound over the solid stone of the floor. "You still comprehend so little. There is so much at work in this that you could not even begin to comprehend it. Your feeble minds could not handle the truth of these matters. What you are witnessing here is the will of our almighty Goddesses. Ignorant children," she smirked, "your deaths shall be but fodder to the will of our Goddesses." She grinned widely, revealing sharp rows of teeth to the pink-haired teen, and the rest of the group stared on in confusion and shock. "Now... to end this feeble distraction. You shall all perish, provide more stepping stones for the will of the divine. Your bones shall line the catacombs, and your blood shall-"

Double halted short as a cry of agony suddenly escaped from Spirit. She turned, smirking, as she expected to see him writhing on the ground as he clutched at the Skull Heart trying to escape him for its new host. However, what she saw there instead stunned all who were still present and conscious.

Where there had once been empty space in front of Spirit, there now stood a woman in a face mask, a gauze patch over one eye, and white medical scrubs (which were admittedly short and showed off an awful lot of cleavage for someone in a medical profession).Her arms were crossed over her chest as her single eye stared down the nun.

"Well, well," the woman spoke in honey-smooth tones, arms slowly uncrossing. "Look who we have here, if it isn't my favorite nun. Miss me, Double?" One hand came down to her side, resting against the handle of a bone-saw she had strapped against her waist.

Double's eyes opened, glowing a harsh red.

"So, the child has resorted to that, has he? It is of no consequence, he cannot stop this from coming to fruition." Her habit began to shift as her body expanded again. "Now yOU wIll be sacrifiCEd to the great Mother."

"I knew it would come to this," the woman murmured as she pulled the saw from its holder. "I'll cut you down to size, Double."

With no warning, the woman and creature lunged at each other, clashing in a haze of movements so quickly that those present could hardly follow with their eyes. Most of the students present watched in awe, uncomprehending of the situation, who this stranger was, and what sort of plot twists were going to happen next since they were so lost.

However, Death the Kidd was focused on another matter entirely.

Who is this woman? I've never felt a soul anything like hers before. Maka was still unconscious in front of Death Scythe, and neither Black Star nor Crona could feel souls, so he was the only one present who could even feel this anomaly. Somehow, and he had no idea how, this woman didn't have a whole soul. It was only a fragment of one, somehow capable of sustaining her as she fought this Double creature. It was as if someone had just taken a whole soul, cleaved a chunk off of it, and placed it into this woman. What in the hell is going on here? How can someone survive with only a part of a soul... Wait...

There was another incomplete soul in the room that he could feel, though more whole than the one that was within the woman. Straining his neck since his body was still locked tightly within the bones, he turned to see where that soul was, and his eyes widened as he could just barely see who it was over his shoulder.

Death Scythe?! But, how?! Why is a piece of his soul gone?! What is happening here?!

He was so distracted by the fact of the souls being fragmented, that he didn't even notice what Spirit was actually doing there. Grunting, and in a considerable amount of pain, he had managed to pull himself closer to Maka. His chest clenched further as he saw the pained, weak expression on her face, and not just from the feeling that the Skull Heart was trying to push itself out between his ribs.

"M... Maka..." He gasped, clenching his eyes shut for a moment to steady himself. He could hear the battle going on in the background, he just hoped that sending her to fight Double would give him just enough time to do what he needed to. "M-maka..." he gritted his teeth as he spoke again. "I... I'm sorry... I'm so, so sorry... this is my fault... all of it..." He held back a pained cry in his throat before he could go on again. "I... never meant... any of this... to happen... all... my fault..."

Slowly, deliberately, he put a shaking hand up against his chest, then slipped his hand between the spaces in his fleshless ribs.

"But... gonna... fix this, Maka... I... I promise..." At last, he could feel the odd sensation of his fingers against the Skull heart, somehow hot and cold to the touch at the same time. Then, he closed his hand around one side of it, gripping it tightly, then beginning to pull. "Maka, baby girl..." he grunted as his hand drew further out of his chest, causing tension to build between the part of the heart still clinging to its space in his chest, and the part being pulled in his hand. "I... just need you... t-to know that I... I..." The pain peaked as the Skull Heart was stretched to its limit, half in and half out of his chest.

Sensing a disturbance, perhaps, Double turned her monstrous head from her battle for the slightest of moment, and each of her eyes widened.

"Child! nO!"

"I love you, Maka."

There was the sound of raw power being torn in two, and then... nothing but white.