[Chayden]

Kårelina is the embodiment of patience. Not in the literal sense, of course; she is a child, and nothing more.
But Kårelina's patience is extraordinary, especially for a child of such a tender age. It was only she who had the capacity to comb through my dated pieces of writing - everyone else experienced temporary loss of vision and projectile vomiting.
Perhaps it was not her patience that saved her; perhaps it was her illiteracy.
But she could still count periods, and that was all that I asked of her.

[Chayden]

My poor, sweet Kårelina spent who knows how long struggling through old works of mine. She separated them into neat little paragraphs after I tried and failed to do so without becoming violently ill. These bits and pieces of my writing may have been done as long ago as 2007 - it was very difficult for me to go through and read them, in all their horrendousness. Horrendosity.
... >:T
They're bad, okay? But they are here because I really did want to show myself just how much I have changed.

Children always think that they know so much about the world.
...Everyone was a child, once.

[Chayden]

//no, i don't know what i was talking about, either, but I haven't altered a bit of it

A shadow shape moved on the wall of the narrow alleyway, adhering to the customs of creepy pre-Kishin soul hunting. If one were to follow the giant thing to its origin, they would see the trademark boots of a certain 17-year-old girl with dirty blonde hair, forest green eyes and the uncanny ability to pull books out of thin air. She held a scythe securely in her fists, scrunching her eyebrows together in concentration as she sought out their prey. Yes, 'their': the weapon she wielded was, in fact, a white-haired boy not a year her elder whose crimson eyes and dark coloring were embodied in his scythe form.

"Soul," the technician whispered; in the ears of her partner, it was singing, sweeter and even more desirable than the sensation of a soul sliding down his gullet.

[Chayden]

He blinked over at her, speaking on an inner level because of his lack of a mouth.

"Can you sense it, Maka?"

Although Soul Eater Evans himself could not sense the presence of souls-regardless of his name-, his companion was particularly talented in that area.

"Yes," she breathed, not willing to spare any concentration in order to be in the room of his soul with him.

He would wait for her.

[Chayden]

In the black-and-grey pinstriped suit that he was always, somehow, dressed in there, he would sit in the leather armchair once dominated by his inner demon an prepare to play the piano. Their special brand of resonance, along with the success of the mission, rested on his willingness to bang out his heart on the ivory keys, place his emotions out in the air and simply be, trusting Maka implicitly to swing him just right and leave the swirling ball of red and hatred hanging in space especially for him. He wished that he could sit somewhere more enjoyable, perhaps in front of a fireplace on a frigid winter's day, drawing silly little faces in the condensation of a windowpane, instead of the silently violent surroundings he was forced into. The grey closet still frightened him, as did the imposing doors and the black nothingness he knew lay beyond them, as they brought back scenes from his past that Soul knew he could do without. The little red demon who danced to his own pace despite the tacky jazz continuously droning in the background lived there, a tiny, destructive piece of himself that was a threat to Maka's well-being.

[Chayden]

She was the only thing he lived for, the sole string that pulled him along like a child's toy, and she didn't even know. Of course she knew of his love toward her; even if he hadn't notified her of its existence numerous times throughout the years, she would have felt its intensity when they resonated, would've been able to see for herself the way his blood, muddy thought it was, boiled when they touched.

"Get ready, Soul," warned Maka without really saying the words as she closed in on the distorted humanoid they had been sent to eliminate. She had once been an acceptable person, but years of abuse by her father drove her to extremes. The first one she killed was her father, and the sight of the pink-tinted orb in front of her perked the morbid curiosity she had inherited from him.

[Chayden]

She devoured it hungrily; this was not a problem. She was only brought to the attention of Shinigami-sama and his mighty array of personnel at Shibusen when she slaughtered an entire class of elementary schoolers who happened to be given a ride in the wrong bus.

And now they were here, watching her bulging eyes trace the shape of an innocent victim.

Soul knew exactly what Maka would do: sneak up on her, get in a good hit before she was aware of their presence, and then yell out her favorite threat, "I'll be taking your soul!". That just went to show how many times the pair had completed missions such as this side by side.

[Chayden]

Soul, encased within the boundaries of the room in his soul, made his way over to the piano and sat down slowly, savoring the time before the onslaught as only he could. The steps his partner took in the direction echoed hollowly about the room, forging a trembling tempo with the beating of his heart. He let a token amount of his black blood slip through to his meister, and she lunged forward, digging his blade deep into the pre-Kishin's ribs. She screeched, and the sound matched that of a banshee's keening.

The monster turned, lashing out savagely.

[Chayden]

Soul hammered on the piano, sending bolts of black electricity sizzling across its keys. The sound rushed between he and the one who wielded him, giving her a rush of energy like no other. Maka yelled back, blocking the attack and darting in with one of her own that sent a gush of disgusting brown blood spinning onto the cobbled street from the chest of beast.

Soul continued his fevered concert, allowing his arms to go where they may and channel all of his energy into the battle. His body had learned to keep only what was necessary to keep his heart and lungs working for when the deed was done away from the workings of the midnight liquid and the diminutive man with skin the exact hue of Soul's eyes.

[Chayden]

Maka thrust her weapon at the target as many times as was possible, doing her best to avoid the oversized claws jutting out from it haphazardly. On the girl's face was the smile that only appeared when she was insane, accompanied by the unpredictable behavior brought by the onset of Soul's black blood.

Within himself still, the sweat simply pouring down Soul's tan face was a marker of the extreme focus needed to hold the sweet, bookwormish part of Maka together.

But suddenly, without the slightest hint of warning, the pre-Kishin flicked out what used to be a human hand and caught the technician square in the chest, sending her hurtling across the alley. She smacked into the wall with a dull thud, crumpling up into a sad little ball when she landed on the hard stone of the floor.

[Chayden]

Soul cursed himself violently, flickering back into his human form in time to ward off the rushing monster. He kept one arm in the shape of a blade and cut straight through its core, causing the body to turn into shreds and wrap itself in upon the fiery ball of its pre-Kishin soul.

He didn't even have to look to do it.

"Maka! Maka!" he cried, transforming the arm again and caressing her face ever-so-gently.

[Chayden]

Blood poured down her face from a wide cut at her hairline, and her eyes were rolled back in her head. The black fabric of her cloak was severely torn at the waist, revealing a yellow shirt already soaked through with dingy burgundy blood. When he moved the undermost layer aside, he noted the grotesque dent present where the adversary had impacted. He pulled her clothing back down, unable to tear his eyes away from the wound. The scythe was relieved somewhat to see that her legs suffered from insignificant scrapes alone.

[Chayden]

Soul cringed, pressing the facial gash together gingerly with his fingers. "Hang in there, Maka. I'm gonna-" he trailed off, not wanting to promise to her the flawless, sugary-sweet world of a child. "You will live, Maka. I swear."

He lifted her up into his arms and prepared to travel 300 miles on a motorcycle with a potentially chronically wounded lover.

[Chayden]

...I disapprove. Younger self, y u no write coherently?
I'd like to think that my incoherency has improved to the point where it is understandable - intentional incoherency instead of weak control of the language.
...I overestimate myself. But it is undeniable: I have improved!

[Chayden]

Maka had never thought that turning twenty-one could possibly be this exhilarating. And Soul… Well, he had planned it to be like this.

They were swirling about on the dance floor of an empty club, driving each other insane to the cool jazz music echoing in the background. Maka's friends had given her and Soul this night to just be alone, but not after much now-legal alcohol swilling had gone on beforehand. The honeycomb-haired girl remembered some of the highpoints of those few hours as she spun around with her lover in the darkness…