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DISCLAIMER: I do not own Soul Eater, nor do I own my hero academia, both are respective properties of studio bones and their authors.

Also, just a heads up, this story is a crossover of my hero academia and the MANGA version of Soul Eater, not the anime. Why am I using the manga version? Well not only is it considered the true canon of the series, but it's simply far superior to the anime series considering the original storyline route it went in the second half of it's run.

Plus, the manga did deliver a far more satisfying and overall, more grander ending than the anime which sadly got such a terrible conclusion.

Otherwise, I hope you enjoy my first story and can satisfy both MHA fans and especially Soul Eater fans as I plan to put effort to satisfying those fandoms.

If you do enjoy my story and want to see it continue, please give this fic plenty of reviews, favorites, and follows; As well as recommend this story to others who are fans of either series'.

And with that let's get the show rolling with the first chapter of Soulbound heroes.

Chapter One: Three Displaced Souls

This blackened space was what many would consider to be a primordial embodiment of nothingness. A lifeless realm where the only thing that can be ever seen or barely counted as existing in this nonexistent realm, was the black blood that filled its infinite emptiness.

It was a fitting realm to exist within the god of madness, kishin Asura. Any poor, unfortunate Soul that would end up trapped within would no doubt be driven to insanity-by the sheer terror of being stuck within such suffocating and endless isolation.

But where one should only see more of this desolate void, lied a single figure in the distance. Floating within the blackened space was a young, tall statured yet thin boy with short pink hair that possessed several long, large clumps, bangs straight-cut and ended above his eyebrows but didn't stay very uniform. Along with notably two long pieces of his pink hair extended from his bangs and hung low over his dark lavender eyes. He wore a long, smooth, purely black robe that fit like a second skin; with thick folds of fabric covering a pair of black slipper-like shoes on his feet.

For anyone else, this would be a living hell, but for crona gorgon, this was a well-deserved punishment to suffer through. As he continued in numb despair ponder his fate within the endless sea of black blood.

'Fear, madness, darkness...my soul has been eaten by this darkness, by the Soul Eater himself.' Crona gloomily recollected. Taking the time to think deeply on what led him here after absorbing the kishin. Only to end up getting assimilated by the demon god not long after. 'I did try to escape its jaws...but it was futile.'

It was in hindsight quite foolish to believe he could ever handle the kishin's power. He never could handle anything in his life. It the source of his madness. The origin of his constant, gnawing fear and anxiety. The inability to handle anything. Or more like he couldn't handle the rather bleak idea that his life had no meaning whatsoever other than to suffer.

'That's why I tried to make this fear my own. Although I never thought I'd be able to overcome it.' Crona continued reflecting on all his monstrous actions because of this single fear.

'Betraying my friends, killing my mother, robbing so many people of all they had and sinking to be the worst from what I was before,' Crona listed off each sinful deed, each one worse than the last. 'I did it all to prove that my existence wasn't worthless.'

'But it was just an excuse, it was all meaningless in the end.' Crona accepted in despaired finality, knowing there was no possible way to defend himself.

"It really...has no meaning, at all." Crona despondently accepted, as hopelessness practically consumed him its dark, cruel veil.

'How many times...just how many times am I repeating this?' The demon swordsman questioned the cycle of his pathetic behavior. 'Forever it would seem...I'll never be free of this darkness...not that there's anything beyond it.' There was nothing else to believe in other than to suffer here within the void for the rest of his life. 'Yet I continue to cling on, yearning for something.'

'All the souls the kishin has swallowed have lost their form and lie mixed together...yet despite that, I still retain my body.' Crona mused why he retained his individuality, among the countless Souls assimilated by the kishin.

'Lady medusa is dead, I should be dead be too...so why not end it all? There's nothing keeping me here anymore.' He already severed all the bonds he had. There was nobody left that could give him any reason to continue existing in this world.

'I could simply throw this body away and tell my worthless self that it's finished. But to be honest I don't feel like doing that at all.' admitted, his emotions may seek his demise, but something feel inside him was withholding him from doing so. 'There's still something I'm trying to cling to that's preventing me from ending my life.'

A realization soon struck crona like lighting, clearing out the fog in his mind and finally discovering the source of his prolonged existence. And the truth made him immediately ashamed.

'It's a laughable thing...this persistence...' He grimaced, frigid waves of self-loathing filled up in his heart until it was all but drowning in its cold embrace.

This tenacity was all too familiar to the swordsman, he'd constantly seen it before. A hard bulge of disgust swam up his throat, completely repulsed to know he shared something with her.

'I guess I really am just like my mother.' Crona shamefully admitted with a bitter smile etched on his pale lips.

'Even I'm drawn in... it's a fearsome obsession.' In hindsight it was so obvious to him, how did he not realize this before? How could anything else fuel this insatiable persistence he inherited than from that one person...

"I miss you...maka." Crona wistfully murmured, small tears dripping down from his saddened eyes.

Maka albarn, his first friend, was the source for his will to keep on living and not lose his sense of self.

Even after the numerous atrocities he had committed and weighed heavily on his conscious, he still held onto this one pure desire. It was the single action crona wished to undo with all his ability, and that was when he severed his ties to Maka.

With medusa's magic responsible for altering his memories being slowly undone when he viciously killed her; he finally began remembering all the happy experiences he had with maka before leaving shibusen. Times of happiness, like when he’d played basketball with Maka and her friends, or the night he went with her to death the kid's party.

He truly wished he could relive all these beautiful memories with her over and over again. It was the only thing he sought more than anything; to be able to see that caring face one last time.

And as he raised his head up, he saw something he thought would never see again. An image that shocked him to his very core, yet underlined by a subtle sensation of elation.

Just a short distance away from him was a petite, flat chested teenage girl around his age, with light taupe hair kept in pigtails and she had green, emerald eyes. She wore a white blouse with a yellow Sweater, red vest with a green striped tie, a red plaid skirt and black boots with white buckles.

Beside the girl was a teenage boy of a similar age to her and crona. He had spiky albino white hair, droopy red eyes, and a set of pointy, shark-like teeth. The boy wore an orange T-shirt with light brown pants, a white belt that matched his black and white shoes.

To crona the very sight of the pair who seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost gave him a heart attack. For these two teens before him were none other than maka albarn and soul evans.

'I-It can't be...' Crona thought in stupefied shock, completely unable to process what his eyes were supposedly perceiving.

There was no way this could be happening.

It was impossible, how on earth could he be seeing these two here?

"Crona..." Maka happily spoke up, with a bright smile.

"Maka?" Crona numbly murmured back, still unsure if what he saw was real or just a hallucination created by his broken mind.

Yes, it had to be a mirage in his head. There's no way he'd be given this kind of miracle right now; it was just impossible to believe.

"Looks like I'm really done for this time...I've started seeing hallucinations of maka." Crona said to himself with a bitter smile, surprised by how far his mind was willing to play such cruel tricks on him.

But immediately the "hallucination" pulled out a unique book, from somewhere and raised it over crona's head. With Her eyes closed and that same bright smile, did what was probably the softest maka chop known to man, and lightly bonked the top of his head.

"Crona..." The sword meister blinked in shock, so...so this actually wasn't a mirage. This really was maka albarn.

Somehow...somehow his wish had been granted.

The pinkette was still frozen in disbelief. The sword meister still struggling to fully believe this was happening, and keeping his disbelieving expression, raised his hands and began inspecting Maka’s face to be sure this was no mirage.

"Are you real?" Crona questioned as remnants of his tears stained his eyes, his voice still unsure if he truly was seeing his best friend before him.

An awkward silence briefly filled the already noiseless black space, with the ash blonde and albino staring at the robed teen in disbelief by what they just heard come out of the swordsman's mouth.

"Of course, I am!" Maka reaffirmed, dumbfounded that crona would say such a thing.

"If you are the real maka, your obsession must be incredible as well." Crona softly proclaimed, yet the scythe meister was only further confused.

"Obsession?" Maka's brow furrowed, wondering why on earth crona thought she did all this out of obsession.

"Isn't it so? You came all the way here to see someone like me. I've also embarrassed myself by waiting for you to come. It's a miserable obsession."

"Isn't that just believing?" Maka in bewilderment answered back.

"Believing?" Crona repeated with brow furrowed into an unsure expression, as he looked quite confused by what she meant by that word.

"You and I understood each other before! That doesn't mean it won't happen again!" Maka elaborated with a bright smile, hoping to help him better understand the feeling of belief they both shared in each other.

Maka carefully took in the pink haired boy’s hands and held them close to her own. Crona's cheeks quickly heated up as he felt the soothing warmth of her hands grasping with his.

"So, you believed in me too! Almost like a stalker." Maka mocked her pink haired friend's ridiculous beliefs in a lighthearted manner, while not sounding legitimately mean in any manner.

"Tha…that's." Crona stammered, unable to wrap his head around what they were trying to tell him.

"We believed too, you know." Soul spoke up as he decided to add his input in this conversation, yet the pink haired boy still seemed quite bemused.

"Well... It’s more like we want to believe in the fact maka believed in you." Soul corrected himself, before deciding to add his own two cents on the matter.

"It’s sort of like how kid believed in the witches. Though we may not be able to fully understand them, we can learn to like them through someone special to both sides. Wouldn't you say there were less things that made you scared if you had maka?" Soul explained.

Crona however was still far too shocked to move his jaw to properly respond, although managed to at least shakily nod back.

Soul still had more to say though as he grew a shark’s grin. "Believing in others is something the kishin will never be able to understand. He's full of suspicions and paranoid doubts. And the belief humans have for one another is what makes us all so strong."

"That's right." Maka cheerfully agreed with her weapon’s speech, and to her joy began seeing their words started to have an effect on the pink haired teen.

Crona remained frozen in a stunned daze as he kept trying to comprehend everything maka and soul said. Yet the more he thought about it, the more certain things they spoke about made sense. Their words enveloped his heart in a strong yet warm embrace that alleviated his very own soul with this new sensation.

Perhaps he hadn't severed all his ties as he’d thought. Maybe he could still get back the bonds he threw away and rebuild the bridges he burned down long ago. Even with his doubts, the prospect of finally rejoining Maka and her friends was extremely enticing.

"Come on, let's get out of here, everyone’s waiting." Maka grasped one of crona's hands and gently urged him to follow her.

"Outside..." He paused, her words snapped him back to reality, as he started to realize what coming back would entail.

If he did follow maka, he'd return to a world where he brought so much pain and destruction. He’s killed thousands at this point and tried to destroy the world. His crimes were unforgivable and knew there was little to no chance anyone would ever forgive him.

As much as he wanted more than anything to be with maka, he understood that it wasn’t that easy. The sheer amount of blood on his hands made it unacceptable to simply forget about what happened before and accept this chance so easily. He needed to take responsibility for his crimes. Crona's chest, once filled with overflowing excitement, deformed into grim sorrow. His eyes became downcast but accepted what needed to be done.

"No." With a heavy heart, he pulled his arm out of maka's grip. "I'm sorry...but I can't go with you." Crona proclaimed firmly, maka and soul turned to face Crona in stunned confusion by his baffling choice.

"What? Come on! We came all the way down here for you." Maka said with a forced smile, her brows slightly knitted together in apprehension.

"All the more reason for why I can't leave." Crona reaffirmed with a crestfallen expression.

"What are talking about?" Maka asked with an uneasy edge in her voice, not liking where this was going at all.

Why was crona doing this? Why didn't he want to come with them after she fought so hard to enter this terrible realm and rescue him?

A sharp, cold spear of anxious fear struck into her chest almost as agonizing as when asura had recently stabbed her in the stomach with his arm. The frigid anxiety drilled deeper into her chest and enveloped her grigori soul resting there. Its once hopeful wavelength was being slowly extinguished by her grave worry, but it still retained a spark of hope for getting him out of here.

"I've committed what the world would consider to be unforgivable sins. To return so easily like this isn't right, I need to place proper burdens on my heart first before I could even consider leaving." The pink haired swordsman sighed with a heavy heart.

"Crona…" Maka muttered in surprise.

"I was so happy...that you went this far for me." Crona muttered, his voice wobbling slightly, but refused to shake his resolve. "And I think there's something only I'm capable of doing with this courage you've given me."

"Something only you’re capable of?" Maka reiterated, still unable make sense of what Crona was telling her, but still couldn't stop the gnawing worry festering in her gut. A small, bead of sweat ran down the side of her face as the once hopeful and warm atmosphere turned heavy and tense.

Soul also felt a similar feeling of dread that maka did, to a more contained extent. The death scythe getting a bad feeling in his gut for whatever the heck the pink haired boy was planning.

"After I got trapped inside the kishin, I've learnt that killing him is impossible." Crona informed the pair in an almost sagely manner. "Asura is the incarnation of fear itself. As long as life continues to exist in the world, so will the fear that is born from it. But leaving him to run wild and do as he pleases can't be allowed to happen. if he isn't stopped the world will fall into ruin."

Maka's face twisted with desperation. "Then we'll work together to-"

"Hey maka, where's that book? The one you maka chopped me with? Can you lend it to me?" Crona casually asked his friend, cutting her off from what she was trying to say.

The ash blonde was hesitant to listen, given crona's perplexing behavior, but ultimately decided to go along with it for now.

"I picked it up on the way here." Maka said as she handed crona a thick book with a large "S" in the middle of its brown leather cover. Now wondering why, it was suddenly so important to Crona.

Crona slowly opened the ancient looking book in the middle part of its spine, unveiling a glow of yellow light. As it died down, a hand-sized cube with various markings and sigils on all four sides revealed itself to maka and soul who both gaped in shock.

"Wait is that-" Soul went wide eyed.

"The book of Eibon? The demon tool BREW!?" Maka exclaimed, stunned to have unknowingly held two of the most powerful objects in the world all this time.

But now more than ever, she and Soul wanted to know just what exactly crona was planning to do with so much power in his hands.

Crona gently took BREW from the book of Eibon, watching with a calm expression as the cube hovered gently above the palm of his left hand.

"This object is the pinnacle of Eibon's wisdom, the creator of the demon tools and the ancient god of knowledge." Crona explained to maka and soul, both of whom simply continued to look at the relic in awe.

"I saw its power firsthand, when Noah used it to fuse himself with all his ants and nearly matched kishin asura in raw strength." Crona told the scythe duo, recalling what he witnessed before he absorbed asura and jumpstarted this mess.

But with this ancient relic in his hand, it held the key needed to help him stop Asura, for that crona was certain. He already had the perfect medium, and combined with BREW, could prove the perfect catalyst for the kishin's downfall. And more importantly, the start of his path to atonement for every atrocity he had ever committed.

"So, I will use BREW to empower my mad blood and seal myself with the kishin." Crona proclaimed, his face consumed with great will of determination to see this grave task accomplished.

At that moment the already tense atmosphere had swiftly turned heavy, to the point one could almost feel its weight. As crona expected, Soul and Maka looked at their friend with faces shifted in stunned horror by the immense sacrifice he was preparing to make.

Maka's breath hitched and slightly recoiled in silent horror. She couldn't believe what she was hearing...crona actually preparing to seal himself away with asura on the moon. This wasn't supposed to happen...this was meant to be a rescue mission to save her friend. D-Doesn't he know what that'll mean? He'd be trapping himself with the kishin for who knows long? Months, years, decades?!

"What!? But what about you crona!?" Maka hastily grabbed his shoulders. "You'll be trapping yourself here as well! Just what the hell are you thinking!?" Maka exclaimed, a cold sweat running down her brow as she desperately tried to make her friend see reason.

Crona's expression merely softened and kindly smiled. "I just want to repay you maka, you gave me this courage after all."

"Soul, you understand too, right?" Crona asked the teenage death scythe.

Soul gave no response, instead the death scythe shockingly blushed and turned his gaze away from crona. Dammit, what the hell was wrong with him? It wasn't cool at all to blush like some schoolgirl in front of everyone, especially with maka here at a time like this no less.

But yes, soul knew exactly what crona was talking about. He was also someone who had the most experience with his meister's miracle work. After all, she had helped him set on the path to courage and overcome his insecurities and weaknesses. And it looked like maka had done the same with crona. Granting the sword meister that same powerful courage to commit to such a noble sacrifice like this.

Before anyone could even blink, in a split second Crona leapt onto maka and caught her in a warm yet tight embrace. Maka gasped at the sudden display of affection, but slowly yet surely returned the hug; wrapping her arms around his back in equal tightness, trying to let this moment last as long as possible.

"To be honest the world doesn't really matter to me." Crona candidly confessed. "You were the first person who ever reached out and accepted me. In fact, I don't even understand what it means to atone for these 'sins'."

"So, I only want to fight for you, Maka. With the courage you've given me, I know I can suppress both this fear...this madness all for your sake, I will put a stop to the kishin." Crona firmly declared, his face hardened with a fiery sense of determination. Complete content with his fate so long as maka would be given a long, happy life.

But right now maka was far from happy, as for a brief moment her features while stunned also held deep sadness for her friend. She never imagined coming here it would turn out this way. What was supposed to be her mission to rescue crona was now turning into a tragic goodbye. Maka could never imagine in a million years there'd ever be someone so loyal to her, so willing sacrifice so much, just for the sake of her happiness.

But she never wanted it to lead such an important person in her life to sacrifice themselves like this.

It wasn't fair...

Why? Why did someone so kind and caring like crona always had to endure so much pain? Why couldn't he be allowed to be happy for once like he was in death city?

She would have given so much, just to have kept things the way they were before medusa came and took Crona back under her influence. She wanted nothing more than to have him continue living a peaceful, enjoyable life with herself and her other friends...so maybe then it wouldn't have led to all this.

But if what Crona said about the kishin was true, then she really couldn't figure out any other way to truly stop Asura.

So, if he truly thought this needed to be done...then so be it. Even if it left her utterly crushed to leave her friend behind. The very thought of losing him was a heartbreaking tragedy, but one that she would never let Crona be forced to endure forever.

'I don't care how long it takes Crona, I will come back for you. I'll find a way to free you from this burden, I swear it!' Maka internally asserted with all the fire in her heart and Soul. Vowing to find a way to free her friend from this sadistic fate no matter what it took. But for now maka would simply continue to hug crona for what could very well be their last time.

After cherishing every last second of their heartwarming embrace, crona finally let go of his dear friend and gently held onto maka's shoulders. More than ready to tell her what she and Soul needed to do to help him end this nightmare.

"To do this, I need you to-"

But before crona could finish what he was about to say, the book of Eibon suddenly ripped itself from his hands. The book shot up into the air until it floated above their heads with an ominous aura.

"What the-crona what's going on? is this a part of your plan?" Maka asked as she warily looked up at the floating book above them; but judging by crona's very befuddled expression, it wasn't very likely.

"What? No, this...this isn't what I-I planned at all." Crona shook his head, staring up at the book with widened, confused cerulean eyes.

"Then what's the deal wi-"

Soul couldn't finish his sentence, as the book suddenly flipped itself open and out came a golden light burst through its pages, lighting up the black blood sea within asura. The teens were quickly blinded by its intense light, trying to protect their eyes from its gaze.

But as crona tried looking at this unknown light, he felt something fly past him. Slowly the pink haired warrior looked down and gasped to see BREW had seemingly jumped from his hand, right towards the book. Setting itself between the middle pages of the book, BREW began to rapidly spin until its form became a barely visible blur.

"What the hell is going on!?" Soul shouted, raising his left arm to shield his eyes from the bright light.

"I don't know! This wasn't supposed to happen!" Crona exclaimed, using his own body as a shield to protect maka should this phenomenon prove deadly.

Maka meanwhile was scrambling to figure out what was happening. At first, she thought they were being sent inside the book, just like when she and the rest of SPARTOI did when they had to rescue kid from noah (Greed). But that theory immediately went out the window, as this was not even close to how they were transported inside the book before. Especially since they didn't need BREW for it, so this was something else entirely.

For half a minute the blinding burst of light continued to shine, dying down as BREW stopped spinning. Glowing like a bright nightlight, the legendary demon tool froze its position for one moment until it shot downwards like a shooting star. And if it dove into a pool of water, the cube disappeared inside its pages.

In seconds a gold liquid mass engraved with mysterious purple-glowing glyphs on its surface rapidly covered the book. The gold liquid traveled all over the book until its entirety was encased in a golden smooth shell, covering every inch of the book.

Then as if this wasn't bizarre enough, the whole book started to stretch as if it were rubber. The book of Eibon expanded until it grew to the size of a wide door, four times the size of an average door.

The trio floating within the abyss of black blood that was illuminated by the anomaly, now stood before the wide, door-like book. Each of them was completely shocked while trying to understand what the hell was happening.

But before they knew it, a deep voice rumbled from the enlarged book of Eibon.

"Forgive me, but this must be done...When the time is right everything will be explained...But for now your journey here ends and must begin again in new distant lands." An ancient voice eerily spoke to the teens, yet it's tone almost made it sound like it was in regret.

'W-What's that supposed to mean?' Maka anxiously thought over what she and her two closest friends had just heard.

The ash blonde glanced at soul and crona, the latter’s wide crystal blue eyes were briefly filled with shock and fear.

Soul was in a similar state as crona, he unlike the robed boy, however, immediately steeled himself. The teenage weapon feeling he needed to use the soul note he made from the worlds souls to get the hell out of here before something happened.

The pitch-black middle of the doorway shifted into dark violet, as maka felt her instincts screaming to get away from the gate like entrance. The scythe meister having an intense feeling that something was coming, and whatever it was, it was coming for them at any moment.

"Look out!" Maka cried out, but before they could register her warning, three massive paper-thin tendrils, composed of the same mysterious glyphs on the book, shot out like lightning from the doorway and caught all three of them in their grips.

Maka furiously thrashed around the hands grasp with all her strength, but it only caused its grip to tighten even further. She turned her head around to see soul fighting with the second tendril and retracted his scythe blades like a porcupine. But even if soul had managed to carve away any chunk of the tendril, it regrew back in seconds. And soul was already too far from her to transform into his weapon form for her to wield, so that left their chances of escape even lower than before.

Crona was seen trying to desperately free his left hand and summon ragnarök. But the tendril's hand just clenched even harder on his thin body. The swordsman cried out in agony shortly after the strength of its death grip increased on his thin body.

"CRONA!" Maka cried out in horror of crona's pain, but quickly flashed into boiling rage and she began to thrash even harder against the hand that held her. But in the end, maka's fiery resistance didn't seem to do much-as the tendrils had now reached mere foot away before the giant book’s glowing entrance.

'Why...why couldn't I have been able to do something right for once in my worthless life? All I wanted was to make you happy maka, but now look what I've done.' Crona thought in despair, while the tears he’d held in before finally leaked out of his eyes.

"Maka...l-I'm so sorry for this! If it wasn't for me, you and Soul wouldn't be in this mess, p-please, please forgive me!" Crona cried, his voice wobbly and full of sadness, as rivers of tears slid down his face. Now he began to lightly sob in sorrow for what he’d brought upon her.

"Don't say that! None of This is your fault crona!" Maka said matter-of-factly.

"Maka's right, stop playing the blame game on yourself man it ain't right." Soul sternly stated to a remorseful crona.

"B-But I-"

"But nothing! I couldn't care less if this did or didn't happen, If I had come here to save you here a million times over and over I would do it instantly! So stop blaming yourself or I promise to chop you till you listen to me" Maka scolded the tearful swordsman as they were dragged further by the tendrils.

"M-Maka..." Crona muttered, with thin tears still running down his face.

"Guys, look..." Soul trailed off as he nudged his head towards the glowing entrance that was now mere seconds away from crossing the point of no return.

There was nothing else they could do now to stop this, except for bracing for whatever fate awaits them beyond this gate-like entrance, as they began to be pulled into its light.

Maka shut her eyes tightly as she, crona, and soul were finally sucked into the book’s glowing entrance; but just as they were being submerged into the bright substance, Maka heard ever so faintly the same voice from a minute ago.

"Until we meet again children..." The mysterious voice said in mysterious finality.

With a quick flash, everything went dark for the trio as they were all taken inside the book’s portal. With its goal accomplished, the book's middle stopped its illumination of the dark void within Asura.

Suddenly the book began to crumbled away into nothing but golden dust. Leaving the endless sea of black blood as empty as it was before. However, if someone looked closer, they could see what appeared to be a tiny sphere of light floating where the book of Eibon was before.

The orb hovered ever still in the black void until a massive pillar of energy erupted from the sphere. Until the sphere exploded like a sun having undergone supernova, as the void was engulfed in blinding white light.

UNKNOWN LOCATION

Darkness, Coldness, And empty Silence...

That was all crona could sense and feel at the moment, he thought he'd be writhing in unimaginable agony from entering the book’s gate, instead he just felt so numb and tired.

He attempted to move around or at least pry his eyes open, but he couldn't muster the strength to even do that. It was like a weight was put on his body and his mind. So crona just kept laying on the ground in blind darkness, blocking out everything around him in this deep sleep.

'Maka, Soul... Just please be okay.' Crona fretted for his dear friends until he felt his body being shook, with the muffled sound of a voice calling out to him.

"C na" Crona faintly heard a familiar voice speak, yet he couldn't figure out just who it was or what it said.

"What?" Crona muttered groggily, whatever was shaking him increased its speed. Slowly the numbness began to fade more as his senses started functioning properly once more.

"Crona!" He heard the voice call out his name again, sounding more clearer and at the same time so familiar...

'Wait...that sounds like...' Crona trailed off, beginning to realize who the voice was.

Not wanting to waste any more time, he shook off the waves of drowsy numbness and pushed himself up. He slowly opens his heavy eyelids, only to instantly shoot them wide open as he heard the familiar voice shout his name again.

"CRONA!" Maka shouted while shaking crona by his shoulders.

She soon stopped once she finally was able to wake up the sword meister. Though she could tell crona looked a little dazed, he was fine and awake, nonetheless.

The swordsman took in his surroundings, seeing numerous green trees covered the cloudy night sky with their size before he turned towards her direction. Light gasps escaped his mouth at the sight of the very two people whom he thought he'd doomed.

Calmly leaning against a nearby tree was soul with his arms crossed. But now he was wearing a leather jacket underneath his shirt, and a black hairband with a soul symbol logo on it. The scythe seemingly been there waiting for him to wake up.

He turned his eyes to see maka, who knelt right next to him on the grassy ground with a relived expression. Her attire also seemed to have changed, her clothes mostly the same, only now wore her classic buttoned trench coat and white gloves on both hands. Yet noticed how maka had a black headband like soul's own, strapped to her left bicep.

Crona looked surprised to see the scythe duo back to their old outfits, but before he could even blink, she quickly tackled him into a bone-crushing hug.

"Thank goodness! Do you have any idea how scared you made me!?" Maka scolded crona, but given how her voice was filled with immense relief, she sounded sound far less angry than she made it out to be.

"Ma-Maka? Are you okay?" Crona stammered quietly. He tried to speak louder but his voice was constricted by the feeling of maka’s tight embrace squeezing his lungs together. On top of that he could feel her face was digging into his shoulder, causing a heated blush to form on his cheeks from the pleasantly warm sensation.

"Well look who's finally up and about. And here I’d thought you bit the dust for a minute there. But lucky for you, we got princess charming here to snap you out of it." Soul said gave the tall boy a coy grin.

Crona's blush deepened into cherry red at the teasing statement and hid his face behind his pink bangs. Maka easily heard her weapon speak up, ceased hugging crona and turned to glare at Soul.

"Well at least I didn't make him soaking wet like a certain idiot here." Maka huffed, her face curled up into an annoyed scowl.

Soul exasperatedly sighed and scratched the back of his head. "C’mon maka, I thought you died or something, could you give a guy a break?" Soul complained, but Maka rolled her eyes at the death scythes excuses.

Crona blinked, watching with the scythe duos argument with a bemused expression. The swordsman wondering just what had happened between them while he was asleep.

But as his vision finally cleared up from his sleep, he noticed that Maka looked kind of wet and Soul was sporting a throbbing, red bump on the top of his head.

Oh...so that's what happened.

Soul must have seen maka lying unconscious; and in worry decided to splash her with water from a nearby pond to wake her up. Only to end up receiving a swift maka chop from his ticked off meister as a result. The girl clearly not enjoying being soaked by her weapon. even if it was for the best intentions after what recently transpired.

'Wait a minute...' Crona quickly sat up, as a rush of recent memories began pouring back to the swordsman.

"Maka...what happened? W-where are we?" Crona asked in worry, his dark puppy eyes pleading for some much needed answers.

Maka's relieved expression dampened, her brow scrunched with unsureness on how to answer his questions.

"To be honest, I'm not sure exactly where this is. We all pretty much woke up in the same spot here." The pig tailed blonde clarified as she turned her head to face her weapon. "Soul looked around while I was trying to wake you up, and when he came back said he found a couple of benches and a children's playground; so, I guess we're in a park. One inside a city too from all the car noises we've been hearing, so thankfully we weren't sent inside the realms within the book of Eibon."

"But as for what happened back in asura's soul, with the book of Eibon and BREW...your guess is as good as mine." Maka shrugged with tinges of frustrated disappointment swirling in her eyes.

Crona immediately noticed her frustration and somberly averted the ash blonde's gaze. "I-I’m sorry...I-I didn't mean for this to happen. If only I did something instead of being so useless." He said somberly as his face scrunched with great guilt, still he felt responsible for all of this.

But maka wasn't having any of it and held onto his shoulders and looked at the sword meister with a lightly scolding expression.

"Crona please, I've told you before and I'm telling you again now, this isn't your fault. If anyone is responsible for this, it's whatever took us here to begin with." Maka assured crona.

"Unfortunately, we still got no idea who the hell is responsible for kidnapping us in the first place." Soul added his input into this conversation and walked next to his meister and crona.

"I'm pretty sure the answer is obvious soul. It must have been that voice that spoke to us before taking us here," Maka answered the albino death scythe, but still answered very little.

"But who's voice was that exactly? Cause that didn't sound like anyone I ever heard." Soul frowned.

"That’s what I'm still trying to figure out, the only one who could possibly have such knowledge of using them, would be the table of contents. But that voice didn't remotely sound like him at all, so he's out." Maka crossed her arms, rubbing her chin as she tried to think.

"Do...do you think it could be eibon?" Crona suggested, both shibusen students turned to face the swordsman with surprised expressions.

"Wait a second, eibon? Why the hell do you think he'd be responsible for this?" Soul asked incredulously, not expecting that a god that nobody has seen for centuries would suddenly intervene during the battle to save the world.

"It makes sense. Eibon is the creator of both BREW and the book named after himself. They are the sum of Eibon’s wisdom and power, so it can't be far off that he'd have some control over them." Crona intelligently reasoned with a thoughtful expression.

Soul and maka mulled over crona's proposed theory, the shibusen students working the gears of their brains; and began to see how everything the swordsman said adds up to a certain degree.

"When you put it like that, it does actually add up." Maka rubbed her chin, adopting a thoughtful expression. "BREW is deeply connected to its creator, to the point of some would even call it eibon himself. so I'd say it's far from implausible."

"But if eibon really is behind this, why would he take us away in the middle of the battle against the kishin?" Soul asked the swordsman, but all he could do was weakly shrug and sullenly stare down at his lap.

"I don't know...I-lf he is responsible, his intentions are a complete mystery to me. I-I'm sorry for not being more helpful." Crona's puppy eyes looked down, a side frown forming on his pale lips at his uselessness.

Maka's kept her gentle expression and gently rubbed crona's back. "It's okay crona, there's no need to apologize."

Soul however couldn't help but grinding teeth in building anger, shuffling his hands into his pockets as he kept his composure stable and pushed back the flame growing inside him.

"Damn it all, why did this have to happen now of all times?" Soul hissed quietly, glaring at the grass in perplexed frustration.

Maka's features shifted with somber understanding, she herself wanted to know the same thing. But like Crona she couldn't make sense of why the heck would Eibon take them out of the fight to save the world.

Judging from how it was still nighttime, not much time has passed since they got taken. But they were still millions of miles away from the moon and it could take time to fly back there. And maka highly doubted kid and Blackstar could last so long against the kishin. They were probably still stalling to buy enough time to pull off a last-minute miracle to defeat asura. Unfortunately, that wasn't coming to them any time soon.

Worse yet, Blackstar was fighting handicapped no less. The ninja had suffered a terrible blow to his arm by the kishin; forcing the star clan descendant to wield tsubaki with only one good arm. And kid may be a true shinigami like his father now. But his newly awakened power still didn't compare to his fallen older brother.

An icy spike of dread grew within the ash blonde's stomach, threatening to spread this cold dread to the rest of her mind and threaten to manifest itself. But immediately maka shattered apart these solicitudes before they could try getting to her and focused on the present.

Panicking wasn't going to do them any good right now, especially while they still have no idea where they were even taken to. So the best course of action now would be to find out where it was exactly the book of eibon had whisked them away to. With her mind balanced to a calmer state of mind, Maka stood up from where she sat and looked at boys with a resolved expression.

"Guys listen, I know it's vexing to be so clueless about how we ended up here or who's responsible; but we can't waste our time figuring out questions we don't have answers to yet. We need to know where the book of eibon took us and fly back to the moon as soon as possible." Maka calmly planned out, giving the boys a reassuring expression to ease her friends worries and regain stability over the situation.

The scythe's contained building frustration began to ebb away into evaporated form and swiftly released through a long sigh. "Yeah...yeah that sounds like a pretty solid plan. Least it's better than standing around here and burning our brains out."

"C’mon crona, we should start heading out of here and see where we ended up." Maka kindly outstretched her hand to the sitting swordsman, turning her lips upwards into a bright smile.

The pink haired boy hesitated for a moment, lingering feelings of fearful uncertainty still clung to the back of his mind. But seeing that wonderful smile made him push back these frightened emotions and revitalize his courageous loyalty for the angelic girl standing over him.

Crona slowly took her hand as she pulled him back on his feet and began their trek to out of this parks forest clearing and to civilization.

But as they started walked Crona paused, as bubbling feeling started to manifest into his upper back.

THUMP!

Suddenly the sword meister lurched back as the hot pain stabbed even further into his spine. Crona dropped to his knees and started screaming in pain, desperately clutching his back as he felt something moving inside him.

Maka and soul were quick to hear Crona’s screaming and turned around to see Crona writhing on the ground in agony. Not wasting a second, they immediately sprinted towards their pained friend as his screaming seemingly got worse.

"Crona what's wrong!?" Maka exclaimed with a panicked tone, kneeling down next to him as her widened eyes frantically tried finding the cause of Crona's distress, but to no avail.

Crona weakly turned his head to look up at Maka, his ears barley managing to catch her voice. All his mind could bother focusing on, was trying to deal with the excruciating agony being rammed into his back and upper torso.

"I-argh! I-I don't know what's-something's-AAAHHH!" Crona could only let out more pained wails, as the agonizing sensation in his upper back only worsened.

"Crona!" Maka shouted in horror.

"Shit! Just hang on man!" Soul tried reassuring the screaming swordsman, scrambling with his meister to figure out what was wreaking such pain inside the sword meister.

The excruciating torment continued to ripple and boil across Crona's backside, the boy feeling like this hellish pain kept up for hours while in actuality was occurring in seconds. He didn't understand why this was happening to him, he couldn't handle feeling this pain! Could there be something inside of him? But what could possibly be the cause of this?

"UGGGGGGHHHHHH"

Crona's train of panicked thoughts immediately stopped in its tracks and his eyes shot wide open.'What was that noise?'Crona didn't know why, but it was almost like he knew that voice...

"...Oh daammmiiittt."

Even if it was just one single word Maka, Soul, and especially Crona began to immediately suspect what or who it was. 'W-wait I know that voice...could it really be him?'

Maka and Soul stopped their efforts to help their friend once that drawled out groan register into their ears.

"Maka did you hear that?" Soul asked in growing astonishment of that unmistakable voice.

"Yeah, I did, is that who I think it is?" Maka replied, beginning to quickly figure out just what or more specifically who this thing was.

The trio's suspicions were all proven correct, as a small burst of black blood spewed from Crona's upper back.

The black blood began to take shape and solidify, morphing into the form of a teddy bear-sized creature with a spherical body and mouthless head. Its face had a large x in the middle and large ping-pong ball-like eyes with smaller x's to act as pupils. It also had little spikes on each of its small shoulders, with its cartoony arms having gloved ball-shaped hands and chained braces.

The trio stared with surprised expressions as the demon sword let out a long yawn, and stretched his little arms from assumingly a long slumber.

"Goddamn! Felt like I've been in fuckin hibernation! I think I can go for a couple of souls about n-wait a minute..." Ragnarök cut himself off as he noticed everything looked bigger than he remembered.

He kept looking over his surroundings a few more times, before moving his eyes to inspecting his own body and gasped at what he saw. Yet his shock didn't last long as it soon warped into peeved rage.

"SON OF A BITCH! I'm back in this shitty, plushie body! What the hell?!" Ragnarök turned his angry sights towards his stunned meister. "You fucking dumbass! I take a nap one time, and like that, shit immediately hits the fan. Dammit all, just what the fuck did you do now!?" Ragnarök ranted, waving his little arms in fury before he began pounding his balled fists at meister's head.

But crona didn't even regard the punches thrown at him; his shock numbed his physical senses except his sight and continued to numbly stare at Ragnarök.

"R-Ragnarök... is that you?" Crona asked in a quiet, quivering whisper, wanting to be sure he wasn't suffering from a hallucination.

"No, I'm goddamn santa clause, here to give you presents for being a good pansy this year!" Ragnarök snorted with sarcasm dripping in his voice, rolling his ping pong eyes while doing so. All the while crona could do nothing but stare at his weapon in frozen astonishment.

After evolving the black blood further in ukraine and unlocking mad blood, his merged weapon had suddenly stopped speaking. He didn't even bully him anymore like he would a majority of the time. instead, just madly laugh or mindlessly followed orders. It was discomforting, but at the time when his madness consumed his mind, he wasn't very bothered by the loss of ragnarök.

It felt almost...relieving...so very relieving to know he wouldn't have to handle dealing with him anymore.

He had already destroyed that bond...why would another matter? After all he couldn't deal with anything else, so losing Ragnarök wasn't anything his warped mind saw as tragic.

But even when his mind was all but consumed with madness, Crona couldn't stop feeling a dull pang of sadness from existing inside him at the loss of his weapon’s mind. And now with most of his sanity returned this feeling only intensified. Ragnarök may have been a jerk, but he was the only other bond he had before meeting Maka.

And seeing ragnarök popping out of him with that same rude personality restored, the pink-haired teen couldn't stop tears spilling out of his ebony eyes.

"The fuck’s wrong with you? You look like someone pissed on your-"

"RAGNARÖK!" Crona cried out in tearful joy, grabbing his small weapon to the best of his ability and pulled the little imp into a hug.

"The hell?! Get off me you damn homo!" Ragnarök thrashed about as he cried out, trying to escape his meister's tearful embrace. But his little body wasn't strong enough to free himself from the crying meister’s tight embrace.

"I-I thought I'd never see y-you back to yourself again, I... I missed you so much." Crona choked out through the tears flowing out of his eyes.

Maka and Soul all the while, watched as the swordsman had his tearful reunion with his brazen weapon. Maka smiled seeing the tearfully happy expression Crona wore from his old weapon return. Even if said weapon was one of the biggest and loudest assholes she had ever met.

"The fuck are you talking about? I've been sleeping for a couple of hours at most!" Ragnarök yelled indignantly, yet Crona was too caught up in his crying from his weapons return to hear the demon weapon’s ranting.

"It really is you then, I have to say it's been a while since we last heard of you." Maka remarked with one of her hands placed on her hip.

Ragnarök heard the meister's familiar voice and swirled around to find the sight of Maka and Soul standing nearby. His 'face' immediately morphed to what they had to guess was a scowl. Hot anger fueled his strength, allowing him to finally rip himself away from Crona’s tender hug and accusingly pointed one of his balled hands at the two.

"Oh, fuck me, the cow’s back! Along with her sidekick, shark junior!" Ragnarök heatedly snarled, not at all pleased to see the two brats he figured were responsible for his shrunken state again.

"Good to see you too buddy." Soul felt his eyebrow twitch in annoyance, not having missed Ragnarök’s colorful comments one bit.

"Don't you buddy me, bastard! You and the cow are responsible for this, aren't you?! who else would it be but you two!"

"Ragnarök, stop it. They aren't responsible for anything bad, if anything I-it's the complete opposite, so don't start trouble now." Crona weakly reprimanded his weapon, while wiping away the last of his tears from his emotional outburst.

"Us, responsible? FOR WHAT!?" Ragnarök shrilled. "Because we ditched their prissy school and put that snake in the eye-patched chick a couple of weeks ago? Pffft, gimme a break." Ragnarök scoffed, but he got no response from his meister or the scythe duo.

A stunned, tense silence passed around the park forest, the rustling of leaves and occasional chirping from birds, being the only audible sounds heard. the three shocked children froze where they stood and kept staring at Ragnarök as if he grew ten heads.

"What?" Ragnarök asked in annoyed confusion, not understanding why the hell everyone was gaping at him like he was a glowing, golden turd.

"Ragnarök...what's the last thing you remember?" Maka asked very slowly, her wide, cautious eyes boring into the demon weapon.

Ragnarök looked like he was about to say something but stopped himself-his face "scrunched" with bewilderment while scratching the back of his head, appearing to be having difficulty answering Maka's question.

"Fuck...Um...I...Shit, I can't remember much actually. The last thing that comes to mind was when I and the wimp fought that dumbass ninja and his sexy-ass weapon partner...everything else is nothing but a damn blur." Ragnarök admitted, unsure of anything else after that.

"W-what?! you-you don't remember anything after that?!" Crona exclaimed in horrified shock. Painting the picture that his merged demon weapon was not able to remember anything from the past six months before now.

"Well, I still remember you being a little whiny pussy, so it's good to know that hasn't changed yet." Ragnarök replied sourly. Crona shakily moved to grip his skinny right bicep tightly. Darting his panicked eyes Maka and Soul, were unsure of what to say.

T-This didn't make any sense. How the heck did Ragnarök end up forgetting everything that occurred in the last six months? Was it because of the immense intoxication of madness? Crona didn't know for sure. But at the moment the swordsman put aside that particular question for a later date and focused on the more important matter at hand.

"Hey, are you gonna keep on sulking like an emo, or are any of you gonna tell me what the fuck is going on?" Ragnarök impatiently demanded with his arms crossed.

The sword's voice snapped Crona back to reality and turned his eyes up at his demon weapon with heavy hesitance before resigning to heed Ragnarök's question.

So without any further stalling, Crona told Ragnarök what had happened after they fought Black Star and Tsubaki.

For the next ten minutes, the teens walked through the thick forest clearing, as Crona explained to Ragnarök everything that occurred after the events his partner last remembered.

The swordsman was surprised by how the usually loudmouthed sword stayed quiet the whole time. Aside from a few colorful 'comments', he would throw now and again. Maka and Soul remained mostly quiet during the explanation. Only deciding to speak up when he needed help explaining certain things, he wasn't comfortable saying.

Eventually, they finally made it out of the serene maze of trees and were greeted by the vast night skies. Albeit with numerous clouds blocking out the bright moon in the sky, and the omnipresent reminder of what's currently at stake as Crona finished recounting his long tale.

"-and after that...we all just woke up in that forest, leading to where we are now." Crona nonchalantly shrugged, as if it was a completely average topic.

"Okay...okay, I think I need a minute...to just take this all in." Ragnarök said sounding like his brain was about to explode into pieces if anything else was told to him.

“T-Take your time.” Crona replied timidly.

"So... just to recap, we almost destroyed the world...WHAT THE FUCK!?" Ragnarök screeched violently, making Crona, as well as Maka and Soul, flinch at the blob’s high-pitched voice that almost sounded like he was doing scream resonance.

"R-Ragnarök I-"

"And what else happened…hmmm oh yeah, we killed a GODDAMN DEATH SCYTHE! Where the hell did you get the balls to do that!?" Ragnarök demandingly bellowed.

The two meisters and deadly weapon all simply sighed in combined exasperation, clearly seeing this was gonna take a while, and walked over to the nearest bench. Crona and Maka sitting next to each other while Soul leaned on a nearby lamppost, as Ragnarök continued his full-on freakout.

"And what the hell did merging with that clown have anything to do with us!? All I remember from doing that shit was that it gave you a goth fashion upgrade, and let you rent my arms! But because of that jester fucker...our black blood became stronger. To the point that you DESTROYED A GODDAMN CITY!? How the fuck does a creepy ass clown let us do all that crazy shit!?" Ragnarök shouted again as he frantically inspected his body to see any other changes that might have happened.

Crona couldn't help but look at his hands, realizing how he never took the time to consider how much the black clown changed his body.

He'd gained so much power from it but at what cost? Could he even be considered human anymore? Well, half-human technically-but it still raised so many doubts as to whether he was truly human or just some abomination appearing as one. But soon a warm hand gently placed itself on his back, ceasing the worried questioning of his humanity.

Crona turned his eyes left and saw Maka giving a gentle smile, her angelic presence and touch already began to do its work and soothed both his body and Soul. His lips slowly but surely curled upwards into a small smile of his own. Even if he did lose even more of his humanity, seeing Maka still give him that beautiful, accepting smile easily pushed those fears far away.

"But somehow learning you drowned an entire city in black blood isn't nearly as shocking as finding out you grew a pair and killed Medusa!" Ragnarök exclaimed in legitimate disbelief.

And at that same moment, Crona's smile shattered into pieces. His eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and felt his heart nearly freeze. The small spur of happiness that initially blossomed inside him quickly died- and in its place, tendrils of dread plunged into his terrified mind.

Maka's breath hitched, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. Why did that moron have to bring up something as sensitive as that? Her worried eyes darted to Crona next to her and felt her stomach drop as she saw the paleness in his already light-shaded skin. But was quick to find a nauseous green tint emerging on his cheeks.

“I...I..." Crona tried to speak but nothing could come out. Terror all but gripped his throat in a suffocating hold of horror as he was quickly reminded of that night.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm kind of glad that barefoot bitch is dead, but I'm still trying to comprehend the fact, that you were the one who offed her! I always thought you'd just continue being her obedient little lapdog for the rest of our lives, but low and behold, you've proven me wrong brat!" Ragnarök cackled boisterously to the point it sounded like he was gasping for air, uncaring for how Crona's breathing grew faster and faster.

“Stop it...just stop talking...” Crona whispered but was unheard by his merged weapon.

Ragnarök leaned down at his curled-up meister, and an eager toothy grin crept up on his blank face. "So how about you tell me how you killed the whore!"

Crona's body immediately turned rigid like stone and his heart began to race to the point it felt like his sternum would burst open.

Maka's furious eyes swerved to the insensitive gremlin attached to Crona that would've reduced him to ash if her looks could kill. "That's enough!"

Ragnarök turned his head to maka and rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Oh c’mon, I'm the one with amnesia here! So, I feel like I deserve to know this runt killed that snake hag." Ragnarök sighed longingly. "Damn I wish I could remember what happened, but now that I think about it, why did you even kill Medusa in the first-"

"SHUT UP!!!" Crona snapped, shooting his head up from his legs, his dark eyes wide with fury and sheer terror. Maka's hand shot back as she and the two demon weapons all flinched back from Crona's outburst.

A tense silence swept throughout the bench in waves. The flapping of frightened birds flying away and Crona's heavy breathing were the only sounds heard around the heavy atmosphere emanated around them.

"Crona..." Maka whispered in shock, not at all expecting her friend to have such an explosive outburst.

The same went for a surprised soul, who also couldn't believe Crona could snap like that either. But since that was being brought up, the albino scythe honestly couldn't see any other reaction from happening.

Maka carefully returned her hand to the young meister's back and rubbed gentle circles on his thin shoulder. "It's okay crona...everything's alright." Maka whispered kindly to the swordsman, spreading her calming wavelength to his distressed soul.

Crona's eyes widened and gave a sideways glance at Maka, the painful memories trickling up began to subside at a steady rate.

Crona's breathing began to steady down as maka comforted him, her whispers of reassurance guided him back to a more stable state of mind. Once he was calm enough, pink-haired teen hid his eyes behind his pink bangs. Heavy shame festered in his stomach from his unjust behavior.

"I…I-I'm sorry...I'm so sorry I yelled like that, it's just..." Crona let out a shaky sigh, his whole body squirming in a mixture of frigid fear and pouring guilt. "I r-really don't like t-talking about what happened that night...s-so can we please drop it?"

Ragnarök out of his astonishment, a pissed off glare twisting heavily on his "X" face. "Wha-who the fuck do you think you are to talk like that to me you-!!!"

However, the sword was unable to finish his angry rant as the thick and hard spine of a textbook was sent crashing into the imps round cranium.

"Just shut your foul mouth already. Crona's been through enough as it is, and the last thing he needs is you harassing him." Maka hissed at the wailing demon sword with an icy glare, her textbook still raised up and now covered in black blood.

"Ow! You stupid bitch! My head’s already messed up as it is, I don't need your temperamental ass fucking it up more!" Ragnarök whined with little tears leaking out of his eerie eyes as he rubbed his throbbing bruise.

Maka huffed and promptly ignored the obnoxious weapon's voice and instead turned her eyes back to Crona's ashamed form. Her face softened with sympathetic understanding, carefully deciding how to uplift her friend from his sorrow.

"Crona, I perfectly understand why you feel so uncomfortable, talking about...that moment in your life. so I promise none of us will push you to delve any further regarding it till you're ready to speak of it." Maka's gentle expression wrinkled with unease, but she tried her best to shove down her unnerved feelings over this disturbing matter and focus on comforting Crona.

"But maybe now that medusa's gone, this could be a chance for you to finally turn over a new leaf for good this time. I promise to be there for you along the way to help you. Remember you're not alone in this anymore." Maka softy assured crona with a bright smile, slowly taking his hands and gently held onto them.

The shame that had previously tightly gripped the swordsman’s features began to quickly loosen up; allowing sheepish joy to spread from maka's touch as the swordsman couldn't withhold his heated blushing.

"Ugh, At least I know you aren’t lying about medusa being dead if the cow knows about it." Ragnarök scoffed in disgust while rolling his eyes. Already sensing this disgustingly sweet friendship was already gonna start again between these two brats again.

Once crona's mind was clear of any somber emotions, maka released her hands from his, as crona moved his legs up to his chest and called out to the demon weapon. "Ragnarök, I-I'm sorry for snapping, but you have to understand a lot has happened so can you just e-ease up with the questions?"

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" Ragnarök screeched in frustration, much to the pain of maka, crona, and soul's ears. "How the hell can I 'ease up' when you still haven't talked about the biggest bombshell you've dropped here so far?! You know, when you casually told me, you ATE. A FUCKING. GOD!!!" He wildly waved his little arms around, his voice filled with astonishment and tinges of awe.

"Ummm...but-"

"But after having a crybaby session, you fucked up and ended up getting absorbed by the three-eyed fucker." Ragnarök summed up, with disappointment oozing out of his voice, as Crona's head went downwards and hugged his legs tighter.

Maka casted a heated glare at ragnarök and was about to say something, but a pleading sideways glance from crona kept her anger towards the demon weapon at bay.

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact we flew to the moon, the fucking moon! But I think it's best, not open that whole can of worms; I’ve got enough shit in my head to deal with as it is." Ragnarök said in exasperation from all the insanity he'd heard in the last ten minutes or so.

"Can of worms? What do worms have anything to do with the moon?" crona tilted his head, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

Ragnarök groaned in exasperation and ran his gloved hands down his face, while soul and maka sweatdropped at crona’s ignorance for such a common metaphor.

"It's okay crona, I'll explain it later." Maka offered, the pink haired teen glanced at her and quietly thanked her.

"And to top it all off, these two decided to try and save your sorry ass by stabbing into the kishin to enter his soul. Which I'm not gonna lie...that was legitimately cool, even for a cow like you." Ragnarök begrudgingly admitted, as maka smugly smirked at it almost physically hurting the sword to say any praise about her. "Only for some magic book that was possibly controlled by a divine bookworm, to take us all to a random park for shits and giggles."

"I wouldn't have said all of it like that, but yeah that pretty much summarizes everything that happened till you woke up." Soul confirmed.

"So, what's the game plan then?" Ragnarök questioned the trio.

"We're gonna head into the city and once we know where we were taken, we'll head back to the moon and work our way from there." Maka nonchalantly reiterated to the small demon sword.

"Well then, just what the hell are we waiting for? Let's get out of this green thumb dump already." And with that matter finally settled, the four carried on from where they left off and continued their path towards the city.

With Ragnarök finally wrapping up his freaked-out ranting, they continued making their way to the park's exit. Leading to walk down a tranquil pathway with mighty oaks above them as their branch's were gently pushed by the cool midnight winds with every refreshing gust of wind every now and then.

"We shouldn't be any farther from the city, so hopefully once we know where we are, it won't be too long to the fight with the kishin." Maka thought over, only hoping the worst hadn't happened yet and there was still time to save everyone.

"Hopefully those two are still hanging in there." Soul remarked with a confident tone in his voice.

"But now that I think about it, maybe we should just try calling them or any of the teachers instead, going through the trouble of finding a Shibusen academy?"

Soul's expression turned frustrated. "Unfortunately, that's not an available option for us."

"Why not?" Maka frowned.

"I already tried using my mirror while you were busy waking up crona earlier, but for some reason my mirror isn't working." Soul frowned as he held up the mirror.

"Are you serious?" Maka blinked. "Are you sure it isn't cracked or something?" Maka wrinkled her brow.

The albino shook his head. "No, it’s not. At least physically it isn't. I've tried everyone's number but none of them worked, and I think yours is in no better shape."

Maka decided to take out her mirror and tried calling their friends. Unfortunately, just as soul feared, it didn't respond to any of her contact numbers written on its smooth glass surface either.

"That's odd, this should be working just fine." Maka frowned as her mirror, seeing no luck with it, she then put the mirror back in her pocket.

"Maybe whoever sent us here, caused our mirrors to get all messed up with whatever magic was used from the book of eibon." Soul shrugged. "Whether it was on purpose or not, I’ve got no clue. But if I were a betting man, I'd say it was the former." Soul concluded, wishing that possibility wasn't the case, but it seemed too likely at this point to deny.

"Great, now we have no way of contacting anyone back home. Can things get any worse?" Maka exasperatedly sighed out, completely missing soul's subtle cringing.

"Actually Maka, they might." Soul slowly said, sounding like he was not looking forward to speaking about whatever this was at all.

"What are you talking about?" Maka cast a sideways glance at Soul, just what else could go wrong?

"Look maka I know how much crona means to you, but we both know things won't be pretty when everyone in this city spots the guy." Soul explained to Maka who couldn't help but bit her lip.

As much as she hated to say it, Soul wasn't exactly wrong. The death and destruction left by crona in Russia was still felt in not just that country but the rest of the world. No doubt everyone would be terrified to see the same man who caused so much devastation walking in middle of the streets.

"We're just gonna have to tell them that Crona's is no longer an enemy and is helping us now." Maka told her weapon in a stern tone.

"I doubt it'll be so easy," Soul retorted. "Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if the local authorities try to eliminate Crona on sight."

"Soul, you’re making assumptions, I think they'd at least be willing to hear what we have to say before doing anything rash." Maka countered, shaking her head in annoyance at her weapon's ridiculous presumptions.

And even if they didn't try to give them a chance, she'd just have to give them a nice taste of her hard steel fist to soften up their ears.

The scythe let out a short sigh. "Alright you have a good point. But say they do listen to us and after clearing everything up we fly back to the moon; how are we going to defeat the kishin?"

The bridge of maka's nose pinched suspiciously. "What do you mean by that?"

Soul tucked his hands into his pockets and his blood red orbs turned grim. "If asura can't be killed even with kid, blackstar and us all fighting together...then the only way I can see us really defeating him is if-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence." Maka cut off in a low voice, her eyes narrowed into emerald daggers that bore into soul's crimson gaze.

Soul's lips dropped into a sympathetic frown. "Maka, I know you have a strong bond with crona but..."

"He's not doing it, end of story." The ash blonde sharply cut off the albino as passionate flames were lit within her glowering eyes. The mere thought of even considering that idea sent her hands scrunching together, white gloves whining from her tight grip.

"Then what's your plan to defeat the kishin?" Soul asked, removing his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms with a questionable look on his face.

Maka's glare lessened slightly as unsure frustration rooted onto her features as the answer to that question alluded her. "I don't have one yet..." Maka begrudgingly admitted, shifting a sideways glance to crona a couple feet behind him, blissfully admiring the serene beauty of the forest. Her eyes softened with sympathy before turning determined once more. "But I will come up with something, there has to be another way to defeat asura other than having crona sacrifice his freedom."

“And if you do find another way to beat asura, what happens next?" Soul sighed out once again, beginning to realize there truly was no convincing his meister out from her personal mission.

"Once the kishin is defeated we'll help him readjust back to Death City and give him the life he's always deserved to live." Maka told her weapon with iron determination, sounding highly assured what she said was set in stone.

Maka moved to walk away before a firm grasping from Soul took hold of her arm. "Maka, I'll help you with anything; you know that already. But do you really think crona won't hesitate to try encasing himself with asura again even if you tell him not to? Especially since he'll only be going back to a place where he's despised and feared rather than welcomed?"

I know all that already!" she snapped, taking her arm away. "I'd be an idiot if I didn't." She stopped for a second, inhaling a deep breath. "But I don't care if I have to chop crona a thousand times until I knock some sense into him. I plan to do everything in my power to let him live the way he should be able to."

Soul frowned and raised an eyebrow. "And if the citizens of Death City after all this decide not to let crona live how he wants to?"

"They won't lay a finger on crona. I'll protect him and if anyone thinks otherwise and wants to interfere, they'll be the first to feel my right arm's swing." Maka growled in anger before facing her weapon with a bright fire in her eyes. "No one is changing my mind. Crona was willing to do so much for me at last minute before we got taken here, and I refuse to give up on him now!"

She couldn't give a single damn about what anyone thought of crona. She wasn't afraid before to defy Shibusen's orders to save her friend, when most thought he was beyond redemption-and she most certainly wouldn't stop helping him now.

Soul’s expression softened for a moment, then chuckled as a smirk pulled a corner of his lips up. "I kind of figured you'd say something like that. I admit I'm not sure how this whole battle to save the world is gonna end," Soul locked his scarlet orbs with Maka's emerald gaze. "But I know for damn sure, you'll find some way to kick the kishin's ass."

Maka's facial muscles eased from surprise at this response, before slowly shifting into a softer expression, with a small smile curling on her lips. Even if her weapon can be lazy or idiotic at times, it was nonetheless relieving to know how no matter how impossible or insane the situation was she knew he'd always be by her side.

Her smile broadened into a mischievous smirk, as she took a few subtle steps closer to Soul before she ambushed him into quick hug. Soul blinked, and without much idea of what to do awkwardly patted maka's back as he tried wriggling out of her arms.

Maka felt her weapon’s body struggling to remove itself from her own as she hugged him. A soft giggle escaping her mouth and finally let go, but still held onto his shoulders.

"Alright, I've tortured you enough as it is." Maka teased the death scythe. "Now c’mon let's keep moving, we got friends to get back to." Soul only answered back with a simple nod, and with a calm smile, continued following his pig-tailed meister through the forest and to the increasingly louder sounds of civilization.

The group continued ambling in the forest for a minute finally nearing the park's entrance/exit and left the park, entering the bustling city. The three were immediately met with seemingly endless crowds of lively people. Several colossal yet colorful skyscrapers and buildings loomed over the city to the point some of the glassy structures stood around the clouds. Many of the buildings were adorned with colorful commercial screens that brightly illuminated the bustling city further, as the lights and sound of cars in traffic filled their eyes and ears.

Maka looked up at these building screens, and once her sights met the bright surface, her eyes widened in shock by what was displayed on the large screen.

If she was seeing this correctly, it would definitely answer their question as to where they were yet also opened a whole other can of worms in the process.

"Hey, Soul...I think I know where we are," Maka pointed to the large building a short distance from her.

Soul looked up towards the bright advertisement screen she pointed to, his eyes widened in shock as he saw what was displayed on the billboard's smooth, bright surface.

"Shit, is that...?" Soul trailed off, before Maka answered for him.

"Yes, it's Japanese kanji. No doubt about it we're in Japan." Maka concluded, which meant they were practically on the other side of the globe.

This new information slightly complicated their mission getting back to the battle to save the world. It would probably take her and Crona about half hour at most to return back to the moon. It was far from ideal but if they can still reach the moon easily if they're fast enough. All they'd need to do was fly through all these clouds blocking the sky.

But before she could think of what to do next, she felt a trembling hand nudge her shoulder.

Maka turned to look at Crona and was immediately stunned at his expression. The trembling pink haired teen's eyes were widened to the size of dinner plates and his pupils shrank to tiny specks as his eyes stayed looking straight ahead at the city.

"M...M-Maka, y-y-you need to see th-this..." Crona shakily stammered with a hushed yet intensely terrified tone in his voice.

Maka blinked and looked at the shocked Crona with a bewildered look on her face.

Just what was Crona seeing to render him a stuttering mess on the verge of a panic attack? Sure Crona could be easily frightened due to his timid nature but even then, she never saw him this scared.

She turned to ask Soul if he saw anything off, but to her astonishment she found her albino haired weapon partner frozen in shock as well. His jaw had partially dropped, and his wide red eyes were pointed in the same direction as Crona’s.

At that point Maka's expression took on a completely incredulous shape. Alright while she could understand seeing Crona get scared; seeing soul all of all people act so shock all of a sudden immediately told her something was very wrong.

'The heck is going on here. Why do they look so shaken?' Maka deciding to see what was causing such shock, turned her head to her frontal direction like Soul and Crona to the city ahead.

At first glance Maka didn't find anything off as it looked like any other bustling street. But when she actually looked more closely; immediately her forest green eyes nearly popped out of their sockets and her jaw went slack.

"W-WHAT THE HELL!?" Maka shouted in utter shock, now seeing exactly what had caused Crona and Soul to be so shocked.

Right before Maka and her friends were crowds of people walking throughout the city's streets. But now that Maka, Crona, and Soul had taken the time to look at the people within the crowd more closely; they could immediately see something was very wrong. From within the crowds some of the people walking had various features that no human should possibly have.

Some possessed animal features like a man who resembled a humanoid tiger, others had unnatural skin colors like red or purple, or possessed an unnatural amount of limbs such as a tall woman with six arms. While some even looked half machine, such as two children with literal tank treads in place of legs.

Their baffled shock became further paralyzing by how normal people walking by, didn't seem to care or call-out at the fact; there were chimeric humanoids walking about. Almost as if it was perfectly normal to see. If anything, some of the people passing by started giving annoyed glances at the three for staring wide eyed at everyone that walked by them.

"W-what are these people?" Maka muttered in shock, her voice being audible to only the two boys standing next to her. Both of whom were still trying to comprehend what they were seeing.

"Maka, are these guys magical monsters like blair or free?" Soul quietly asked his meister, doing his best to regain his composure and looked at this meister with a more calm expression.

But even then stunned shock was still stabled onto the scythes face as he kept questioning what the hell was he looking at.

Crona didn't speak but also turned his head to face Maka, hoping she could give an explanation for this...insanity.

Maka took a few calming breaths through her mouth to nose and activated her Soul perception, then she scanned the numerous Souls in front of her.

But when Maka looked closer within her Soul perception's abilities, she found...absolutely nothing. They looked like average uncorrupted Souls, not seeing a trace of witches' magic or any sign these Souls were not human within her spiritual vision.

At the same time however, maka did find something very off with their souls and even some of souls of the normal people passing by. While all the souls seen around her appeared externally normal, what appeared internally was a different story. Inside most of the passing souls, maka saw some kind of core like constructs floating within the middle of each soul. All these cores were in various different colors and shapes. Each one faintly matched with traits of some of the bizarre features their hosts possessed.

Maka couldn't make any sense of whatever the hell her Soul perception was detecting. She had never seen anything like this before, sure she'd seen many unique and different Souls in the past, but this was new even for her.

Maka shook her head slowly. "N-no...t-they're not witches, nor are they monsters, their souls are...normal-ish." Maka slowly explained in the calmest voice she can muster despite, still shaken by the inhuman crowd before her.

The albino scythe looked at her as if she grew a second head, unable to make sense of her backwards explanation.

“I-it's hard to explain, I've never seen anything like this before in my life. But these abnormal people and some of the regular people even-have these constructs within in their soul's that's so unnatural but at the same time...look normal." Maka gestured a small circular shape with her hands as her face was still enveloped with befuddlement.

"What? Maka you aren't making any sense here." Soul statedwith an undertone of incredulity, not understanding how a Soul can be considered normal but simultaneously be abnormal at once.

"I-I don't know Soul, these 'cores'-or at least that's the best way to call them, seem to be perfectly integrated within their souls’ wavelengths. Almost as if they had always been there. It must be why these people look the way they do, there's no other explanation for it." Maka elaborated but still sounded like she couldn't believe what she was saying either.

Soul blinked still completely baffled by his meister's attempt at explaining whatever her Soul perception was perceiving. His own eyes glancing back at the moving crowds of unnatural people before him.

Just where in the world did the book of Eibon take them? Did the Japanese branch in Shibusen know of this place?

But that idea seemed very unlikely, considering how they would've almost immediately alerted Lord Death of a city full of abnormal humans that were walking around in broad daylight.

"What in death's name is going on...?" Soul muttered under his breath, beginning to see their displacement situation might be far bigger than they initially assumed it to be.

Suddenly Ragnarök materialized out of Crona’s back, breaking his meister out of his frozen shock. Weakly he raised his eyes up to look at his merged weapon, who like half of the time was always mad at something.

"For fuck’s sake, what the hell is the cow screaming about?! I'm still recovering from that bombshell recap of the past few months, so can you give me a moment of damn-!" Ragnarök halfway ranted before cutting himself off as he managed to get a good look at the street in front of him. "...Why the fuck does that guy have a goldfish for a head?" He numbly asked, pointing lazily at the passing man in question.

But before Crona or anyone else for that matter could begin to answer this question; a loud explosion was heard a mile away as a couple of police cars began sped towards the source.

"What w-was that?" Crona said worryingly while looking in the direction the explosion sound came from.

"Don't know, but it’s nothing good that's for sure." Soul said already figuring out that something major was going down.

"And whatever is going on, we can't just pretend is not happening." Maka claimed, managing to shake off most of her shock and adopted a serious expression and nodded.

"B-but what about t-the moon?"

Maka's face turned contemplative, admitting Crona was right, and they couldn't afford to waste time. But at the same time, found it so hard to simply ignore the fact people could be in mortal danger.

The mere thought of doing something so uncaring was enough to generate an unpleasant feeling, that thickened throughout her stomach as her morals as a meister fought against her logical thinking. But as much as she wanted to think it would be okay to bypass this ongoing dilemma and fly back to the moon, she'd just be lying to herself.

The ash blonde let out a short sigh. "If we're really quick, we can see what's going on and return to the moon fast as possible."

Crona still seemed hesitant, but his overwhelming trust in Maka overrode those feelings and immediately accepted her decision to intervene.

The two meisters and death scythe raced down the sidewalk and towards the site of the explosion where trails of black smoke began drifting into the sky.

"Hey, hey! Can any of you stop and tell me what the hell is going on!? Like why are there are people with fucking fishes for heads walking around? Hey! answer me dammit!" Ragnarök shouted, pounding his ball hands-on Crona’s skull as he continued demanding for an explanation. Instead, though, he got no response from any of them, much to the little demon's growing frustration.

Crona and the others paid no attention to the imp’s rantings. Being solely focused all their attention to the black tendrils of smoke; ascending from a nearby distance as more police cars sped by in the same direction they ran.

The trio soon made it to the site of the explosion. The two meister's and demon weapon passed through the hefty crowd of bystanders that watched the scene unfold as police barricaded the street. Seconds later they’d made it to the front of the crowd and bore witness what sort of crisis was happening.

What they saw could be best described as a war zone being played out as the entire street in front of them was completely devastated. Several wrecked cars were scattered across the ruined road and sidewalk, some looking like they were crushed by something heavy; or outright burning in fire that began emitting trails of black smoke that drifted into the night sky. But it would appear that the source of the devastation centered around a large bank that was currently engulfed in searing flame's. The police had begun barricading the burning bank, and with a couple of officers called for what they assumed was backup. Soon enough, the three teens saw the culprits sprint out of he wreckage of the building's entrance.

There were about four individuals who charged out of the flaming ruins, all of them wore black trench coats and ski masks, though despite having the same outfits they all looked radically different.

The first one was hulking, humanoid gorilla wearing two gold knuckle busters on each of his hands. On the left stood a silver skinned, muscular man with 2 giant guns in place of normal arms. Hovering above the ape-man's shoulder was a short, stocky man with 6 machine guns floating around him on their own. Hanging around the rear of the group was a pale skinned woman with six red eyes and the lower body of a tarantula.

Without wasting any time, the robbers began attacking the police that stood in their way of escape. The gorilla man lunged forward and gave a brutal sucker punch towards the policemen firing at him, causing the two men to be flung into a brick wall. Next the bazooka armed criminal aimed his arm guns and fired a short bursts of energy at a police car, exploding to into violent flames and shrapnel; luckily the officers near the vehicle avoided the blast, but not without sustaining several injuries.

Simultaneously the levitating man rapidly fired his floating guns, keeping the other police that tried to enter the scene cornered behind cover to avoid being filled with holes. All while the spider lady fired out chunks of webbing from her spider abdomen, causing the swat units and police caught to be stuck to the walls or floor like fly's caught on sticky traps.

In less than a single minute, an entire squad of highly armed officers and SWAT units were defeated. Now the gorilla criminal smirked at the destruction he and his gang had caused, seeing the police defeated he turned to his friends. "All right guys let's move before a hero comes! If Anyone else gets in your way don't hesitate to get rid of em, now come on!"The gorilla man shouted in fluent Japanese as he and his posse ran towards an opening in the police barricade they'd decimated to make their escape.

Like the other people the teens had seen here, each criminal had those same weird features that gave them powers. Powers that some would seemingly abuse, just like the four criminals that were running away. From the ecstatic faces behind their ski masks, it seemed they didn't care one bit for all the pain and destruction they were causing as long as they profited from it.

This was far from the first time soul and Maka had dealt situations like this. Their numerous missions hunting down evil humans on lord death's list gave them plenty of experience, with these types of vile individuals who'd cause suffering and destruction for their benefit and satisfaction.

"Well I guess not everybody here are exactly law-abiding citizens, huh?" Soul frowned in disgust at these rampaging crooks.

"I'm not surprised, even if the people in this city are different, this should still be expected." Maka said calmly, but her ice cold glare easily expressed the righteous rage rapidly brewing up inside the meister.

Her hands were already balling into tight fists as every muscle in her body was intensely pushing for her to charge in and subdue these criminals. The police definitely couldn't handle something like this. And if nothing was done to stop their rampage, these savages would escape with all the stolen money they brazenly robbed.

The scythe meister turned her gaze to Soul, who looked at her with an expectant look on his face that already told her what he was asking. The taupe-haired girl closed her eyes and released a deep sigh, before turning to look towards both Soul and Crona with a now serious look on her face.

"Look none of us have single clue to what this place is, but we can't stand around and do nothing while these freaks are wreaking havoc." Maka said turning to look at Crona, his nervous gaze making the scythe meister soften her features slightly before going up to him. "Crona, I know a lot has happened and you’re very afraid and confused right now, we all are. But I need to ask if we-if I can count on you to help us out?" Maka softly asked Crona with a pleading look in her eyes.

The swordsman's eyes widened before instantly straightening out his posture. His ebon eyes hardened and nodded. "I meant what I said back in Asura's soul, I will fight for you Maka until the end…no matter what happens. So yes, I promise you can count on me to help you." The pink-haired warrior told her in an assuring voice, devoid of his stuttering.

"Thanks, Crona." Maka warmly thanked them before shifting back to a more steeled expression.

Maka instantly used her Soul perception on the freakish gang, and as she predicted they all had the same anomaly inside their Souls. But besides that, none of them possess any significant amount of m corruption within their Souls to warrant execution.

So that meant they would just have to subdue them for the police to apprehend them once it's safe. Controlling her attacks would be admittedly a bit of a hassle, could still be more than capable of making sure to only inflict painful yet superficial injuries.

"So can you restrain yourself and not kill them?" Maka asked the swordsman, momentarily hesitating before giving her a nod.

"All right then, let's go!" Maka declared, raising her awaiting hand towards Soul.

"Thought you'd never ask." In an instant, the albino transformed into a bright white light and changed shape. When the light vanished it revealed an oversized scythe, with its long blade having a black/red pattern that resembled pointed teeth but they shortly smoothed out into a dividing line between the colors. The bottom had a golden grip, while in the middle of the scythe was a red eye engraved in the scythe’s gold-plated neck where the metal lined the blades upper half; alongside three prong's almost resembling eyelashes protruded on the butt end of the scythe.

Crona followed suit and materialized into his left hand a long, black broadsword with a grey hilt, a white stripe down the middle and spiked chains around the guard, where the blade and hilt met. However the sword was a bit thinner than it had previously been, most likely due to Ragnarök's shrunken size.

The crowd around the teens gasped and moved away from the teens, as they brandished their weapons jumped over the police barricade. With great speed in their movements the meister's ran past the officers yelling at them and pursued the fleeing robbers.

Noticing they were trying to run into an alley, Maka at her near superhuman speeds managed to run past them in mere seconds. Thus, blocking their escape routes entrance while Crona came from behind them, completely cornering the robbers.

"Oi! what do you shitty brats think you're doing!?" The silver-skinned crook shouted in Japanese. Unfortunately, both the teens didn't understand a single thing he said and simply went with it as Maka stepped forward.

"I think it's pretty obvious. We're going stop you criminal scum and make you return what you've stolen." Maka coldly glared at the criminals, yet they simply stared at her in confusion, and did not understand a single word she said either. Their criminal crew's leader simply scoffed and shook his head, not wanting to waste any more time on the kids.

"Alright that's it, GET EM!" The gorilla man yelled, as he and his crew dropped the bags of money and charged at the teens.

The gorilla man leapt towards Maka, pulling his fist back and launched a right hook. However, the scythe meister merely sidestepped from the attack and with the crook wide open, swiftly bashed the butt of her scythe into his stomach. The crunching sounds from several broken ribs were audible as the air soon left the apes lungs and caused him to buckle over. While he struggled to move himself back up, Maka wouldn't dare give him the chance and moved to with knock him out with another swing of her scythes other end to unto his head.

But before she could deliver the finishing blow, she noticed from the corner of her eye-the silver skinned criminal with both his laser gun Arms charged up and ready to fire at her. He fired his gun arms as hot laser flew towards Maka. The teen meister thankfully reacted far faster than the projectiles firing rate and leapt away from the blast radius in time. Dodging all of the laser blasts that scorched part of the alley with little effort.

The silver man grunted in fuming annoyance and redirected his bazooka arms to Maka once more. The robber fired an erratic barrage of laser beams at the ash blonde but with elegant finesse-managed to dodge around every fired shot; through a skillful combination of leaps, flips and ducks for every ball of plasma flying her way. All the while a confident smirk was plastered on her lips, looking quite amused by the criminals poor attempts at harming her.

"YOU COCKY BITCH, TAKE THIS!!!" The silver skinned man's rage expression became utterly twisted at this little shit's overconfidence, and vehemently raised both bazooka arms to blast her into oblivion.

But his arms would never fire in time, as Crona darted from behind and slashed both his cannon-arms in a single strike. The poor bastard recoiled from agony, letting out blood curdling screams as his metallic skin bled profusely, giving the sword meister the opening for his finishing strike.

He flipped his sword backwards and struck the man's head with the pommel of his sword hard enough to knock him out in an instant.

After dealing with the laser armed criminal, Crona turned around to face his next opponent, only to be met with the loud sound of guns firing. From a short distance away, the levitating man fired his numerous floating guns at Crona, grazing his right shoulder with a few lucky shots.

However it didn't really hurt him, if anything it felt like a bunch of bees had gone and stung him.

"How annoying." Crona muttered languidly, and dashed towards the storm of bullets between him and the midget robber.

The swordsman as he ran continuously slashed away at the bullets directed in his path at impressive speeds. The robber visibly panicked and frantically centered all his machine guns at the sprinting meister, but it was no better than throwing pebbles at the seemingly unstoppable force headed his way.

Once Crona closing enough distance to his target, the swordsman rose Ragnarök upwards and before the midget could react swung the sword.

"Screech beta!" Crona roared, with a single downward slash the sword spewed out a purplish blast of energy with a ghoulish face- and launched the dark attack towards the criminal.

It happened so quickly the man couldn't even react fast enough to move as the strike made contact. Sheer force combined with the attack’s momentum crashed into his body like a falling boulder off a mountain-cracking apart the surrounding concrete, as the silver villain was left lying passed out in a small crater.

Crona momentarily furrowed his brow in antsy worry over his fallen opponent's injured state. He really hoped he didn't end up killing him, he promised Maka he'd hold back but it was so hard. The concept of "holding back" was so alien, he almost couldn't handle the pressure of messing up. But even so, he still needed to put the effort and try for Maka.

However, as the dust cloud dissipated, Crona's prayers were answered but in a very wrong way. The midget now profusely bleeding from the painful impact, shot out of the dust like a soaring missile. Using his telekinetic powers a nearby car was lifted off from the ground and floated above the small robber.

With a furious roar he threw the car towards the sword meister expecting it to crush him. But soon a blur zoomed in front of Crona-revealed to be Maka, as the meister leapt several feet into the air with strong velocity. With a single downward swing of her scythe's blade-she easily bisected the car cleanly in two and kept speeding through the cleaved space; and straight for the levitating midget.

The dwarfish criminal could only make panicked yelps and frantically waved his hands to stop before Maka slugged him square in the face. Her fist sent his short body, plummeting down like an anchor to the pavement below. Leaving the midget lying in rubble and instantly fell into deep unconsciousness.

After defeating the second robber, Maka took a moment to scan the area to see which of the criminals were still able to fight. When she turned her head to the left, her eyes widened as she saw the tarantula lady snuck past Crona and was about attack him from behind.

"Crona look out!" Maka yelled out as she sprinted with all the speed her legs could muster to save her friend. However, the spider villain managed to fire a chunk of webbing out of her arachnid abdomen.

Maka knew she wasn't gonna make it in time, so rearing her arm back, she launched Soul at the chunk of webbing that flew towards Crona. The rapidly spinning scythe eviscerated the gob of spider silk on contact as he flew though the air. Crona immediately backed away a few steps, setting his sights on the spider lady that hid behind him and was about to retaliate until...

SWOOSH!

A sharp yet heavy spike of pain suddenly entered his nerves, particularly to the back of his head. Through the corner of his eye crona saw the gorilla robber had not only gotten back up. But also managed to rip a large chunk of asphalt from the ground and throw it at him when he wasn't looking. Caught off guard by the strike, the teen was bashed into the ground; the force of which caused multiple small cracks to become visible on the pavement when he landed.

"CRONA!" Maka yelled in rage as she charged in fury to retrieve Soul and beat the living crap out of that monkey looking bastard who'd brutally attacked her close friend.

Yet before she could move any further, she was forced to leap back from a gob of spider webbing that nearly hit her. The arachnid criminal leapt forward and began a hasty assault on the scythe meister. Maka was forced to go on the defensive and swiftly dodged the numerous bulky spear like legs that launched at her.

'Dammit, I don't have time for this!' Maka thought in frustration as she shuffled backwards and effortlessly dodged the flurry of piercing kicks from the spider legs and occasional strikes from clawed hands.

"Hang on Maka, I'm coming!" Soul shouted, transforming back to his human form and sprinted towards Maka with two scythe blades emerged on both his forearms. His red orbs tracked the gorilla criminal launching himself in his direction, intent on intercepting the death scythe.

Just as the ape man was about to reach him, soul didn't even move and instead twisted his body to the side and avoided the hulking body running at him.

"Hey King Kong Jr! Don't you have a date with a skyscraper?" Soul mocked and threw his foot into the apes gut. The ape-man once gagged as the teen's hard shoe dug into his stomach, causing him to double over and catch his breath.

Getting ready to finish off this robber, soul reared his tight fist back to plunge into the man's face. Unfortunately, he was thwarted as a white blur flew by and suddenly hit his raised arm. Alarmed by this sudden attack, Soul looked to see his arm now entrapped in a white sticky webbing that made him stuck to a wall.

Soul turned his head to see the tarantula woman as she fought Maka smirking mischievously, as her spider abdomen leaked fresh excess webbing.

Soul however wasn't deterred in the slightest by the sneaky tactic. With his left arm still free, he sliced away at the webbing that tangled up his right arm, its razor sharp blade easily cut through the spider silk.

Unfortunately the gorilla man got all the time he needed; as he recovered from the blow to his stomach and looked up to see Soul stuck to the wall. The gorilla man smiling triumphantly to see his opponent now distracted, used this moment to divert his attention towards Maka and ran to assist his fellow robber. Soul cursed and hastily quickened the pace of his blades cutting at the webbing.

Maka spotted the gorilla man rushing towards her and knew she was only seconds away from being ganged up by these freakish robbers. She had to end this. Thus, after dodging another stab from the thrusted tarantula legs, she saw an opening to strike back. Cocking her left arm back, she threw a heavy uppercut straight to the arachnid's jaw. The spider lady loudly cursed in angry pain as she recoiled from the harsh blow that struck her face. Now that her multi legged enemy was distracted by agony, Maka sprinted as fast as possible towards soul.

All she needed to do was reach for her death scythe was get through a big hairy obstacle.

That obstacle being the infuriated gorilla criminal that was headed straight towards her, ready to rip her limb from limb. Maka wasn't afraid in the slightest however, merely giving a determined glare at the ape man and kept running forward.

She knew very well that she couldn't take him on, not alone, she didn't have enough brawn to go toe to toe with this musclebound brute's strength.

While she did consider herself a decent fighter, her status as a two-star meister and a member of spartoi were proof enough, it wouldn't matter against this wall of muscle. She had to be smart with her tactics and prioritize retrieving Soul as soon as physically possible. Even though she had done her best to not rely on Soul to fight her battles she still needed to have her weapon when dealing with foes like this. Only when she had her scythe back could she finally defeat the criminal.

Maka would have to do her best to avoid the angry ape and retrieve her weapon partner. As she ran ahead, Maka shifted her direction towards the nearby wall of a building. With sheer acrobatic skill, she jumped towards the wall and momentarily sprinted on its hard surface. Avoiding the bipedal ape's path of destruction in the process, hopping back on the ground and continued dashing towards soul.

The robber however was whipped into raging frenzy, beyond fed up with the speedy brat and redirected himself in her direction at the last second. Maka turned her head and saw the bulky criminal now chasing her, speeding up her pace. Yet the ape robber was quite persistent and was still close enough to lunge himself at the girl from behind her back.

As he ran towards Maka, the criminal leader cracked his knuckles and cruelly grinned. He was more than excited to finally pulverize the little shit who'd taken down all his partners and caused this mess in their plans.

"I warned you and your friends not to get involved you dumb little bitch, but now I think it's time to teach ya a good lesson!" The ape criminal maliciously roared while he prepared to crush the teenage girl into a bloody paste. But before his fist could make any contact, a quietly cold voice spoke.

"Bloody needle."

Immediately after that whisper was uttered, three black needle-like spikes sprang towards the gorilla criminal. The needles swiftly pierced into the flesh and bone of the arm he was about to punch Maka with. Soon agonizing pain overloaded the pain receptors in his brain as blood began flowing out off his. The villain recoiled, stopping dead in his tracks and released bloodcurdling screams. Desperately he tried to remove these thin spikes lodged into his arm but to no avail. With every attempt the needles only dug further into his limb, causing him to suffer even more from his painful wound.

Maka moment stopped running for a moment and turned to see the now screaming criminal. At first, she was confused as to what happened, but seeing those needles in the man's arm she instantly figured who that was. Maka turned her head to see just behind the gorilla robber, Crona was standing back up. Maka noticed how Crona's black blood dripped from the grazed bullet wounds on his shoulder; along with a couple of droplets that trickled from his forehead.

Crona merely stood in place, staring at the two bank robbers with a cold, almost unhinged glare on his face that caused chills to go up their spines.

"You know, I was actually planning to go easy on you before...but you went ahead and tried to hurt maka, so now I'm going to send you to jail in stitches." Crona uttered in icily, with minor madness glinting in his ebon eyes.

Remaining where he stood Crona raised his right hand towards the wounded gorilla, and unleashed his newest ability since he had slain medusa and temporarily absorbed asura. Slithering out of the bottom of his long robe were a cluster of long black thorns with arrow shaped spear edges on each end that flailed around it's master.

With a single gesture from his hand, The black thorns rapidly sped towards the injured gorilla man like arrows. wrapping themselves around his waist and other arm like constrictors. The thorns lifted the criminal into the air and viciously threw the ape across the street. The crook careened into the air until he made a brutal landing on a random car. The villains bulky body crashed onto its hood, with a loud "BOOM" echoing throughout the street; as bleeding ape man lost consciousness from the sheer pain of his injuries.

The tarantula lady, with her many eyes wide in terror, sweated profusely in unrelenting fear of Crona's merciless wrath. In fact, by time Crona had dealt with her boss, she was already preparing to just run for the hills. Before she could flee in time though, she was met with a pair of boots in her vision, courtesy of a solid kick in the face from a now freed Soul. The scythe's lips curved into a smug smirk as he gave some nice payback to his eight legged opponent.

After knocking the arachnid woman down with a dropkick, Soul jumped a small distance back and gave a nod to his meister. Maka immediately understood the silent gesture and charged towards the six legged woman. As if her lower body was being energized, Maka pulled her leg out as far as possible in the blink of an eye and slammed it downwards. Maka delivered a nasty axe kick to the top of the arachnid woman's skull, granting a nasty concussion that resulted in passing out within seconds.

With a heavy sigh, Maka stood up and looked around. From what she could see, it seemed to her that all the bank robbers had been incapacitated. With no other pressing issues to distract them, Soul and Maka quickly ran towards the mildly wounded Crona.

"Crona are you okay?" Maka asked in immediate concern as she examined Crona's injuries. The demon swordsman worried most about the wounds where his black blood dripped out.

"I-I'm fine it's just some scratches, as long as you're safe then It's alright." Crona told her with a timid smile and while Maka and soul looked skeptical, they knew he wasn't entirely lying. While the various injuries would be somewhat serious for an average person or even a meister, it wasn't the case here.

She knew full well that the black blood flowing in crona's veins made those injuries nothing more but scrapes at best thanks to the superhuman durability it granted. And any injuries that were made on his body would already heal in only couple seconds. But even so she still couldn't help but feel concerned for her friends wellbeing, healing factor or not.

"Its fine Maka, we both know he's dealt with far worse than a couple puny bullets and rocks to the head." Soul lightly reassured while patting her shoulder, Crona cheeks lighting up into a pink blush from the scythe's compliment.

But soon the pink haired swordsman felt a painful throb enter his nerves, as Ragnarök burst out of his back. "Well, what about me!? I'm the one who helped this guy take down those circus freaks, don't I get any thanks!?"

"T-thanks for the help, Ragnarök." Cronaexasperatedly conceded to his noisy weapon.

"Hmph, that’s more like it. Though I gotta ask, since when could you sprout a bunch of thorns out of your ass like some living rose bush?" Ragnarök curiously inquired to how his meister acquired another ability.

"I-it's complicated, I'll explain it you later." Crona blushed.

"Oh c’mon, why not now!?"

"Ragnarök this isn't the time or the place."

"Well you had the time to destroy a city and gobble up the fucking kishin like some late-night snack." The sword snarked back at the skinny swordsman.

"Ragnarök..." Crona groaned, but before he could say anything maka stomped towards the sword and pointed a reprimanding glare at him.

"That's enough Ragnarök, he doesn't need to explain everything to you now." Maka scolded before her lips peeled into a smug smirk. "Besides, I don't think your little head can handle anymore reveals without exploding."

"Little head!? You’re damn lucky that I'm back to this puny size, otherwise I'd rip off your cow hooves and shove em down your-"Ragnarök's rant was cut off by Maka's textbook being taken out from its hiding spot and slammed straight into his round skull.

"OW! Damn it cow, what the hell did you do that for?! Haven't I been through enough today!?" Ragnarök frantically rubbed the bruised top of his head. Crona simply shook his head in exasperation at his weapon partner's behavior knowing full well he deserved it.

"God, I swear if you weren't attached to crona you'd be getting chops like there was no tomorrow." Maka growled, beginning to wish crona's foul weapon had stayed mindless rather than deal with his bratty behavior.

"Uh guys, I hate to interrupt your conversation, but looks like we got ourselves an audience." Soul pointed out, turning around to see the crowd looking at them with gazes of curious astonished or downright amazed awe at the three bemused teens.

"Holy shit, who the heck are these kids?"

"I don't know, but that albino one has a crazy quirk, I mean he turned into a giant ass scythe!"

"What about that pigtailed girl wielding him? The chick sliced a damn car in half!"

"That's crazy!"

"But did you see what that pink haired boy did to that villain? he threw that villain around like a rag doll with those vines!"

"Just what kind of quirks do they have!?"

The teens couldn't understand anything these bystanders were saying, but most likely they seemed to be cheering for their selfless actions.

Maka released a shy chuckle and scratched the back of her head; and tried her damndest not to blush. God this felt so embarrassing, sure during missions she and Soul were praised by the locals, but she never dealt with big crowds like this before.

Soul on the other hand, was clearly enjoying the attention, giving the spectators a thumbs up and his iconic, toothy grin. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes knowing he would've enjoyed all the cheering.

Crona however didn't share the same appeal to the cheering crowd and averted away from the crowd muttering how "I can't handle this attention." over and over. The poor guy looking ready in seconds to sprint to the nearest corner and hide away from the attention overwhelming his timid soul.

Actually...why were they cheering for Crona?

Didn't they know who he was?

Soul already warned her to expect everyone here to be greatly terrified of Crona once they saw him. And even made precautions in case anyone became violent seeing Crona. And even if everyone in this place looked so...weird, she still expected people running in fear of the demon swordsman. But nobody here appeared at all frightened upon seeing Crona. They just kept staring at the pinkette with curious amazement like he was some hero.

Don't get her wrong, she was relieved no one was fleeing from Crona in terror, but it still felt very off. Didn't these people know who Crona is-or at least was the demon swordsman? Between this and all these chimeric people with abnormal souls, the scythe meister was left with even more questions as to where they really are.

But Maka was soon ripped away from her thoughts as the crowd suddenly began cheering louder than before as they seemed focused now, on something from above.

The three teens turned their eyes to the street ahead and saw a man sprinting from the opposite side of the ruined street behind them.

As he drew closer saw he was a tall musclebound square chinned man wearing a cyan-colored cardigan. On the top of his head was a metal headband with a yellow and black-striped caution pattern, matching his thick wrist-guards. holding onto his chest on each side were small metal nuts, and dark blue pants with a white stripe down each side and hung slightly baggy on him alongside normal shoes.

The two teenage meisters and death scythe observed the latest costumed man with bewildered curiosity in their eyes. At first, they seemed suspicious, thinking he was like this destructive gang. But judging how the crowd behind them was cheering more excitedly from the sight of these new faces, that didn't seem likely.

"Everyone, look! It's death arms!"

"God he looks so cool!"

"Shame death arms came too late to stop the villains though."

"I wonder if he'll will give me an autograph?"

'Death arms? Do they mean that weirdo running towards us?' Maka wondered with a risen brow. While she didn't fully understand anything they were saying she could at least make out the weird names being excitingly spoken out.

"Maka who is he? And why is he wearing...that?" Crona muttered, trying to comprehend the strange choice or attire this stranger had on him.

"That's...a good question." Maka admitted, feeling unsure what exactly to make of these people, who wore some of the most ridiculous outfits she ever saw in her life.

And that was definitely saying something.

Soul was likewise bewildered by this new face. They sorta reminded him of the superheroes from his comic books he'd read from time to time. That is until Maka would act like his mother and scold him to study or face a nice chop should he refuse.

But maybe for once he actually did need one, to make sure he wasn't hallucinating a goddamn superhero in front of him.

The superhero reached the street and did a quick survey of the scene. The man went over looked looked over the fallen villains and the damage sustained in the street. The hero's attention turning to the grievously injured gorilla man lying on top of a wrecked car who'd suffered the most injuries. Despite his arm looking like swiss cheese, the man was still alive none the less.

After talking to the officers and assessing the root of what happened here, looked at the three teens standing nearby and walked towards them.

"Are you kids responsible for all this?" The burly man asked sternly in japanese.

None of the teens understood what he was telling them due to the language barrier, but Maka could tell he was most likely asking about what occurred here. Thus, deciding to clear things up, stepped closer to the foreign man and spoke.

"Um I'm not sure you understand me, but we were alerted of these criminals rampaging here and so we decided to intervene." Maka slowly explained to the best of her ability, but already knew she probably just speaking utter gibberish to him.

The man was silent for a few moments, his eyes widening briefly before speaking again.

Yet to Maka's surprise it wasn't in the language she was expecting.

"You speak english, yes? I know the basics so I understood you." The man replied in broken english, his japanese accent very present but was still understandable to the trio before him.

"Oh, I see." The side of maka's lips curled up, very relieved to have found someone who spoke english here.

Hopefully now they can get some explanations and start their flight back to the moon as quickly as possible.

"While I appreciate help with the villains, I hope you understand the situation you are in. Vigilantism a serious crime, especially in such brutal manner." Death arms told the teens in the same broken English. Pointing towards the gorilla man Crona pulverized before, as said boy looked away guiltily clutching his right arm.

Maka however was more confused than anything as her brow knitted together into a bewildered expression. The scythe meister wondering as to why this man thought helping to stop rampaging criminals was considered "vigilantism".

Didn't this man know she and Soul were Shibusen students?

Anyone who'd see her wielding Soul should've been able to know that from a mile away. So why was this man reprimanding them for doing what was apart of their jobs?

"Sir I'm not sure why your calling us vigilantes, we were just doing our duties to our academy." Maka stated with a risen brow.

The hero blinked momentarily in befuddlement before regaining his stern gaze. "Do you have hero licenses?"

"I-I'm sorry b-but what are those?" Crona asked tilting his head slightly while raising a brow.

The minute he uttered those words, a thick silence enveloped the air around them that felt almost palpable. The tall adult stared incredulously at the teen, acting as if he just saw the robed swordsman abruptly sprout three heads at once.

"Is there s-something I said wrong?" The sword meister nervously asked, shrinking away from the square chinned man's disbelieving gaze.

'Okay, Something is not right with these kids. While it's obvious they're foreigners, the fact they don't know hero licenses is absolutely ridiculous." Death arms mentally scoffed, observing the three teenage vigilantes in suspicion, layered with incredulity. But at the same time also felt unsure on how to properly handle this dilemma.

On one hand, these kids just helped him take down four dangerous villains and prevented them from escaping with the stolen bank money; all without any more property damage from occurring.

But on the other hand, they just made themselves vigilantes who illegally used their quirks in public and interfered with hero business. Also taking into account how they brutally dealt with the villains, Death Arms eyed the unconscious form of the robber on a car with concern.

'Regardless of their strange behavior, these children are obviously too young to have gotten their hero licenses.' Death arms grimaced, doing his best to hold in a regretful sigh. 'I hate to do this, but I'm going to have no choice but to arrest these children.'

The heroes expression became more composed and without saying anything, walked towards the cops that just arrived on the scene and began speaking with the officers.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Maka asked Soul quietly, the gears of her brain turning to try at least getting an idea of what these strange people were saying.

"Don't got a clue, but I'm pretty sure it's about what we did." Soul answered back, his red eyes still locked on the hero and officers privately talking to each other.

"But what did we do wrong? We only stopped a bunch of criminals from wreaking further havoc. And now all of a sudden, we're being labeled as vigilantes, it just doesn't make sense." Maka frowned, trying to make sense of all the weirdness that's almost everywhere in this mysterious city.

"Does it h-have to do with those licenses?" Crona meekly mentioned.

Maka turned her eyes to Crona and nodded. That's Probably it. But whatever these licenses are meant for, they're probably important to those guys calling themselves heroes."

While it's true meister's also needed some form of identification when doing international missions, this was the first time she ever heard the need for such identification.

Seriously, why the heck would they even name them something so stupid as hero licenses? Just what the hell was with this city's absurd fascination with superheroes?

Was the mayor here some kind of comic book junkie like soul?

But before she could think further about this city’s superhero themes, the costumed man began walking back to them-but now with four officers following behind him.

Maka and Soul were quick to sense that something wasn't right. As the neutrally stern expressions all given by the adults made the teens tense with steeping caution.

"I'm sorry for this, but I have to take you kids in for unauthorized quirk use-and for your friend's violent behavior, please come quietly." Death arms said as he crossed his arms.

"WHAT!?" The three teens simultaneously shouted in shock, as the three officers walked past the two other heroes while pulling out handcuffs.

"The hell is this? We just helped you take down a bunch of crooks and you're taking us to jail in return? just what are you people trying to pull?!" Soul growled in low voice, glaring his red daggers to the leotard wearing bastard standing across from them.

"B-but w-we stopped those criminals from getting away. I-I don't understand, w-why are you d-doing this?" Crona fearfully stuttered, not comprehending why they were being punished for doing something right.

"Sorry, but has to be done, you three are too dangerous to let go. And I have many questions for you." Death arms sternly told the trio in his best English, yet maka refused to go along with the ridiculous farce being enforced on them.

"You can't just arrest us for trying to help you! Don't you realize my partner and I are students of shibusen? Contact Death City and they'll verify us!" Maka exclaimed to the winged blonde in an attempt to see if that would get a reasonable response.

But instead of getting expressions of realization, all her outburst did was cause the tall man and police officers to look at her very strangely.

"Huh, never heard a hero school like that, but we will get in contact with them to report your illegal vigilante activity." Death arms explained to the ash blonde meister, yet maka could only blink in a moment of stunned confusion by what he just said.

"Hero school? What are you-no we're not going anywhere until you explain what exactly is going on." Maka firmly declared as she and her friends stepped back as the officers got closer.

"Don't resist. Just quietly come and we will figure out everything." Death arms subtly positioned into a more cautious stance, the brawny hero having a bad feeling that a fight was going to break out at any given moment.

"No, we aren't." Maka took a step forward, straightening her posture as glaring emerald orbs matching her weapons locked onto the costumed man. "I'm sorry but we can't afford to waste time here, so I'm only telling for the last time to stand aside and let us go right now." She sternly declared; a bright fire now fully lit inside her determined green eyes.

Death arms tensed from the girl’s cold glare, able to easily see this vigilante meant business. And neither she or her friends were afraid to pick a fight. That's it, he needed to arrest these vigilantes immediately, before this got ugly fast.

Thus, the hero quietly gestured the cops to continue apprehending the teens. An officer with small bull horns on his head; hastily walked up the ash blonde teen and prepared to put the handcuffs on her.

"Alright vigilante, just come with us peacefully and-"

But before the officer could finish his foreign sentence, he was met with a boot swiftly smashed into his gut. The older man felt the air leave his lungs as soul promptly kicked the man away and sent him tumbling to the ground.

"Sorry, but I already told you that isn't happening." Soul reiterated, his crimson orbs glare boring into the officers stunned eyes.

The other officers watched in shock before snapping out of it and raced to restrain the young weapon and meister. But they never got an inch closer to the young meister as crona dashed from where he stood and placed himself in front of the duo.

"Ragnarök." Crona called out quietly as the black broadsword materialized out of the boys raised arm. Immediately pointing the weapon towards both the officers and the costumed man. His face adorned with a deadly expression- promising nothing but pain and misery should they try anything.

"I don't know why you're trying to arrest us for helping you. But honestly, I don't care. If any of you dare try hurting her, I'm going to make you all regret it." Crona coldly threatened the pro heroes with a ruthless glare, shooting off a small wave of killing intent.

"Took the words right out of my mouth Crona." Soul remarked in agreement as he took advantage of the cop's moment of distraction and quickly shifted into his scythe form for Maka to instantly wield. The scythe meister shifted her feet into a fighting stance, as all three of them were ready to fight their way out of here.

"Do not resist!" Death arms shouted as he ran towards them, intent on forcefully apprehending the teenage vigilantes.

He raised his bulky fist and sent it smashing into the concrete, erupting a small shockwave to try throwing them off their feet. But the meister's reaction time was superior as they quickly darted away as the hero fired off his attack and started running away from the tall hero.

"Holy shit, maybe that costume isn't for show after all." Soul remarked in surprise by the unexpected level of strength he just witnessed.

"Me neither, but I got a good feeling for why he's so strong." Maka looked over her shoulder and using her soul perception, saw a cube like core floating inside the man's soul.

It's as she suspected, these cores were not only the source of these peoples strange appearances but also these powers. A part of maka was curious for the answer but knew this was far from the proper time and place.

The meister's continued dashing away from the hero but were quick to find a forming blockade of police cars gathered in their direction. SWAT Units and police were gathered around, all of them armed and ready to non-lethally take them down. All while the man with super strength was chasing behind them. the three of them were cornered on both sides by their numerous pursuers. It wouldn't be long before they were completely trapped and captured if they didn't act soon.

But suddenly an idea sparked into Maka's head as she turned her eyes to crona. It was stupid and probably was going to painful as hell; but she knew it was their best option to make an opening to escape.

"Crona! use your scream resonance!" Maka loudly told Crona while covering her ears.

The sword meister was initially hesitant but saw the line of reasoning his friend was seeing and obeyed her request. The two teens stopped their running as crona rose ragnarok into the air.

"Scream resonance!" Crona shouted as the red lipped mouth on the sword's guard opened up and let out a powerful scream that rippled the air.

The intense sound waves soon flooded out from the sword and shook the surrounding area. Any glass around Crona immediately shattered to pieces as the sound waves smashed imploded their fragile structure.

Anyone who was near the swordsman from at least a 5 meter radius were all sent doubling over as their ears were violently assaulted by the banshee screams bellowed from the boy’s sword.

"ARGH! What the hell is this!?" Death arms shouted through the eardrum bursting screeching being emitted from the demon sword. Trying to desperately shield his ears like everyone else from the ungodly screeching unleashed upon them.

Maka tightly shut her eyes as she was sent hunching over slightly from her friends screeching technique. But thanks to her prior experience; had developed slight resistance to this abrasive screaming.

After 20 more seconds of the intense screaming, Ragnarök ceased his scream resonance. Crona unaffected by his weapon's scream lowered his sword and scanned the area. A slight cringe entered his face as he saw all the officers and bystanders were writhing in pain from the sonic attack. The same case for the costumed man who knelt on the ground in silent pain.

When Crona twisted his eyes to Maka, guilt stabbed into his heart as he saw the scythe meister hunched over and her face glaring with pain.

"Maka a-are you okay!? I'm so sorry if I hurt you, I tried-" but before Crona could apologize further, Maka placed her finger to his lips and simply smiled through the pain.

"I-it's alright, I know you didn't mean to, just gimme a second, okay?" Maka softly told the concerned swordsman with a forced smile, trying to push away the painful ringing in her ears.

"Well, it's not my fault you can't handle my badass voice like these chumps over here." Ragnarök sneered at the scythe meister through the hilts mouth.

"Just shut the hell up..." Maka hissed in irritation, not in the mood at all to deal with the little demon's rude comments.

Then again, she was sort of kind of grateful for this loud ringing inside her eardrums. Now she could mute out the imp's screechy voice for at least five minutes.

"Ragnarök that's enough, we need to leave right now. So can you fly us out of here?" Crona told the merged demon weapon, but all he got was an indignant scoffing sound.

"And now you want me to fly your sorry ass out of here too? What the hell am I, your damn butler!?" The sword was promptly met with the combined stern glares of both his thin meister and maka.

Outnumbered in this situation, Ragnarök groaned in exasperation before looking back at his meister.

"Ugh fine but don't forget, I'm expecting a big ass favor from you when this is all over." Ragnarök reluctantly obeyed, as the sword melted back into his meister's spine.

Crona merely flinched in pain as a set of lengthy yet extremely thin, black dragon wings sprouted from the demon's sides with diamond like structures attached to each wings finger. Though the wings looked flimsy like paper; they were still more than capable of carrying his meister in the sky away from their pursuers.

Maka after finally recuperating from the scream resonance, fixed herself up and stood straighter than before. The pair now ready to use their own methods to fly to safety.

"Alright soul, are you ready?"

'As I'll ever be.'With glow of bright light covering soul's scythe form, the weapon changed shape. Soul's long blade began to dramatically shrink till it was only the size of a dagger, however, in its place six large and lithe angelic wings of glowing blue energy erupted from the head of the scythe.

The police and death arms now having recovered from the sonic attack looked at the teens in astonishment at the unexpected display of their abilities. With a flap of Ragnarök's wings; and Maka riding on Soul's winged weapon form, took flight. The flapping of wings filling the air, the duo soon flew away from the police and pro hero.

"Stop!" Death arms shouted but he was too late as the two meisters flew out of sight by the time he reached where they stood before...

"Dammit, they got away." Death Arms cursed in frustration, not expecting one bit that the pink haired kid and especially the boy who turned into a scythe could fly like that. Just kind of quirks did those kids have?

"Death Arms, just who the hell were those kids? They were unlike anything I've ever seen before, it's like they had multiple quirks or something." A random police officer said in confusion, still very shaken by the sonic scream from before.

"I know, they're more powerful than I expected. But don't worry though, we may have lost them but they won't get far." Death arms answered before pressing on the earpiece he was wearing. "Calling all nearby pro heroes in or nearby Fukuoka city! The robber situation has been dealt with, but now we have multiple vigilante suspects responsible that managed to get past me, and are now running wild in the city."

"The suspects are three american teenagers, one being an albino boy with red eyes and sharp teeth wearing a headband and leather jacket. A green-eyed girl with wheat blond hair in pigtails and donning a trench coat, and a pink haired boy with dark lavender eyes, wearing what looks to be a purely black robe. Be advised, at least two of the suspects have unique quirks with multiple powerful abilities. I repeat two of the suspects have powerful quirks." Death arms announced on the earpiece, hoping any good pro heroes heard the message, as he looked at the evening sky and wondered to himself what else to expect from today.

"-Be advised, at least two of the suspects have unique quirks with multiple powerful abilities. I repeat two of the suspects have powerful quirks."

A yellow-eyed slim narrow built man with feathery ash blonde haired man, heard the announcement from his earpiece. Listening to the call, he'd already finished taking care of a villain hostage situation nearby the area. The man was ready to fly off with his red feathered wings before getting the alert from Death Arms of the situation in the city. And needless to say, he was both greatly intrigued and greatly concerned about this certain piece of new information.

'A few vigilantes running around is nothing special, even if they caused a fuss. But the fact that they're quirks have been reported to be powerful no less... that's what concerns me.' The number three hero hawks thought over, narrowing his gold yellow eyes inside a dull yellow visor.

This case had already shot up to the top of his list of his priorities. A bunch of young vigilantes running around with great power like that is big fat NO. Especially since it's in the city where his agency is located in of all places.

They needed to be apprehended immediately, and hopefully he would see what he could do for them. As these vigilantes were still just some teenagers from what Death Arms reported. Judging by their appearances, they'd probably just started this; after being reprimanded from such actions, they could have their abilities be put to better use if possible.

The winged man continued to hover with his red wings in the air for a few moments, before he flew off in seconds towards the suspects' last known location. A small smile crept onto his face as he flew off into the afternoon sky.

Today was going to prove to be very, very interesting.

"-Be advised, at least two of the suspects have unique quirks with multiple powerful abilities. I repeat two of the suspects have powerful quirks." A robust tan skinned women with white hair heard from the earpiece on one of her rabbit hears. She had just about wrapped up her raid in the warehouse as she pummeled the last thug into unconsciousness.

She'd finished dealing with a villain gang hiding out in the building, and personally led the charge to take them all down. What filled the dusty building now were the unconscious bodies of several criminals as they were apprehended by the authorities.

Immediately afterwards though, she heard the alert from the pro hero Death Arms about three vigilantes running around. At first, she was going ignore it and let some of the other lower rank heroes deal with that mess. But her red eyes soon widened with intrigue at a particular piece of information. That the suspects had quirks that were both unique and very powerful.

Now THAT got her attention.

'Well, well this is going to be interesting. I've never heard vigilantes with quirks like that before. Oh, this is gonna be fun as hell!' The rabbit hero Mirko thought to herself with a wide smile on her face. Already itching to head over there and see what the big fuss is about. Thus, with a jump from her very muscular legs, leaped out of the warehouse before running like a bullet train.

Occasionally hopping building over building, she was headed to the location where the vigilantes were spotted. The excited smile Rumi had before remained on her face while she ran. She felt excited at the prospect of fighting people with powerful quirks like those. All the while she wondered if they'd actually fight, or just disappoint her and surrender, either way one thing was for sure.

Today was going to be a fun one.

And with that, a citywide manhunt ensued for three displaced souls.

 AUTHORS NOTE

Hello everyone and welcome to soulbound heroes(or for original readers the new and improved version of this story), so to start off, this story is a crossover that's been in the works in my head for a while. As tragically there aren't many good Soul Eater stories these days and that's something that needs to change.

The series has taken a big hit over the years since its anime and manga finished, and that's a shame. As the latter has shown just what we could have gotten over the anime that failed to properly adapt this series. But with this story, we can at least try to have a crossover with effort put in that's going to be a fun ride.

When i had this idea running in my mind, I originally tried to suggest my idea to other writers, but they either couldn't do it due to being too busy or just didn't take story suggestions.

So, I simply thought there was only one option left for me to do. Cause since nobody would be willing to write such a story I thought:

"Fine," I said ominously, raising a golden gauntlet and holding a iphone menacingly over a piece of paper. "I'll do it myself..."

Thus, I began to write my first story.

Now the reason I chose these specific characters from Soul Eater is because of not only are they my favorite characters. But because of how there aren't any that center around this combination rather than just being the of the entirety iconic characters we know. But it's also the fact little to none of these soul eater crossovers use the manga, to begin with, that vastly evolved their characters. So, I decided to twist things up a bit and add Crona (a criminally underused character in Soul Eater fanfics and decided to add him in this story.)

And yes, Crona is a boy in this story. the reason being how in the anime back when I watched it referred Crona as "he". So, I Kind of stuck with it given how this was when I watched it years ago; and since Okubo doesn't even know Crona's true gender, I've decided to have Crona be male. Albeit being somewhat feminine, since with witches being a female dominant race would make the theorized males have such aspects.

Now this rewrite was due to errors encountered in the original version that had not been foreseen at the time of writing it. Don't worry though, the original version will be eventually reposted in a new story for folks who enjoyed it the way it was. The pacing was deemed as an issue along with certain gaps in logic being a bigger one, so this time around that's going to somewhat change events to make them feel more natural or move faster than before. But I should mention that I am going to change a few things in this story regarding the plot but really thing that can be considered a big change will be in the next chapter.

Plus, I have my good friend Dmandog056 who's been a major help with me with this story as he has put a lot of effort into helping me fix this chapter. So, I highly recommend you check out his work; And also give thanks to him for his dedication to helping me write this crossover. 

Another thing to mention is how this story has been cross posted on FFN, so I highly urge you to read and add the reviews you send here to that version as well, since I have recently revised it and have the latest chapters posted there until I post them here as well.

Overall, there's going to be some surprises in what's going to be different here, but it should still follow a similar path as before and I hope you all enjoy the story everyone!"

Shados960 out!